He was good at ignoring his own pain, good at impersonating the shallow younger son. By the time the herald announced them, Abigail was ready to shout at the nearest footman to bring his lordship a damned chair.
“I hate this part,” Stephen muttered, smiling genially down at the chattering, glittering mass of humanity in the ballroom. “Blasted steps go on forever.”
“We’ll take it slowly, so they can all get in a good gawk,” Abigail said, gathering her skirts in one hand and wrapping her other around Stephen’s arm. “I have you, and I will not let you fall.”
The descent was stately, to say the least. Abigail realized halfway down that the crowd was not only inspecting her, they were also staring at Stephen. He’d stopped attending any gathering that involved dancing years ago, and by Her Grace’s own report, even the duchess hadn’t protested his decision.
Some expressions were merely curious, some were faintly dismissive, a few were maliciously amused. If they were laughing at Abigail, well, no matter. She’d been ridiculed since the age of eight.
If they were laughing at Stephen, she would…
They reached the bottom of the steps. “I am having a violent impulse,” she said. “My family would be horrified.”
“Are you horrified?” Stephen asked, still leaning heavily on her arm.
“Not by the urge to toss a glass of punch at these gaping simians. I’d like to tromp on a few toes while I’m at it and accidentally spill my supper in some laps.”
Stephen twitched her shawl up higher on her shoulder. “Ferocity becomes you, my love. I have two objectives this evening.”
My love. Abigail’s objective was to get Stephen off his feet. “And they are?”
“First, to ensure Fleming remains among the guests as long as possible. Quinn, Matilda, and Duncan will aid me to that end.”
“Second?”
“To make certain that all of society knows I am passionately smitten with you, and that I will take mortal umbrage at any who seek to do you harm.”
No humor leavened his words, no hint of teasing. “Ferocity becomes you as well, my lord. In fact, I think it defines you.”
He bowed over her hand. “If you continue to flatter me so shamelessly, I will find us a deserted parlor in which to be mutually ferocious.”
“Find us the card room instead, my lord.” And woe to any woman who thinks to steal you away from me.
The crowd let them pass, though that required a few well-placed glowers on Abigail’s part. By the time she and Stephen reached the card room, she was ready to break chairs over the heads of those slowing his progress.
“Don’t look,” Stephen said, as they waited for an elderly couple to exit the card room, “but about five yards away, near the potted lemon tree, Lady Champlain is flirting madly with Endymion de Beauharnais. At some point this evening, I should pay my respects to the pair of them.”
Abigail was not nearly as curious regarding Lady Champlain as she ought to have been. As badly as Champlain had treated Abigail, he’d been a disgrace as a husband.
“Her ladyship is entitled to flirt with the entire Ninety-fifth Rifles,” Abigail said, smoothing a hand over Stephen’s immaculate cravat, “and I hope the lot of them flirt right back. Matilda and I will visit the retiring room sometime before supper, and you can make your bows then.”
She had Stephen seated across from her at the piquet table shortly thereafter, and though he distracted her terribly with his wandering foot, with his hand under the table, and with his drollery, he’d nonetheless taken the chair with the best view of the ballroom. Abigail was confident he monitored the entire gathering, even as he won far more hands than he lost.
“Fleming doesn’t have those letters,” Ned said, helping himself to a half-measure of brandy. “Stapleton doesn’t have them, Stapleton’s mistress doesn’t have them; consequently, I don’t have them. Brandy, anyone?”
“No, thank you,” Stephen replied, easing his foot up onto the hassock before the sofa. “What of the vowels?”
Ned put a stack of folded papers on the reading table. “There will be rejoicing in the lower house when these are put in the post. I thought I’d mail them from St. Giles.”
The poorest and most depraved of the slums, of course. Ned’s sense of humor tended toward the ironic.
“How many?” Quinn asked from farther down the sofa.
“Twenty, and that was only what I found on a cursory tour. Stapleton’s safe is practically in plain sight behind a mediocre portrait of the late marchioness.”
Exactly where Stephen had said it would be. “Does Stapleton have anything on Lady Champlain?”
Ned aimed a look at him, which Stephen returned blandly. “She must know better than to document her dalliances,” Ned said, “though since planting Champlain in the family vault, she’s apparently been a pattern card of widowed decorum. I did find some vowels for Fleming’s sister.” He passed those over to Stephen. “For a lady barely out of the schoolroom, she is definitely frequenting the wrong establishments.”
“I could do with a nightcap,” Quinn said. “Lady Champlain was quite cozy with Stephen’s portraitist friend tonight. Does de Beauharnais frequently play the gallant with society widows?”
Stephen had not in fact made his bow before Lady Champlain. He’d instead lounged against a pillar under the minstrels’ gallery and watched her with de Beauharnais. The fair Harmonia might as well have been a stranger for all the emotion the sight of her stirred. Once upon a time, Stephen had delighted in her smiles and flattery, even as he’d known his role had been to ease the sting of her husband’s infidelity.
If she and de Beauharnais weren’t lovers, they soon would be, which raised the curious possibility that they might pass the time comparing Stephen’s amorous appeal.
“De Beauharnais is a good sort,” Stephen said. “Genuinely talented, though he had best not venture too close to Stapleton’s notice. The marquess is enough of a titled turd to set the dogs on de Beauharnais for behaviors Stapleton’s own heir indulged in frequently.”
Ned brought Quinn a half-full glass and settled into a reading chair. “Stapleton is a turd covered in dog vomit. He doesn’t toss so much as a penny to the crossing sweepers, says they would be better off doing honest work in his mines. Little blighters are terrified of the mines, and well they should be. I was less frightened of Botany Bay than I was of ending up in the mines.”
Stephen massaged his leg, though it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have. “One windmill at a time, gentlemen. How do we know Miss Abbott’s letters haven’t been destroyed?”
Quinn sipped his drink. “Stapleton doesn’t believe they are destroyed, and that’s the greater problem. How do you confront him without letters to wave in his face when he’s convinced the letters exist?”
How to confront Stapleton was the consuming puzzle in Stephen’s mind—when he wasn’t absorbed with adoring Abigail. Between her discreet goggling at society in all its finery and the imprecations she quietly muttered at Stephen’s side, she’d made the evening delightful.
Ned set his drink aside to pull off his boots. He was dressed from head to toe in black, not a watch fob or a sleeve button glinting on his person.