“I have endless privacy among the Wentworths,” Abigail said, “but no secrets.”
“We all have secrets,” Ned replied. “I suspect his lordship has confided more than a few of his to you. Did you know he hadn’t been to a fancy dress ball for years before you showed up?”
“Whereas I had never been to a fancy dress ball.” Pacing would have been unladylike and rude, but the sheer, endless waiting was fraying Abigail’s nerves.
“That bothers you?” Ned asked, holding out a hand toward the dog. “That you’re new to the London social whirl?”
“Yes, it bothers me. I’ve attended a house party or two in pursuit of an inquiry, but this…this…extravagant idleness. I cannot fathom it, and I will never approve of it.”
Hercules rose on a sigh and ambled over to sniff Ned’s fingers.
“You think Stephen enjoys extravagant idleness?”
“He appeared to be enjoying himself at the Portmans’ ball.”
“And we know Stephen Wentworth is as transparent as Venetian glass, don’t we? He hated every minute of the whole excursion. He wished desperately that he could have come housebreaking with me, but he instead kept to your side like yonder hound, guarding you against all perils.”
Abigail did get to her feet and walked off a few paces. “I guard myself against all perils.”
Ned studied her while he petted the dog’s head. His expression put her in mind of the Duke of Walden, though Ned was no blood relation to His Grace.
“That’s the real problem, isn’t it?” Ned said. “You can’t respect the fancy wastrels who make up the aristocracy, and your Quaker heart isn’t keen on a fellow who’s a genius with firearms, but the real issue is, you are too stubborn to throw in your lot with anybody, even somebody as contrary, smart, and unconventional as you are—maybe especially that sort. Would you rather have a loyal lapdog?”
Hercules craned his head back, the better to revel in Ned’s caresses. Abigail felt exactly like that damned dog when Stephen touched her.
“You are impertinent, Mr. Wentworth.”
“And here I thought you hadn’t noticed my finer qualities, so besotted are you with his lordship.” He rose, and Abigail resisted the urge to step back.
Ned Wentworth was only slightly above average height, and he was slender. He had no title, and Abigail hadn’t heard any mention of Ned possessing independent means, though he was clearly well dressed, and yet…When Stephen had needed a housebreaker, Ned had apparently been able to get into, toss, and get out of not one but three dwellings in the course of a night.
Without being spotted, much less caught.
“You are wondering,” Ned said, “what my agenda in all this is. I have several—a habit I picked up from his lordship. First, I am loyal to my family, because the Wentworths are my family. I was a boy bound for New South Wales when His Grace decided I’d make a passable tiger. I don’t care how lowly the task, I was and am entirely his man.
“Her Grace put the manners on me,” Ned went on. “And that was no mean feat. Duncan gave me an education, not so much by confining me to a schoolroom or deluging me with books, but by showing me how capable and articulate a well-educated man can be. Walden has wealth and influence, but Duncan will pin His Grace’s ears back with a single quiet word, and devil take the hindmost.”
Abigail ought to silence Ned with a single quiet word, but she was too eager to hear more Wentworth family history. Over the years she’d been employed by Lady Constance, she’d gleaned an occasional detail, and those had been filed away for recall if they proved relevant to the case.
Lady Constance’s case had been solved, while Abigail’s curiosity about Stephen’s family had become voracious.
“And what of his lordship?” Abigail asked. “How did he earn your esteem?” For he clearly had.
“Do you know why he turned to designing firearms, Miss Abbott?”
“Because his mind works like that. He just as easily designs music boxes, stained-glass windows, lifts, puzzle tables. I’ve seen evidence of his cleverness all over this house.”
Ned took two steps closer. “Lord Stephen cannot march.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He cannot march. He cannot slog along like the average infantryman, and even his ability on horseback can’t hide the fact that he’s unfit for military duty. He was denied the honorable course open to every other titled younger son when Boney was grinning at us from the coast of Normandy, so Stephen found a way to contribute without marching.”
“That’s why he makes guns?”
“He doesn’t merely make guns, Miss Abbott. He looked at the whole process, from the gun-making to the shot and powder, to the rammers, and the way the men were deployed on battlefields. Britain has produced more high-quality arms, more efficiently, than at any other time in her history, and Lord Stephen Wentworth is a significant part of that achievement.
“He did the same with the heavy artillery,” Ned went on, “the quartermasters’ wagons, the cavalry sabers and scabbards, the navy’s cranes and saws, the powder magazines.…They would canonize him at Horse Guards if they could, but here in Mayfair, our neighbors snicker at his limp.”
Abigail sank back onto the bench. “War is wrong. I will never be convinced otherwise.”
“And when war is brought to your doorstep,” Ned said, “do you calmly hand over your women and children? Line up your menfolk to be conscripted into the enemy’s army or shot? Pass along your corn and livestock to feed the enemy’s populace while your own starves? Your theology is laudable, Miss Abbott—nobody approves of war—but you’re a bit short on practical solutions.”
“And Napoleon was never at our doorstep.”
Ned passed her the parasol. “He was a mere fourteen miles away, across the Channel, but because Nelson sank the French fleet that’s as close as he came. One sea battle away. Would you like to see more of Hyde Park?”
“You are changing the subject, Mr. Wentworth.”
“That seems a prudent strategy while I am winning the argument.” He cocked his head in a mannerism Abigail associated with Stephen. “As it happens, I agree with you. A hundred years of war hasn’t solved a blessed thing, and it has made Britain all manner of deadly enemies. Thanks to the likes of Lord Stephen, the weapons grow more sophisticated, the slaughter worsens, and all the while, the Lords debate how long the surviving populace will be starved by the Corn Laws. We ought to be taking care of our own instead of plundering the four corners of the earth so a few nabobs can become still wealthier.”
A boy who’d killed his own father to keep his sisters safe would understand war as a defensive necessity. Abigail would never change Stephen’s mind on that score.
And what did it matter? Stephen needed a prospective duchess, and a lapsed Quaker inquiry agent was not that woman.
“A walk in the park sounds lovely,” Abigail said, “but you aren’t to bring a brace of pistols, Mr. Wentworth.”
“Guns are too noisy. A well-aimed knife is just as effective, quieter, and can be thrown a thousand times. Stephen taught me that, and you do not want to stand between that man and a target when he’s wielding a blade or a firearm. I’ll meet you by the front door in ten minutes.”