“Be assured, Abigail, the day will come. I am determined on that score and even my duchess won’t talk me around again. Stephen, however, will make a terrible duke. He will embody all that is loathsome about the species. He will neglect his duties in the Lords, he will be obnoxious and arrogant. He will grow bitter as his leg pains him more later in life, though in fact, it’s his heart that has suffered the severest blow.”
Abigail sat up to glower at the duke. “You insult your brother, and I will not allow that even from you, Your Grace. Stephen is the most estimable of men and a credit to his family.”
Walden bumped her gently with his shoulder. “If you are scolding me so thoroughly, Abigail, then I think you should call me Quinn. Stephen has the potential to be a wonderful duke—he’s already a wonderful person—but that potential is so much smoke in the wind if you desert him now. Mayfair society is not that difficult to manage. Jane excels at it, and she’s a mere preacher’s daughter. Pluck up your courage and marry my brother.”
His Grace was finding new places in her heart to break, the wretch. “My courage is quite plucked up, thank you. I am neither charmed nor intimidated by Mayfair society, and Stephen hasn’t much use for it in any case. He humors Her Grace in that regard, though as a younger man he was apparently more sociable.”
“As a younger man, he was more difficult, if you can imagine such a thing. And speaking of my difficult brother, where is he and does he know you plan to leave London tonight?”
If anybody had told Abigail that she would be discussing her personal affairs with a duke, she would have concluded such a person was addled. She instead concluded that she herself was addled, because not only was she discussing her personal affairs with a duke, she was about to confide in that duke as well.
“I will bid Stephen farewell when he returns from his call on Lady Champlain.” The words hurt, and should anybody inquire, Abigail would inform them that doing the right thing was no deuced comfort at all, not even after a week of desperate, hopeless self-indulgence.
His Grace grew subtly alert. “Why would Stephen bother to call on such a vapid, shallow—”
Abigail glowered at him again. “Do not judge her ladyship. She protected her child. I am trying hard to respect her for that, and I predict Stephen will be making the same effort very shortly.”
The duke gazed over the garden, to outward appearances a man at peace. “I want to hear the rest of this tale, Abigail, but anything you tell me will be shared with Jane.”
“Stephen has warned me that you and Her Grace are in each other’s confidence.” Why must the day be so pretty, and why must Stephen be such a decent, dear man? “I expect Stephen will acquaint you both with the situation soon enough, but it has already become apparent to me that the child in Lady Champlain’s nursery is Stephen’s son, and that her ladyship went to extraordinary lengths to hide the boy’s paternity from his natural father.”
Abigail rose, unable to sit calmly while she recited the terms by which her heart would finish breaking. A rustling in the bushes suggested Hercules would soon return to the terrace.
“Above all things,” she said, “Stephen is haunted by the possibility that he will live down to Jack Wentworth’s standards, as a human being and most especially as a father. Jack was a vile, bullying, selfish reptile. I suspect Stephen is selling off his munitions factories because he grasps the difference between a defensive war and one waged purely out of greed. Jack Wentworth would approve of the latter, while even I can grasp the need for the former.”
The duke was watching her closely, and not with any particular expression of dismay. “Stephen has a son?”
“A beautiful, healthy, smart, and charming little boy. As it happens, the child’s mother is widowed and of suitable rank to marry a ducal heir.”
For the privilege of raising the son who should never have been hidden from him, Stephen would make that union cordial and successful.
“A son.” His Grace rose easily. “You’re sure?”
“I saw the boy with my own eyes, Lady Champlain confirmed his patrimony. Surely you can see—”
The duke approached and did not stop a cordial distance away. He instead wrapped Abigail in a gentle hug.
“Dukes lead the way into battle, Abigail. Stephen will be a duke one day.”
Quinn Wentworth’s embrace was different from Stephen’s. Abigail did not have to think of anybody’s balance or where a cane could rest without being knocked over. There was no escaping Quinn’s hug, and for the space of several breaths, Abigail let him simply hold her.
“Stephen will be a very f-fine duke, but I cannot be—”
Quinn patted her back. “A wise duchess once told me that dukes ride into battle at the head of armies, Abigail, not alone. Only a fool rides into life’s battles alone when good comrades are on hand to share the challenges. Do you know why a duke is willing to take on the fights that need fighting, even the hard, thankless fights?”
Stephen would do that. He had arranged for his brother’s mining bill to become law and asked nothing for himself.
“I know I must be on that stagecoach tonight,” Abigail said, “and that I detest weepy women.” Which she was very soon to become, if the duke did not give her immediate privacy. She burrowed closer and tried for a steadying breath.
“A duke rides into battle because he must be worthy of the lady riding at his side. Harmonia hasn’t the heart to be Stephen’s duchess, and you do. You are his choice. Let him be yours.”
He kissed her forehead, tucked a monogrammed handkerchief into her hand, and sauntered back into the house. Then and only then did Abigail descend into the garden and call for Hercules.
When the beast trotted out of the rhododendrons, she sank down, wrapped her arms around him, and let the tears come.
“He’s your son.” Harmonia tossed the words at Stephen as if she were calling out the paces at a duel, not presiding over a tea tray.
“Well, that explains it,” Stephen said, setting down his teacup slowly. The meaning of Harmonia’s revelation was plain enough, but for some reason, Stephen’s heart felt trapped in the pause between thunder and lightning.
“Explains what?” Harmonia asked.
“Why Miss Abbott insisted I call on you. Did she know of this?”
Harmonia sat back without pouring herself a cup of tea. “She took one look at him. One look. I didn’t want that woman in my nursery out of, I don’t know, maternal instinct, but I never dreamed she’d see a resemblance between you and your son that easily.”
“Miss Abbott has keen powers of observation. Why didn’t you tell me?” And why wasn’t Stephen angrier? More surprised? Pleased? Something?
“I didn’t want him to be yours,” Harmonia said, “but he is yours. I cannot deny that. When you and I were dallying, Champlain was off in France fiddling with some violinist, or more likely a whole quartet. Champlain congratulated me on conceiving—congratulated me!—and I think he was honestly relieved.”
Still, Stephen could not grasp how he was supposed to feel about this development. “Champlain knew he’d been cuckolded?”
Harmonia poured herself a cup of tea, the hot liquid nearly missing the cup. “He once said that the reason I wasn’t conceiving might be that we didn’t suit in that regard. I could carry another man’s child, he could impregnate other women—and what wife wants to hear that casual admission?—but we were not a mating pair. I hate that term.”