How to Catch a Duke Grace Burrowes (classic novels to read txt) 📖

for her were supposedly a sharp-eyed bunch, Fleming. Now you tell me this woman is strutting about on the arm of Lord Stephen Wentworth in the middle of Mayfair?”

“His family hails from Yorkshire. Maybe he and Miss Abbott know each other from up north.”

Stapleton remained silent, tapping his steepled index fingers against his lips. Fleming was supposed to squirm and fret as the silence lengthened, but he mostly seemed annoyed.

“You promised to smooth the way for me with Lady Champlain,” Fleming said. “I’ve wasted plenty of coin and time in a nearly criminal pursuit on your behalf. You still haven’t told me what this is all about, and I have yet to so much as stand up with Harmonia.”

“That’s Lady Champlain to you.”

“She said I could call her Harmonia, and she fluttered her fan as she said it.”

Stapleton’s hands dropped to the blotter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, but m’sister claims the ladies use their fans to say what can’t be said in polite conversation.”

Lord Stephen Wentworth knew the languages of the fan, glove, flower, and parasol. He was a better flirt sitting in his Bath chair than Fleming could be in his most inspired moments. If Miss Abbott was keeping company with Lord Stephen, she had good taste in escorts.

Troublingly good taste.

“Lady Champlain is the pattern card of decorum,” Stapleton said, “as any proper widow must be if she wants to remain a part of her son’s life. She will attend Lady Portman’s ball.”

That was news to Harmonia. Lord Portman was young, Whiggish, and always spouting off about reform. His family had an old title, and the previous generation had married new money. Papa-in-Law had no time for Portman or his ilk.

“You’re telling me I’ll have an opportunity to stand up with her?” Fleming asked, facing the desk.

“You might. Her Grace of Walden has come safely through another confinement—a fourth girl, may the Almighty be thanked for small favors—and that means Walden might not attend. Lord Stephen will likely have to carry the family standard because Portman and Walden are as thick as a pair of drunken drovers when it comes to the blasted child labor bills. If Lord Stephen is smitten with Miss Abbott, he’ll escort her.”

Fleming leaned across the blotter, hands braced on the desk. “Lord Stephen has a reputation for dueling first and ignoring all questions. I am not kidnapping Miss Abbott from a Mayfair ballroom. Not for you, not even for the promise of marriage to Harmonia.”

Papa-in-Law gazed off across the room. “I never said the objective was to kidnap the woman. The objective is to inspire her to surrender some letters, and that apparently requires a pointed, face-to-face discussion. She must have a price, and she can’t possibly know what the letters are worth. With whom is she staying?”

“I only caught sight of her an hour ago. How should I know where she’s biding?”

Stapleton rose, but went only so far as to prop a hip on the corner of the desk. This was another ploy to mask his lack of height, to ensure that he never went literally toe-to-toe with taller men.

“Miss Abbott comes from Quaker stock,” he said. “She’s not wealthy, and she charges only modestly for her snooping services. She’s probably staying with some widowed third cousin or in a boarding house run by a Quaker goodwife. Start looking in those sorts of places. She doubtless has the letters with her, and she’s probably planning to call on me to discuss them.”

Fleming went back to studying the marchioness. “What if she’s given the letters to Lord Stephen for safekeeping?”

Oh, dear. Papa-in-Law’s face turned the shade of a ripe pomegranate.

“Why would she do that?” he asked. “Stephen Wentworth is nothing but a randy, tinkering, lame ornament. He and his brother should have been consigned to the mines in childhood, and the entire peerage would have been spared the embarrassment the Walden title has become.”

Fleming lifted the stopper from a decanter of brandy on the sideboard and sniffed. “The navy buys cranes from Lord Stephen, and the army won’t approve a new rifle pattern without asking his opinion first. He’ll become the next duke in all likelihood. You might dismiss him, Stapleton. I do not.”

Well, well, well. Fleming wasn’t entirely dunderheaded, for all he wore bay rum. In Harmonia’s opinion, Lord Stephen was every bit as formidable as his ducal brother, though his lordship did a creditable job of playing the part of a frivolous heir.

And—Harmonia was well informed regarding such matters—Lord Stephen was a devilish good kisser with more stamina in bed than any lame ornament ought to have.

A woman looking for a prospective second spouse did not account that a detail, though Stephen Wentworth was too shrewd for her taste. The damned man noticed everything and kept too much of his thinking to himself.

“Find Miss Abbott,” Stapleton said. “That’s the next step, and I rely on you to take it.”

Fleming let the stopper fall back into the decanter with a clink. “I rely on you to insinuate me into Lady Champlain’s good graces. You have thus far disappointed me, my lord, and my patience will soon be at an end. I bid you good day.”

“She’s at home,” Stapleton called as Fleming marched for the door. “Her ladyship can receive you now.”

Not if I’m waiting for Endymion de Beauharnais to call, I can’t.

“My sister expects me to drive out with her this afternoon,” Fleming said. “Perhaps we’ll encounter Lord Stephen and Miss Abbott in the park.”

“Give them both my cordial regards, and find out where the hell the woman is staying. She’s kept the letters from me long enough.”

Fleming looked, if anything, amused at that pronouncement. “I will call on Lady Champlain tomorrow. You need not join us.” He bowed—ironically?—and withdrew.

Stapleton returned to his desk and took out pen and paper. Harmonia went to the window and watched as Fleming and de Beauharnais exchanged polite bows on the walkway. They chatted for a moment, a study in gentlemanly contrasts.

Fleming was stolid,