“Shall we tool over to Berkeley Square for an ice?” he asked, then regretted the question. The protocol at Gunter’s was for the adoring swain to fetch his lady her treat. If she also wanted a glass of lemonade, Stephen would have to make two trips from the shop to the coach, or to the benches under the maples where happy couples could turn a few spoonfuls of sweet into half an afternoon’s flirtation.

“I would like to pay a call on Lord Stapleton,” Abigail replied as Stephen held the coach door for her, “and ask him some very pointed questions about housebreaking, drugging, and attempted kidnapping. He frightened me. I hate him for that.”

Hate, for a woman raised with Quaker values, was very, very strong language.

“Stapleton frightens a lot of people,” Stephen said, handing Abigail up into the coach. “He’s a nasty, manipulative, arrogant little sod, and he uses his wealth to conduct his schemes with impunity.”

Stephen settled beside her on the forward-facing seat, used his teeth to pull off his glove, and took Abigail’s hand. Why he liked touching her so very much, he did not know. Casual affection toward a lover was a pleasant commonplace, but his craving for contact with Abigail was of a different order.

He thought more calmly when he took her hand.

As he had lain in bed with her, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breathing, his mind had wandered to why he and Quinn were so un-brotherly toward each other. Stephen did resent Quinn for leaving him in Jack Wentworth’s care, but he also resented that Quinn had been able to work.

Was resenting Quinn simply a habit? Was that what this horror of becoming the duke one day was really about? Or was the problem a fear that Jack Wentworth’s shade would have its revenge if Stephen had children?

Such questions had eluded his notice, much less his attention, prior to becoming Abigail’s lover.

“You are removing my glove,” she said, once again all starch and vinegar. “My lord, what are you about?”

“I like touching you. Fleming rattled you. Perhaps petting me will settle your nerves.”

The coach rocked as the groom climbed up to the box.

“Do you suppose Fleming has the letters?” Abigail asked. “If Lord Fleming is in Stapleton’s confidence, he might well have stolen them for his own purposes, then made a great show of pretending to search for them at Stapleton’s behest.”

Stephen rapped on the roof, and the coach rolled forward. “We are back to the why of this whole mess. Stapleton likely wants the letters to ensure Champlain’s reputation remains untarnished by proof that he trifled with a decent young woman. Why would Fleming want the letters?”

“To blackmail Stapleton.”