Stephen wanted this conversation to be over. He wanted to bury his face against Abigail’s hair and breathe in her scent. He wanted in some vague way to grieve and rage, not as a small boy succumbs to a tantrum, but as a grown man rails against the world’s fallenness.

The whole of York had known what a monster Jack was, and not a soul had lifted a hand against him. A father’s right, they’d murmured. Spare the rod…

More remained to be said, though. “Jack threatened to break my other leg if I warned Althea or Constance about the brothel.”

“He would have done it, Stephen. He would have thrown you down a well and laughed while you drowned, if he could have got by without the money your begging brought in.” Quinn was blessedly sure of that conclusion.

And—now that Stephen considered the proposition—so was he. “Jack wanted to sell me along with the girls, Quinn, but the buyer wasn’t interested in a lame boy. Jack couldn’t sell me as a climbing boy, he couldn’t sell me as a molly boy. Other than the begging, I was no earthly use to him except as a target for his fists and his hobnailed boots. I wanted to die. I wanted a benevolent angel to strike the lot of us down, but then I thought: Why us? Why not strike down bloody Jack Wentworth? He hadn’t lamed my brain, only my leg.”

Quinn patted Stephen’s leg, an awkward and unprecedented familiarity. “God be thanked for your brain, and for your stubbornness. Does Duncan know?”

“He doubtless suspects. He was so determined to see the good in me, no matter how relentlessly I showed him the bad. He wore me down, and I eventually admitted a stalemate.”

And what an exhausting struggle that had been.

“Duncan will approve. We think of him as a man of logic and reason, but he’s passionately opposed to blind respect for corrupt authority. Talk to him, when the moment is right. He would cheerfully kill anybody who threatened Matilda, or as cheerfully as Duncan does anything.”

Duncan had become obnoxiously cheerful since marrying Matilda. He was simply subtle about it. “I have never said anything to Althea and Constance, but they probably suspect too. You will doubtless mention this to Jane, and Duncan and Matilda have no secrets.”

Quinn’s lips quirked. “Jane had her suspicions, and as usual my duchess was correct. The Wentworth family will have a secret, though. How appallingly aristocratic of us. I cannot say emphatically enough that you did the right thing and the only thing.”

He grabbed Stephen by the nape, shook him gently, then brought him into a fierce, brief hug. “You know that, don’t you?” he said, not letting Stephen go. “You made a hard choice, but the only choice, and one no eight-year-old should have been faced with.”

Stephen managed a nod.

“Good.” Quinn thumped him once on the back and let him go. “And now I will join my slumbering duchess.” He rose and stretched, a specimen in his prime, and a damned fine brother. “Will you ambush Stapleton with Miss Abbott’s copies of the letters?”