Another sigh, this one a tad shuddery.

“He loves you, and you love him, Quinn. The rest can all be sorted out.”

A silence stretched, while some strange tension gripped Quinn.

“The problem,” he said, in a near whisper. “The problem was never the bloody knee. What Jack Wentworth shattered was Stephen’s heart.”

Quinn held her in a desperately close embrace, and when Jane stroked his hair again, her thumb grazed Quinn’s cheek. She kept up a slow, easy caress, until his breathing quieted, and his hold on her relaxed.

Only then did Jane admit what her senses told her must be true: Quinton, His Grace of Walden, had cried himself to sleep.

Abigail’s evening had been a revelation, and not a happy one. If she’d entertained any wild fancies about eventually fitting into Stephen Wentworth’s world, they’d died a waltzing, flirting, bejeweled death.

Mayfair was not simply a different strata of society, Abigail reflected as she drew the covers up over herself, it was a different world, and not one she could comprehend. The cost of the ice sculptures alone would have housed many a lamed or blinded veteran. The price of a half dozen pairs of embroidered dancing slippers would have bought many a crossing sweeper a decent pair of boots.

Stephen navigated this perfumed and silk-clad world with ease, for all he needed a cane to get around. His flirtatious ripostes had been humorous without touching the hem of ribaldry, and he knew everybody. All Abigail knew was that a Quaker gunsmith’s daughter had no place among Stephen’s peers.

Everybody in the ballroom had known him, and they’d approached him with the sort of nervous jocularity that indicated respect and more than a little wariness. He was at home in that jungle, and Abigail never would be.

She punched her pillow and admitted that, but for Stephen Wentworth, she would have no wish to learn how to prowl the wilds of Mayfair.

Her bedroom door opened silently and a particular, uneven tread came to her ears.

“You are not asleep,” Stephen said, sitting on the bed. “And I am not tossing the rest of the night away while I pine for your company. We don’t have the letters.”

He shrugged out of his coat, then his waistcoat. His cravat joined the pile of clothing at the foot of Abigail’s bed, then he pulled off his boots.

“Say something, Abigail. You were less than loquacious on the carriage ride home.” Clad only in breeches, he moved behind the privacy screen. Even traveling that distance, he used his cane, though Abigail knew when his leg was paining him worse than usual, and that did not appear to be the case.

“Why didn’t you tell me Lady Champlain is beautiful?” she asked, over the sound of her toothbrush being appropriated. “She’s lovely.” And slender and petite, damn her.

“She’s also a good mother, not vain, and not very accomplished at games of marital revenge. Do you hate her?”

Water splashed against porcelain.