Fleming seemed amused. “You have interesting fancies, Miss Abbott. You can come with us now, or I am instructed to have you arrested for housebreaking. My own residence and that of Lord Stapleton were burgled less than a week past, and we have witnesses who put you in the immediate vicinity that same night.”

“Rubbish,” Abigail snapped. “Monstrous fictions typical of the fevered male imagination. You yourself saw me at the Portmans’ ball, which is the only entertainment I’ve attended.”

Ned took the place at her elbow, though she hadn’t heard him move. “You can’t accost a lady in the middle of Hyde Park, Fleming. That’s kidnapping, last I heard. Hanging felonies play hell with a man’s social schedule. Besides, you have too many witnesses here.”

Fleming glanced about. “Nobody of any consequence. Walden’s bastard hardly counts.”

“You flatter me shamelessly,” Ned replied, “but I’m afraid we cannot tarry. Tell Stapleton if he wishes to call on Miss Abbott, he should do like the rest of his ilk and send another of his catch-farts around with a card.”

Fleming took a step forward, as did his henchmen, which escalated Hercules’s rumbling to outright growls.

“Stapleton cannot be seen to call on his late son’s fancy piece, and well she knows it.”

“She,” Abigail retorted, “can deliver a swift kick to a location that will imperil the succession of your father’s title. She will then accuse you of having made untoward advances to her at the Portmans’ ball, and she will make sure Lady Champlain and the Duchess of Walden are privy to all the lurid details. If Stapleton is determined to drag this situation down to the level of false accusations and public scandal, I will oblige him.”

In the midst of this diatribe, a question popped into Abigail’s mind: Why was Fleming still willing to do Stapleton’s bidding? The gambling markers signed by Fleming’s sister had been returned to him by anonymous post.

Unless Fleming sought to retrieve the letters? For his own purposes—who wouldn’t want some sordid correspondence to wave in Stapleton’s face?—or perhaps to encourage a match with Lady Champlain?

“If you don’t come with us peacefully,” Fleming said, “I will see Wentworth here arrested for housebreaking. He’s no stranger to Newgate, if the rumors are true. He and Walden were locked up together, in fact. Quite an example Walden sets for his progeny.”

“You do me great honor,” Ned drawled, “but Miss Abbott isn’t going anywhere with you.”

Abigail considered options while the comforting weight of her reticule rested against her leg and Hercules stared hard at Fleming.

Ned could not account for his whereabouts the night of the break-ins. He could well manufacture an alibi, and His Grace could likely see him freed, but the truth was, he’d gone on his criminal errand for Abigail’s sake.

And he was a man with a criminal past, however distant, and that did not bode well for his treatment at Bow Street.

Then too, to reproduce the letters in Champlain’s handwriting, somebody would have to locate the late earl’s journals in the Stapleton residence, which was doubtless a sizable abode.