“You are tedious,” Abigail said, rapping Lord Fleming on the chest with the handle of her sword cane. “I will accompany you to Stapleton’s residence and nowhere else. Mr. Wentworth will inform Their Graces exactly in whose company I departed this park. If I am not returned to the Walden household in blooming good health by two of the clock, you will be arrested for kidnapping and the Marquess of Stapleton will be named as your accessory. Mr. Wentworth will delight in testifying against you. This lot”—Abigail sent a glower in the direction of Fleming’s hired bullies—“will remain here with Mr. Wentworth.”

“Miss Abbott,” Ned said, most pleasantly, “might I have a word?”

Abigail rapped Fleming on the chest once more for good measure, then stepped back.

“I know what you’re doing,” Ned whispered, drawing her a few feet away. “Stephen will dismember me if I allow you to do it.”

“I fight my own battles, Mr. Wentworth. Nothing stops you from telling Lord Stephen where the battle will be joined. Stapleton will not relent until he confronts me, and I have more than a few things I want to say to him.”

“But, Miss Abbott, Abigail, the marquess does not play fair, and if anything happens to you—”

“You are very dear, but this is what I do, Mr. Wentworth. I untie the knotty problems and tidy up the messy ones. I know what I’m about. Tell Stephen what’s afoot, send him along to Stapleton’s house, and all will be well.”

“This is what you do, when the issue is a straying niece or somebody’s pearl necklace gone missing. These men are dangerous, Miss Abbott. They play dirty, and you know that or you would not have sought Stephen’s aid in the first place.”

Ned, blast him, had a point. “Can you have the carriage followed?”

“Of course, and I can make certain that Fleming doesn’t have three more ne’er-do-wells lurking at his coach, but this is still the most foolish, dunderheaded, cork-brained—”

Hercules growled, and Abigail wanted to growl along with him. “A confrontation with Stapleton is exactly what Stephen hoped to bring about when he dragged me to that fancy ball.”

“Not this sort of confrontation.”

Spare me from overly protective men. “I am leaving Hyde Park with Fleming, and a half dozen people, including you, will see me get into his coach. He is not foolish enough to harm a guest of Their Graces of Walden, much less to make an enemy of Lord Stephen Wentworth.”

Ned scowled in Fleming’s direction. “I will inspect the interior of the coach before handing you up, you will take the dog with you inside the coach and wherever else Fleming hauls you, and I will alert Stephen to this madness before St. Paul’s tolls the quarter hour.”

“Miss Abbott,” Fleming called. “Are you coming with me, or do I have Wentworth arrested?”

“He can do that, Ned, but he won’t physically harm me. He could have shot me from a rooftop as I returned from Sunday services if my actual end was Stapleton’s objective. They must believe I know where the letters are, and that ensures my safe conduct.”