“Miss Abbott,” Fleming said again. “You try my patience.”

“And you,” Abigail said, striding up to him, “would try the patience of St. Peter himself. I will accompany you, Lord Fleming. Your dis-honor guard will remain here, and Mr. Wentworth will see me to your coach. Hercules comes with me, and if you object to those terms, I invite you to go for a swim in the Serpentine. Lord Stapleton’s next caller will be Lord Stephen Wentworth, and he will do much more than try your meager patience.”

Ned made a shooing motion toward Fleming’s toughs, and they shuffled off in the direction of Knightsbridge, where any number of drinking establishments doubtless awaited their custom.

Abigail took a firm hold of Hercules’s leash with one hand, grasped Fleming’s arm with the other, and directed his lordship back to the walkway.

Hercules trotted along at her side, issuing the occasional growl. Truth be told, the dog’s company did make Abigail feel ever so much safer.

Chapter Thirteen

“She was enjoying herself,” Ned said, pacing the length of Stephen’s office. “The damned female was meant to rule Britain, and she knows it.”

“She doesn’t,” Stephen said, shrugging into his morning coat before getting to his feet. “Miss Abbott cannot be talked into considering the management of even a duchy. I must be off. Send a badger to tell Quinn and Duncan what you saw, and that I’ve gone to aid…I’ve gone to see if I can render any service to Miss Abbott.”

And to kill Stapleton, if need be.

Badgers were the Wentworth family’s network of street urchins, beggars, flower girls, and crossing sweepers. Some of them took work as bank messengers, and all of them answered to Ned. They were sharper than Wellington’s scouts and expected a good deal less in terms of wages.

“A badger has already been dispatched, and I will follow as soon as I talk sense to you. You can’t just barge in on a marquess’s household, Stephen. Not even you would be that bold.”

“Yes, I would”—he slipped a knife into his boot and tucked another into a coat pocket—“if I thought Abigail was in immediate danger. Stapleton tried to make off with her in York, but she belongs to the Wentworths now, and the marquess will tread carefully, at least for a time. Abigail knew that, or she would not have gone with Fleming. Once Stapleton realizes she doesn’t have the letters, he might not be so polite.”

“These are the copies?” Ned asked, gesturing to the papers spread over Stephen’s desk.

“Reconstructions, such as they are. Champlain was a nearly slavish correspondent, as if he thought his letters might be published someday to vast acclaim. He wrote to Abigail every Monday and Thursday without fail, for better than five months. Ninety percent of it is drivel.”

“And the other ten percent?”

“Worse than drivel. You may read them as examples of what not to write to your lady love. If you see anything approaching a pattern, you will tell me. I am at my wit’s end with the damned things.”