“If you’ll wait here,” Lady Champlain said, disappearing through an open door near the windows.

“Would you care to paint with us?” the boy asked. “I like making new colors. I could paint a kite to look like birds, and the other birds might try to make friends with it. I want to make a kite that’s big enough to lift me into the air. Don’t tell Mama. She would worry. She worries if I merely climb a tree, so I forget to tell her when I’ve been climbing trees in the garden.”

“The views from high in a tree are marvelous, aren’t they?” Abigail asked. “And nobody knows you’re there, because they don’t think to look up.”

The child grinned at that notion and scrambled back to the carpet. “I shall paint a tree, and I will put a little tree house in it, and all the children will want to play in the garden with the tree house. Not even pirates or bandits will be able to find us in our tree house.”

“So imaginative,” Abigail said softly, and that smile would turn heads when the boy grew older.

Mr. de Beauharnais was looking at her oddly and holding out a plain white handkerchief. “Are you well, miss?”

Abigail nodded, surprised to feel a hot tear sliding down her cheek. “The day has been taxing.” And that little boy is so very, very dear.

“You tangled with Stapleton. He has worn her ladyship down to a shadow, but I am determined…Suffice it to say, she has allies. I hope you do too.”

Abigail touched the handkerchief to her cheek. The scent was plain lavender, the cloth an unremarkable linen with no embroidery, and yet, the gesture had been kind.

“Lord Stephen Wentworth is among my acquaintances, and he speaks”—she cast around for the right word—“fondly of you.”

“I speak of him with equal affection.” The moment might have turned awkward, except de Beauharnais was smiling bashfully. “Don’t believe half of what he says.”

Abigail believed every word Stephen uttered, unfortunately.

Lady Champlain returned, holding a packet of documents. “I learned of these letters only because, like Papa-in-Law, I read Champlain’s journals. This is the lot of them. I read some of them, because I wanted to hate you.”

“You should not hate anybody, Mama. It’s un-Christian.” This homily was delivered from the carpet, in such bland tones as to be a mere recitation.

“Quite right,” her ladyship said. “And I was not successful, in any case. The letters are nearly identical to ones I received from the same source. When I came into possession of these, you were off on some case, your companion went to visit family, and your staff took their half-day. Somebody left a kitchen window open to let in the fresh air, and your basic sense of orderliness apparently made the rest of the job easy. I did not keep my letters. I burned them in a fit of rage at some slight or other.”