“Close, but not quite. A child—my child, to be precise. If the boy isn’t to grow up very confused and disappointed, the adults around him will have to manage an elaborate dance. His mother claims his brilliance is unprecedented in the annals of English boyhood, but all I see is a busy little fellow with a big imagination and a kind heart. He’s a person, Abigail. A dear, unique person.”

Abigail was looking at Stephen as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “I know that.”

“To Jack Wentworth, children were chattel, possessions. Little beasts of burden put on earth to fetch him gin, placate his temper, beg for him, and flatter his arrogance. He was pleased with himself for arranging the sale of his young daughters into a life of misery, brutality, and disease. Pleased with himself. He was the lowest parody of manhood, but to his children he was more awful than the Almighty. He could literally kill us with impunity and laugh while doing it, and he gloried in his power over us.”

“Is this why you made Stapleton support the duke’s mining bill? Because children are not chattel?”

“I made Stapleton support Quinn’s bill because…I don’t know why, and that is not the topic under discussion. Nicky is not a thing, a possession that belongs to me because his mother and I shared some passionate moments. She carried him under her heart, she knows his every fear and dream, and she has had the raising of him. Who am I—Who the hell am I?—to strut into his life years later pretending I have a right to order his existence?”

“You are his father.” Abigail’s brow had acquired an encouraging crease, and she spoke with less certainty than she’d enjoyed previously.

“In a biological sense, I am his father, but I will not take the path Jack Wentworth would take and exploit such a relationship for my own convenience. I want to know Nicky, I want to be a father in any sense that contributes to the child’s welfare, but that does not have to be a public undertaking. Then too, there’s the whole business of Harmonia’s wishes. She brought that boy into the world, and she’s the only parent he’s known. Her welfare matters too.”

Abigail was quiet for so long that Stephen’s bum took exception to the hardness of the bench, and yet he waited.

“What did Harmonia have to say about all this?”

“A very great deal. She wants a small estate in Kent and Endymion de Beauharnais’s ring on her finger. She does not want me.”

“She’s daft.”

How I love you. “Perhaps, but de Beauharnais truly has her best interests at heart, and he’s protective of Nicky.”

Abigail gathered up her reticule again. “Harmonia is passing up your tiara to raise sheep in Kent?”