“But the brigands wanted only you.”

“I believe your blue spectacles saved my life.” The first time Abigail had seen Lord Stephen in disguise, he’d been wearing blue spectacles and impersonating a down-on-his-luck tinker.

“You recalled my blue spectacles. Miss Abbott, I am touched and impressed, and you, my dear, are being less than forthcoming. Tell me the rest of it.”

Abigail was not his dear and she had no intention of telling him the whole rest of it, so she served up the morsel she’d saved back for purposes of gratifying his lordship’s vanity.

“They had a likeness of me,” she said. “About the size of a miniature, maybe a little larger. They compared the two lady travelers to the likeness, and thank heavens neither woman resembled me. They were both also too petite to be me.”

Abigail sank back into her seat, that last admission not exactly comfortable.

“Do you know what I think when I consider your fair form, Miss Abbott?”

“The question of your opinion of my physique has never crossed my mind.” Though it had kept her up for a moment or two last night, and possibly on a few other nights. Abigail sorted men into two categories: tall enough, and the rest. The rest were disappointingly numerous, and she took many precautions not to unduly offend them.

Lord Stephen, for all his numerous faults and annoying tendencies, was tall enough.

“When I behold you,” he replied, “I think, ye gods, if only I had the ability to waltz with such a magnificent creature. We would turn every head in the room, and should I stumble, which I am wont to do regularly, she could easily catch me up in her arms and put me right. You could do it too, without a thought. How I adore that about you.”

Now, when it mattered not at all, Abigail felt heat creep up her neck, suffuse her ears, and fill her cheeks. She hadn’t blushed in years, but less than a day under Lord Stephen’s roof, and she was as pink as a blooming carnation.

“Quakers eschew dancing, my lord.”

“I am not a Quaker, Miss Abbott.” No sooner had Stephen spoken than he grasped the significance of her comment. “You are a member of the Society of Friends?” This was bad news. Quakers were an appallingly virtuous lot, much given to probity, reform, and philanthropy.

“I am not, but my parents were born into the Quaker faith, and my father raised me according to its precepts.”

“And what would the Friends think of you strutting about the countryside in breeches and top hat?” The image would not leave Stephen’s mind. That lusciously curved backside in trousers, that abundant bosom trussed up in a waistcoat…

He shifted in his seat, crossing an ankle over a knee. Such pre-occupations always befell him after he’d parted with a chère amie. He became both sentimental and randy, a dangerous combination.

“My appearance when I am on a case is nobody’s business but my own,” Miss Abbott replied. “When I visit my Quaker relations, I observe the courtesies any lady ought to show her aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins.”