Abigail was surprised to find her arms full of Lord Stephen Wentworth. He was no wraith, and she needed a moment to get a firm hold of him.

“Steady there, my lord.”

His face was mashed to the crook of her neck and shoulder, and his cane had gone toppling. In the few moments necessary for him to find his balance, Abigail perceived all manner of curious details.

He wore a divinely complicated fragrance. Floral and spice aromas intertwined to delight the nose and beguile the curiosity. The scent was doubtless blended exclusively for him, and he’d very likely designed it himself.

The lace of his cravat was a soft, silky brush against Abigail’s décolletage, an intimate and disturbing sensation. What sort of sybarite used blond lace on a cravat that wasn’t intended to be worn against the skin?

More disturbing than either of those perceptions was Abigail’s sense that for the merest instant before he began sorting himself out, Lord Stephen had rested against her, lingering on purpose where he should be mortified to be.

Could he possibly have engineered this mishap, and, if so, why?

“My apologies,” he said, bracing a hand on the table and standing straight. “And my thanks for your timely support. If you’d please hand me my cane?”

He was all genial good humor, as if thirteen stone of handsome lord went flying into the arms of unsuspecting ladies every twenty minutes or so. Abigail scooped up his cane, passed it to him, and retrieved the second cane as well.

“These are not sword canes,” she said, peering more closely at the one she held. “And yet they would make effective weapons.”

“Sword canes are more useful out-of-doors, where I have room to swing and thrust. For indoors, a cudgel is the better option, or two cudgels.”

She passed over the second cane, which was sturdy indeed. “Why must you go about armed even in your own home?”

He used both canes to maneuver to a couch arranged along the inside wall. “You don’t ask about my unsteady balance. Thank you for that. If you wouldn’t mind sliding that hassock—”

Abigail gave the hassock a shove with her boot. The thing would have been hard to move for a man using two canes.

“How often do you fall?” An impolite question, but then, Lord Stephen was not a polite man, and he’d already reported falling “regularly.” He was mannerly when it suited him, and Abigail suspected he was kind to those he cared for. He would never tolerate a slight, and never leave a debt unpaid.

That he occasionally went sprawling offended her on his behalf. He wasn’t nice, but in his way, he was honorable, a far more worthy virtue in Abigail’s opinion.

“In my youth, I toppled over constantly. Boys do not carry canes, and I hated that I was different. I’d forget where I put my canes, leave my room without them. For my Bath chair, I spewed maledictions too vile to blight a lady’s ears. I was not reconciled to my fate, and thus everybody around me had to suffer as well.”