He caught her hand rather than let her fly into the boughs over a mere peck on the cheek.

“Miss Abbott, be reasonable. Stapleton is a marquess. He has breached the citadel of your home. He has sent his minions against you. He thinks you are a mere lady inquiry agent, a member of an obscure profession and one not much respected except by those needing your services. Your family, while doubtless dear to you, has no resources equal to Stapleton’s, but I do.”

He had her attention. God bless a woman with a rational mind.

“Go on.”

“Stapleton will not expect you to recruit an ally whose standing exceeds his own, whose wealth exceeds his own, whose connections in Yorkshire and elsewhere exceed his own. Ally yourself with me, and you are safe.”

She studied their joined hands. Her hands were nearly as large as Stephen’s, but oh, they were so much more lovely. She cared for her hands. When dressed as a man, she doubtless had to wear gloves, or those pale fingers and tidy nails would give up the game.

“You spoke of an engagement, my lord. Why would a duke’s heir choose a Yorkshire nobody for his duchess?”

Did she truly think of herself as a nobody? Stephen knew for a fact that at least one duke and duchess had relied upon her good offices to solve a very, very delicate matter.

“Let us consider the practicalities, Miss Abbott. I must marry, but I was born in the gutter.”

She looked him up and down. “You have overcome your origins rather handily.”

He kissed her knuckles for that. “In your opinion, which I value highly, but not in the opinion of the matchmakers who matter. I cannot dance, I cannot walk in the park, I cannot amble along the wooded paths of Richmond, and otherwise ingratiate myself with the darlings making their debuts each year.”

“You can play cards, you can make witty conversation at formal dinners, you can—” Miss Abbott waved a hand.

“I can engage in the activities leading to procreation?”

Her expression became wonderfully severe. “One surmises you can—and do.”

“One surmises correctly. I am not, however, considered a good catch. Impecunious viscounts can out-court me, and because I can never overcome the circumstances of my birth or the limitations of my disability, that will always be the case.”

Miss Abbott disentangled her fingers from his. “So you’ll bow meekly before your fate and marry an Amazon of humble origins?”

“The Amazons were warrior queens, to a maiden. Quakers are bankers, and His Grace of Walden, being a banker himself, has all manner of Quaker associates. You are from the north—from my home shire, as it were. My family thinks highly of you, which is no small accomplishment, and you will be an original in the Mayfair drawing rooms. You might even—I blush to suggest it—enjoy being my intended.”

This speech was coming off all reasonable and businesslike, but Stephen waited for Miss Abbott’s reply with inordinate anxiety. That Stapleton hadn’t succeeded thus far was due to chance. Stephen had reason to know that the marquess was as stubborn as he was arrogant, and he was very arrogant.