Such effusions from Duncan, the soul of intellectual dispassion, were unprecedented. Stephen had told Duncan to at least consider the proprieties where Matilda was concerned and had got exactly nowhere.

“Your point?”

“You never ask anybody for anything, but you are imposing on Quinn and Jane for the sake of this inquiry agent. That says a lot.”

“It says I can’t keep a decent female under my roof without her reputation suffering.”

“It says you will do for her what you would never do for yourself.”

“Observe propriety? Really, Duncan, I am not the outlandish boy who careered all over Europe with you. I am to be a bloody duke, after all.”

Duncan ambled for the door. “And a duke who intends to secure the succession must have a willing duchess, and that, my friend, is why you so dread taking up the title. I look forward to meeting your Miss Abbott.”

“Go back to Berkshire.”

Duncan paused, hand on the door. “What you dread to do beyond all else is ask for help. If Miss Abbott inspires you to such humility, she is surely the stuff duchesses are made of. Mind you don’t muck this up, Stephen. The right duchess only comes along once in a fellow’s life.”

Duncan slipped through the door, leaving Stephen alone to contemplate missing letters, irate marquesses, and family obligations.

Try as he might to focus on those topics, his thoughts kept wandering, back and back again, to kisses much too passionate to be entirely for show.

Chapter Five

“You have agreed to play the part of my intended,” Lord Stephen said. “All manner of speculation will start once the gossips get word of my interest in you. Your reputation must be above reproach, and thus you will accept Their Graces’ hospitality.”

Abigail stalked up to him, and to his credit he did not flinch or step back. “Where was your concern for my reputation when you consigned me to the blue suite two nights ago, my lord?”

The last she’d seen of him, he’d been off to pay a call on his family yesterday afternoon. He had not come home for dinner, and he’d avoided her at breakfast that morning. She’d barged into his study in search of something to read—something besides lurid novels—and found his lordship peering at the plans spread out on his worktable.

He patted her arm. “Inactivity makes you cross, or perhaps your female humors are troubling you. I don’t care that”—he snapped his fingers before Abigail’s nose—“for polite society. They would have cheerfully hanged my brother and let a titled potwalloper go free. My concern is for your safety.”

Abigail was cross, and inactivity did not sit well with her. That Lord Stephen would make a decision without consulting her rendered her positively furious.

“According to you, I am safe here. I do not want your family burdened with my problems.”

He peered down his nose at her. “Have trouble asking for help, do you? That shows a serious want of humility. What would your Quaker relations say to this display of hubris, Miss Abbott?”