In their last conversation, she’d been Abigail, my dear, and dearest to him. “My Quaker relations would say I come by my self-sufficiency honestly. They disowned my father, read him out of meeting. He was a master gunsmith, raised to excel at his trade before the Friends took such a dim view of it. Papa had no other skills with which to make a decent living, so he turned his back on his faith community.”

“As you turn your back on both guns and your father’s religious affiliations. Might we sit? I’ve been out and about already today, and a respite would be appreciated.”

Abigail caught a whiff of his lordship’s luscious fragrance and moved away. “You need not ask my permission to sit, my lord. Sit whenever you please.”

He remained standing, regarding her, both of his hands resting on the head of his cane. This one looked to be of oak—more easily worked than mahogany and still quite heavy.

“You value self-sufficiency, Miss Abbott. I value every semblance of normal, able-bodied gentlemanly behavior I can manage.”

Abigail sat on the sofa, a poor choice given the memories she had of it.

His lordship came down beside her. “What is the real reason you are reluctant to dwell with Their Graces?” He rested his foot on the hassock, which Abigail took to be a concession to his limitations.

“If Stapleton was willing to poison me once, he might try poison again. If he set brigands looking for me once, he might do that again too. Their Graces have children in the nursery—a newborn, for God’s sake—and you expect the duke and duchess to take on the burden of me and my troubles.”

His lordship propped his cane between them and began rubbing his knee. “Have you any siblings?”

“My father never remarried. My mother was the love of his life.”

“Whom you killed, with malice aforethought, being an entire eight pounds or so of villainy at the time of the crime, and so on and so forth. I recall the particulars. Allow me to enlighten you regarding that blessing known as the sibling bond, at least among Jack Wentworth’s offspring, though for all we know, Quinn isn’t related to the rest of us.”

“His Grace of Walden is a legitimate bastard?”

“We can’t be sure. His poor mama was already carrying when she married Jack, and she married somewhat down, suggesting Jack was a husband of convenience. He also treated her miserably, sending her into an early grave and reviling her ever after for her faithlessness.”

His lordship shared this extraordinary confidence casually, and yet, Abigail knew why he did it. He was informing her, in a roundabout way, that she wasn’t the only one with family secrets and sorrows. As if an inquiry agent needed reminding of that.

“His Grace of Walden might not even be your brother?”

“The College of Arms doesn’t care. Quinn is the legal and legitimate offspring of Jack Wentworth, and more to the point, a brother is as a brother does. Quinn saved our lives, over and over. We would have starved without the wages he earned, or worse, we would have succumbed to Jack’s meanness without Quinn to show us how to manage. Althea took much of the brunt of Jack’s temper, but we all came in for our share.”