The repair took less than a minute, with Abigail holding the phaeton just high enough off the ground that the owner could fit the wheel on straight and thread the parasol handle through the hole bored in the axle.

“We still need something to stabilize the makeshift pin,” Stephen said. “If the axle wobbles too much it can shear off the pin, and you’re stranded all over again.”

Abigail climbed into the gig unaided. “Your cravat is made of silk, my lord, and silk is exceedingly strong. If knotted tightly…”

“I cannot go about in public without my neckcloth, Miss Abbott.”

She gestured at the youth standing beside his conveyance. “If linen will do, then why not use his?”

“Good idea. Lad, knot your neckcloth around the axle and the parasol handle so the lot is snug, and then walk your cattle—and I do mean walk—back to their stable. Do not put the weight of your fashionable arse upon the bench—walk your horses like a groom would walk them. If anybody asks, you tell them the nearside gray is going a bit off.”

“That is a capital notion.” He tipped his hat to Abigail again, and bowed to Stephen. “My thanks to you both. All’s well and all that, right?”

Stephen saluted with his whip and waited until the phaeton had clattered out of the alley.

“I have never encountered a parasol with a steel handle,” Abigail said. “Where did you say you bought it?”

Damn and blast. “I made it.”

“You made me a parasol?”

“Not precisely. I am experimenting with designs, toying with the notion that a parasol can serve more than one function.”

She pulled on her gloves. “Such as carrying a scent bottle or vinaigrette in the shaft?”

Small scent bottles were typically about the size and shape of a fat cheroot. “Something like that. You did that boy a significant service, Abigail.” She’d hefted the phaeton like it weighed no more than a velvet muff, a feat Stephen could have managed only at peril to his balance.

“He was in the way and nobody save you was on hand to gawk at my outlandish behavior. You made that parasol?”

Stephen stopped the horse short of the end of the alley. High garden walls provided privacy on both sides, and the plane trees had enough leaves left to obscure the gig from any second-story windows.

“I made that parasol. I like adding cleverness to existing designs.” That much was true.

She examined the stitchery around the rim of the parasol. “You sew a very pretty seam, my lord.”

She was paying him a compliment rather than mocking him.

“I could not have lifted that damned phaeton, Abigail.”

“I could not have designed a parasol with any practical uses, my lord. Shall we to the park?”

“In a moment.”

First, he kissed her. Kissed her because she liked his pretty seams and his un-fussy, un-plain parasol, kissed her because she’d helped save a young man from mortification, kissed her because he could not do anything more than kiss her and shouldn’t even be doing that.