Abigail stood by the bow window that overlooked the garden, tall, straight, dry-eyed, while Stephen absorbed what she wasn’t saying.

She had known repeated, grievous loss. She had not simply given her heart to Champlain, she had fallen for him body and soul. If Stephen lived to be a hundred and wrote letters to every woman he’d ever admired, none of those ladies would treasure his words as Abigail had treasured Champlain’s maunderings.

A fine wine, a talented violinist…mere travelogues with some smarmy endearment appended for form’s sake, and Abigail had counted those letters among her most precious possessions. What would it be like to so thoroughly claim a woman’s allegiance that even casual notes became holy relics?

“When did you last see the letters?” And won’t you please come sit beside me again?

“I had them in the spring,” Abigail said, turning her back on the window. “I know I had them in April, because the baby died in April and I read over the last letter to mark the occasion.”

“Did Champlain know you’d lost the child?”

“He did. He sent me a bank draft after our last…after we argued. A sizable sum. I was insulted and never deposited it. A week after I miscarried, I sent it back with a few lines of explanation. He did not reply, which I considered decent of him. By then I wanted nothing to do with him, and within two years, he was dead. I learned later than he’d left a child behind, a very young, legitimate son.”

“Champlain sent you a bank draft.” Abigail had said that almost casually.

“Yes, a substantial amount.”

Stephen had always struggled with his temper, particularly in adolescence, when other boys were gaining height and muscle, and he was becoming yet more awkward and visibly unsound. He had enough experience containing his rages that he could speak somewhat calmly.

“Champlain bestirred himself to spend three minutes affixing his name to a piece of paper. A bank draft. Does a bank draft check under a boy’s bed at night to make sure Old Scratch isn’t lurking there to steal an unsuspecting little fellow away in his sleep?”

Abigail’s expression had become wary. “I beg your pardon?”

“Does a bank draft explain to a lad that some words, no matter how much swagger they convey, are never used before the ladies?”

“My lord?”

“Does a bank draft read tales to a boy of brave knights on their destriers or magical unicorns whose horns can cure all ills? Does a bank draft give a child affection, love, a sense of his place in the world? A bank draft. Bloody hell.”

Abigail regarded him from a distance of several yards across a sea of consternation. “I would think that a man raised in want of coin would value financial responsibility in a parent.”