Miss Abbott arrived in the company of a footman who bowed and withdrew. Notwithstanding her escort, she’d brought her walking stick, along with her ever-present air of having business to be about. Stephen had met Wellington on several occasions, and His Grace had the same quality. The duke was not impatient so much as he seemed more interested in fighting the next battle than wasting time in civilian company.

“Miss Abbott, please do have a seat,” Jane said. “I can ring for a tray if you’d like.”

“No, thank you, Your Grace. I gather the family has questions.”

“We are worried,” Althea said, “as any loving family would be.”

Quinn and Nathaniel were trying to look lovingly concerned and were mostly looking dyspeptic, which left Stephen the job of asking the actual questions.

“Is the girl safe for the present?” he asked.

“You ought not to have ambushed me like this,” Miss Abbott replied, and her tone said she was using the singular you, meaning the rebuke was personal to Stephen. “This is a highly confidential matter and I do not discuss my clients’ business with anybody.”

“We’re not anybody,” Nathaniel said, assaying a smile that he likely meant to be charming, the clodpate. “We are all the family Lady Constance has, and prepared to use our collective resources to see her objectives met.”

“We are most anxious to be of assistance,” Althea added. “Constance is only newly engaged, and she and Rothhaven should not have to carry this burden alone.”

“My brother’s circumstances,” Nathaniel began, as if embarking on a lecture before the slower pupils in the class, “are somewhat diffi—”

“I know your brother’s circumstances, my lord. His Grace himself acquainted me with them by letter, including the situation in which he and Lady Constance met.”

Well, damn. Posturing and charm would get nowhere with this woman. “Then you know much more than we do,” Stephen said, “and while I respect your protectiveness toward my sister and her duke, we are protective of them as well, and of Ivy. Is there anything you can tell us without violating confidences? Anything a casual inquiry regarding Reverend Shaw might turn up?”

Miss Abbott palmed the head of her walking stick, which was carved to resemble—of course—a dragon.

“You will have those inquiries made, won’t you, my lord? You’ll go barging into a small Yorkshire village, a handsome, wealthy stranger asking awkward questions and expecting honest answers simply because you rolled into the square, your London coach pulled by matching grays.”

Stephen laid his cane across his knees and shifted pieces on his mental chessboard. Handsome, was he?