For the sake of the Stapleton succession, Stapleton would hound Miss Abbott to hell’s front door, if necessary.
Fleming stood at attention, though he’d never bought his colors. “Miss Abbott has been known to wear disguises, my lord.”
“I am aware of that. She’s a professional snoop, but we must out-snoop her, mustn’t we?” Two searches of her home had yielded nothing. Not so much as an overdue bill from a greengrocer.
“She might simply have gone to her covert, my lord. Just because she hasn’t been seen doesn’t mean she isn’t at home, tatting lace or embroidering handkerchiefs.”
Fleming disapproved of this whole venture. He had a softhearted view of women and probably kissed his dogs when nobody was looking. He would be putty in Harmonia’s hands, and happy, devoted putty.
“Abigail Abbott wouldn’t know what to do with an embroidery needle if you threaded it for her and…”
A tattoo of heels on the parquet foyer had Fleming’s head coming up.
“Fleming, attend me. You may join Lady Champlain upon the conclusion of our interview and not before. Harmonia never goes out this early in the day.”
Fleming assumed parade-rest posture—chin up, hands behind his back. “Perhaps Miss Abbott doesn’t have the documents, my lord. Some time has passed, after all, and paper burns easily.”
“Does it? Does it truly?” Stapleton sat forward, linking his hands on the desk blotter. “Paper burns easily. Well, I had no idea. Thank you for enlightening me, Fleming. You put my mind at ease. I will simply trust that some very sensitive information has been twisted into spills and sent up Miss Abbott’s chimney. That makes perfect sense, paper also being expensive and her means being limited.”
A flash of impatience showed in Fleming’s eyes. He was the typical English lordling, flaxen-haired, tall, full of his own consequence, and none too bright. For Stapleton’s purposes he was an adequate resource. Fleming had enough standing to be treated deferentially by lesser mortals—by hired footpads, for example—and enough native wit to execute most tasks without immediate supervision.
Most tasks, apparently not all. And the blighter was besotted with Harmonia, or with what he perceived her settlements to be.
“Your lordship must consider that we’re on a goose chase,” Fleming said. “Perhaps if you’d see fit to share with me the nature of the documents, I might have a better chance of retrieving them.”
Stapleton had the odd thought that if Miss Abbott had been tasked with retrieving the letters, she would not make excuses or let inane flirtations distract her from the goal. She’d see the thing done and done right—drat the woman.
“Your job is not to find the documents.” Fleming would doubtless read the letters, which Stapleton could not allow, hence the necessity of resorting to less literate subordinates for searching Miss Abbott’s abode. “Your job is to find a woman who’d stand out in a company of dragoons. Perhaps you are in need of spectacles, Fleming. The dratted creature is impossible to miss.”
Stapleton knew he was being petty, but he preferred proper ladies, all sweet and diminutive with just enough guile to be interesting. A Brobdingnagian such as Miss Abbott was contrary to the natural order, towering over men who substantially outranked her. Had she the docile nature of a beast of burden, her proportions would not rankle so, but she was half a foot taller than Stapleton. She would only affect docility in service of some stratagem such as she had used to entangle Stapleton’s hapless son.
Champlain likely hadn’t known what had hit him, poor lad.
Fleming strode for the door. “I will instruct the men to maintain vigilance over her residence in York and keep an eye on the usual posting inns. I thought we might also set a watch here in London, my lord, at Smithfield Market at least.”
There you go, thinking again. “Why would Miss Abbott flee straight to the very place where I await her capture?”
Fleming paused, not quite turning, his posture conveying impatience. “Because she is canny as hell, and London is the last place you’d think to look for her?”
“Perhaps we should set a watch in Timbuktu and Calcutta, then. I hear the American wilderness can swallow up even giantesses. She would be daft to come to London.”
“She could be here already, my lord, and you none the wiser. Once she disappears into the stews, you’ll never find her.”
This show of spirit would have been gratifying were it not so nonsensical. “In the stews, where the average female is about four feet tall, Miss Abbott will stand out like a maypole. She’s not in London, I tell you. Now, be off with you until you have something more encouraging to report. Harmonia is in the blue salon entertaining some portraitist. Try not to make too great a fool of yourself. Her ladyship genuinely grieved for Champlain, and as far as I know, she’s not looking to find his successor yet.”
Fleming bowed curtly and withdrew, leaving Stapleton to consider the prospect of Miss Abigail Abbott in London. The Romans had had a saying about even a blind dove finding the occasional pea. Perhaps a footman sent to loiter about Clerkenwell’s coaching inns might not be a bad idea—though Stapleton would never admit as much to Fleming.
Abigail had never in her entire interesting life commanded a man to kiss her. Lord Stephen had spoken the truth, though: She was weary of flight, bewildered, and not herself. She’d noticed Stephen Wentworth the moment she’d set eyes on him, noticed his watchfulness and the way his family kept their distance rather than intrude on his privacy.
Then there was his height and general air of substance. Nobody trifled with this man, and for Abigail, that sense of self-possession was more attractive than all the artfully styled tailoring or graceful
