Self-gratification hadn’t eased his desire one iota, and kissing Abigail again was rank folly, but she was soon to be ensconced in the Wentworth family fortress, where folly could not intrude. Surely a farewell kiss was permissible?
“The scent of you,” she murmured, wrapping Stephen in her arms. “You drive me witless. I can’t bear—” She fused her mouth to his, and all over again, Stephen was awash in desire and madness.
“I dreamed of you,” he said. “You breathed on me and I went up in flames.” In the last reaches of his thinking mind, where reason despaired and mischief rejoiced, Stephen knew that nothing could come of his attraction to Abigail Abbott.
When he’d spiked Stapleton’s guns, Abigail would go back to her inquiry business and Stephen would resume—
She ran her hand over his falls, her touch every bit as sure as it had been on his stupid knee. An even more brainless part of him leaped at the pleasure of her caress.
“You are so wonderfully bold,” he whispered, “and I am so hopelessly willing. I can keep you safe from Stapleton, and Quinn and Jane will keep you safe from me.”
Abigail subsided against him, though gently. Stephen had kept hold of his cane, Abigail had kept hold of him. The whole kiss had progressed without Stephen once worrying about his balance.
“You might have been kissing me to distract me,” she said, “but you weren’t.”
Hence her bold caress. Ah, well. “Distract you from what?”
“Whatever objective you are truly intent on. You have guile too, my lord.”
He could have stood there embracing her until the seasons changed, except that the sofa was calling to him, as was the temptation to lock the door.
“Perhaps you are distracting me, Abigail.”
She pulled back to study him. “Your kisses are enticing. When you call me Abigail, in that slightly chiding, slightly confiding tone, I lose a piece of my self-control. Nobody addresses me by my given name. I am Miss Abbott, even to my companion.”
He smoothed his hand over her shoulder, just for the pleasure of learning her contours. “I hear a fellow call out to Lord Stephen at the club, and I think: Who let some damned nob in here when I’m trying to enjoy a quiet meal with another inventor?”
She smiled at him, the first such benediction Stephen could recall from her. “I wonder if anybody ever feels entirely themselves?”
“You can be yourself with me.”
Her smile dimmed into something more complicated. “Thank you. I trust you will do me the same honor—of being yourself with me.”
“You enjoy the company of barbarians? Perhaps this is the result of dwelling in proximity to the Scots.” The Scots did not deserve Stephen’s humor. They were better physicians, more skilled inventors, and wiser philosophers than their southern neighbors, and they brewed up hellfire in a glass which even their elderly ladies consumed as if it were Christmas syllabub.
“I enjoy the company of a gentleman with a lively mind and sweet kisses,” Abigail said, stepping back. “You are a very bad influence, my lord.”
“Happy to be of service, and might I add, you have a similarly salubrious effect on my own overly taxed self-discipline.”
The moment had turned, becoming superficial and wary. Stephen wanted to drag Abigail back into his embrace and kiss her senseless—or drag her to the sofa, where kissing would be the tamest aspect of their exchange.
“Shall I fetch my satchel?” she asked.
“Please. I’ll have the coach brought around. Jane is expecting you, and she has Matilda—Duncan’s wife—to abet her schemes where you are concerned. When I left yesterday, they were conferring about fabric.”
Abigail stepped away. “Fabric, my lord?”
“I told them you prefer subdued colors and no flourishes. You aren’t quite dressing plain, Abigail, so don’t attempt to hide behind Quaker eccentricities at this late date.”
“I compromise,” she said, leaning over to sniff at a bouquet of roses on the windowsill. “I need pockets for my work, but I eschew the ruffles, lace, and flounces most ladies indulge in. I wear no jewelry and own nothing of brocade or silk.”
Embroidery, then, was fair game, and velvet wasn’t out of the question. A watch for her bodice might be allowable, or nacre hairpins.
“I will leave the wardrobe questions to you and the duchesses.”
Abigail straightened. “Matilda is a duchess too?”
“Maybe not now in the strictest sense, but she’s the widow of some pumpernickel duke, and she is the equal of any duchess I know. You will get on well with her.”
“They will try to fancy me up.”
Stephen maneuvered himself away from the sofa and hassock. “They’ve been trying to fancy me up for years, all to no avail. To have a fresh challenge will do them good. Before I throw you to the lionesses, though, I did have a few questions for you about the letters Stapleton is so keen to get hold of.”
Abigail’s gaze went from guarded to absolutely composed. “Questions, my lord?”
“Why does Stapleton want them so badly? Whose letters are they, and what do they contain that makes his lordship so nervous?”
Abigail started for the door. “I’ll fetch my satchel, and we can have this discussion on the way to your brother’s house. There really isn’t much to tell.”
She swished through the door, leaving Stephen with a fading cockstand and a sense of disappointment as much of the heart as of the body. Abigail was planning to lie to him, though she apparently needed a few minutes to rehearse whatever Banbury tale she was preparing to spin.
This suggested she did not entirely trust Stephen, which was prudent of her. His courtship of her would be for show, while his desire was very much the genuine article. Even he wasn’t sure what to make of that puzzle.
The blasted, bedamned letters were the aspect of the situation Abigail hadn’t sorted out to her own satisfaction. She’d kept possession of them as a reproach
