He spoke calmly and quietly, no teasing, no insouciance in his tone. Would that he had been jesting.
“I never took you for a charming bounder, my lord.” The words were inadequate, unworthy of his display of courage, so Abigail tried again. “I am supposed to say thank you, put my nose in the air, and act as if such honesty is vaguely distasteful. I should pretend that I tolerate your advances because men cannot help themselves when females are willing, and it all means nothing as long as Stapleton believes the playacting.”
“Kisses should never be meaningless.”
Not exactly. Kisses should mean as much or as little to one party as they did to the other. If nothing else, Abigail had learned that much from her foray into worldly peccadillos.
“Your kisses are not meaningless, Stephen Wentworth. I have asked you to enter into a deception with me, and I am grateful for your aid, but I delight in sharing intimacies with you as well.”
He unlatched the coach door and pushed it open. The footman let down the steps and moved aside.
“I have two objectives, then,” Lord Stephen said, gathering up his cane and passing Abigail hers. “I must inspire you to like me, and I must also aid you to thwart Lord Stapleton’s mischief. Which of the two will be the greater challenge?”
Abigail descended from the coach rather than reply, but she knew the answer, for she already did like Lord Stephen—far too much.
Chapter Six
“You left me there for three days,” Abigail muttered before Stephen had even given the gelding in the traces leave to walk on. “Three days with little more than a note from you.”
“Did you miss me?” Stephen had missed her. Had missed their verbal swordplay, missed the sight of her, and even missed the tattoo of her confident stride on his carpets. Learning the identity of the varlet who’d broken her heart had become a mental puzzle box, one that distracted him from frustrated lust.
She twitched her skirts away from the fender. “I missed making progress regarding Lord Stapleton. He’s biding here in Town, by the way. You were right about that.”
“That is a new frock,” Stephen said, clucking to the horse. “Quite fetching. I told you the duchesses would take you in hand.” The ladies had apparently compromised, for this dress was blue-gray rather than Miss Abbott’s preferred dreary slate. The cuffs bore a tiny border of light blue embroidery, and the buttons were nacre.
Understated, but not nearly plain. Bravo, Duchesses.
“Your womenfolk are, as you say, formidable. Why didn’t you remind me that Her Grace of Walden is nearly as tall as I am?”
“Because your height is immaterial?” he said, turning the horse down a quiet alley. “Because Jane has so many other delightful qualities that her statuesque proportions hardly bear mention? Have you made me the list I requested?”
Stephen had sent Abigail a note, unable to go three entire days without any communication between them.
“I have the list with me. I came up with the names of about a dozen clients who have London connections, but I don’t see why those people are relevant.”
Stephen had been curious about her lover, of course, and had concluded that if she had been disporting with a fashionable courtesy lord, she would have most likely met him in the course of a case. Hence, her London-based clients were of interest.
“People who hire Yorkshire inquiry agents don’t expect to find those agents driving in Hyde Park at the Fashionable Hour,” Stephen said, which was true enough. “You must be prepared to encounter your former clients, and I must be aware of who they are the better to dote on you convincingly when we meet them. I don’t suppose the author of your billets-doux has family in Town?”
“What is this?”
Stephen had passed her a parasol. “I didn’t think Matilda would have time to drag you about on a shopping expedition, so I took it upon myself to safeguard your complexion. Open it.”
“My complexion is not…that is, thank you, my lord. This is too personal a gift, though.”
“Then don’t tell anybody how you came by it.”
She untied the blue satin ribbon holding the parasol closed. “But you bought it somewhere, and the modiste’s work will be recognized. Because I haven’t shopped at her establishment—this is quite pretty.”
The parasol was made of silk rather than lace, the shade somewhere between pewter and silver. Neither tassels nor beading adorned the rim, though three bands of flowery blue stitchwork ran around the border.
“This is elegant,” Abigail said. “Tasteful without being showy. I like it.”
But do you like me? The question bothered Stephen inordinately. “I was afraid you’d find it too un-plain.”
Abigail opened the parasol and propped it over her shoulder. “Plainness can become vanity. When people use a lack of ornamentation to call attention to their own piety rather than to the world’s vanity, the exercise takes on the wrong significance. I choose subdued fashions the better to blend in and not call attention to myself, also because I want my clothing to last.”
Stephen brought the horse to a halt, because the alley was blocked by a phaeton that canted off to one side, its left wheel cocked at an angle.
“You have no personal objection to wearing colors?” he asked.
“None at all, other than valuing modesty generally. I doubt I would wear jewels even if I could afford them, though.”
Alas, no bracelets or earbobs. But then, bracelets and earbobs showed a dreadful lack of imagination. “What do you have against jewels?”
“Jewels are a means of hoarding wealth and being ostentatious about it. When veterans beg in the street and children must toil in the mines to avoid starving, such displays are unseemly.”
The owner of the phaeton was standing beside his conveyance, arms akimbo, whip in hand. He was young—Stephen would put his age at less than twenty—and he had a perfectly matched pair of dappled grays
