And can we please forget I ever mentioned Jack Wentworth?
Abigail drew the shawl up around her shoulders, though the day was mild. “I first realized the letters were gone in June,” she replied, clearly willing to leave the topic of patricide behind. “Another anniversary—my father’s death—and at first I thought I’d misplaced them. I asked my companion about them. We searched the entire premises and found nothing. The staff professed ignorance, and they’ve been with me for years, so I believe them. Nothing else, not so much as a hairpin, has ever gone missing.”
Stephen patted the cushion beside him, wanting Abigail closer for reasons that didn’t bear examining. “We must think this through. How do you know Stapleton didn’t take them?”
“Because his attempts on me and my household were later in the summer. I have wondered if one of his subordinates didn’t steal the letters with intent to blackmail the marquess.” She settled beside Stephen, cozily close. “But why hold them this long? Stapleton is wealthy, and he could pay handsomely for a lot of old drivel.”
Stephen did take her hand and Wodin visually reproached him. “Are they drivel?”
“I have seen enough love letters to know Champlain was no Byron.”
“Nonetheless, Stapleton is apparently concerned they will fall into the wrong hands and reflect badly upon the late earl.” Though that explanation bore further thought, because Stapleton himself was no Puritan and never had been. Nobody expected strict fidelity of a wealthy, married peer or his charming son.
“I can pretty much reconstruct the letters,” Abigail said. “If I’ve seen something in handwriting, I can often recall it exactly. In my profession, such a skill comes in handy, and I read the letters many times.”
“Don’t admit that ability to anybody else. Quinn will hire you to spy on other banks for him.”
“I think your brother dislikes me.”
Stephen resisted the urge to kiss Abigail’s knuckles and settled for wrapping her hand in both of his.
“Quinn is like that hound. He looks fierce, and he can be fierce, but it’s mostly appearances. He gets down on all fours in the nursery and roars like a bear for the children’s entertainment. When Jane is expecting, Quinn rubs her feet and her back by the hour. He reads treatises on childbirth, though he does not like to read anything that’s more words than figures.”
To honestly praise Quinn’s role as head of the family was a relief. Quinn had clearly learned from Jack’s awful example, and that was some consolation.
Abigail patted Stephen’s knee. “Your brother is protective of you. He showed me your old room.”
What the hell? “And?”
“You had read more books by age eighteen than I have seen in my life.”
“When a fellow spends most of his time in a damned chair, reading happens.”
“Walden admires you for your book learning. He doesn’t understand how anybody could devour that much knowledge, and he respects you for it.”
Abigail no longer wore her rosemary hedgehog scent. Jane must have put a stop to that. The new fragrance was soft, gardenia with a citrusy top note and a cinnamon finish. Complicated, warm, feminine…perfect for Abigail Abbott.
“Quinn said he admires me?”
“The admiration was in his voice, in his gaze as he peered around at shelves and shelves of books, some in German, some in French, many in Latin. He said you are a mechanical genius. I was flattered to be allowed into the sanctum of your adolescence and found two books on poisons that I would like to borrow.”
“You may have them, of course. Quinn is a financial genius, by the way. He reads the paper, stares off into space, moves money around, and the money has babies and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I am more pragmatic, investing in the inventions that I know will be of use.”
Abigail withdrew her hand. “You made a portable cannon that could swivel three hundred and sixty degrees. Walden showed me the plans.”
Just what a lapsed Quaker lady did not need to see. “I’ve also patented firing mechanisms, safety triggers, bullet molds, rifling processes, bomb designs, cranes, lifts, folding stairways…some of it’s useless, some of it’s lucrative. Might we get back to the letters?”
“You are quite enterprising. Walden was warning me.”
Enterprising was good, wasn’t it? “Subtlety is not Quinn’s style. His warnings are blunt, sincere, and unmistakable. What would he be warning you about?”
“Not to trifle with you, not to try to make a pretend engagement into something it cannot be.”
God spare me from meddling siblings. “What if I’d like to be trifled with? What if you’d like a bit of trifling in return? We are adults, Abigail, and I’m a first-rate trifler. One of the best in the realm. I like trifling, and because one doesn’t need two good knees to go about it, I’ve made something of a study of trifling in all its glorious permutations.”
She patted his bad knee, which was not well advised when the subject under discussion was trifling.
“You have such a keen wit. I like that about you.”
He kissed her cheek. “I am not jesting, and Quinn was not threatening. He was meddling. He thinks he’s being subtle, but he’s about as subtle as Wodin introducing himself to a cured ham. So I read a lot of books. What sort of woman is impressed with that?”
This time, her pat was more of a stroke along his thigh. “I am. I love books. I love that you used your disability as inspiration for the nurturing of your intellect.”
Love. Abigail Abbott had used the word love, and in connection with Stephen’s accursed knee. Perhaps the infernal letters of doom had best stay hidden for a good long while.
“You developed your inquiry business on the strength of a young woman’s rotten experience with romance. I don’t like that, but I admire it.”
Wodin rose and put his chin on her knee again.
“Does he want to go out?”
The bloody dog wants to steal you away from me. “He can go out whenever he pleases. I fashioned a swinging door
