Page 60 of The Truth About Dukes
All in all, a fine mess, and for once, Stephen was not to blame.
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 singularyou, 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 notanybody,” 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 youcantell 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?
“I will send my groom, Thomas Goodman, Yorkshire born and bred, riding a mule named George, whom Tom will stable at the livery because the poor beast will be tired after a long day’s trot. Tom will put up at the drovers’ inn outside the village, but stop by the church to give thanks for safe travels.
“Thomas will bump into the curate,” Stephen continued, “then he’ll enjoy a pint or two at the posting inn. If all else fails, he’ll stop by the apothecary to buy a patent remedy or two for the severe rheumatism that so clearly plagues him. If market day in Fendle Bridge is Wednesday, Thomas will arrive on Tuesday afternoon, and tarry to enjoy the market. He will take particular care to flirt with the alewife, because all the friendly young fellows hang about her stall, and he will allow as how he’s bound for Liverpool, and thinking of taking ship for the Antipodes. Need I go on?”
“You don’t have a groom named Thomas Goodman,” Althea said.
Because a sister’s sworn duty was to un-horse her younger brother just as that good fellow had secured control of the conversation reins.
“I like that part about the mule named George,” Miss Abbott murmured, brows knit. “A jackass or mule named for the king would be a winning touch in most livery stables, and certainly in the drovers’ inns. I must remember that.”
“A jackass named for the king would go over well in most London gentlemen’s clubs too,” Stephen said. “As for the villagers, the apothecaries hear all the sickness and sorrow in the neighborhood. They know who cannot have children as well as who has conceived inconveniently.”
Stephen was gambling that Miss Abbott’s sense of fair play would allow her to take a bit of pity on her hosts. She would not betray confidences, but in exchange for a few worthy ideas freely offered, she might relenta little.
“One must approach the apothecary as a supplicant needing aid,” he added, “not simply as a nosy interloper.”
Having patronized apothecaries since childhood, Stephen was intimately acquainted with the breed. Miss Abbott appeared to be considering his offering.
“You give me something to think about, my lord.”
Quinn looked like he was about to drop ducal consequence on the discussion at the exact wrong time. Stephen thus decided to entrust Miss Abbott with the truth—a risky tactic, and not one he often used.
“Constance was bitterly unhappy as a young girl and made terrible choices as a result. She put herself at risk for serious harm, endured many hardships, and still has not entirely recovered from her youthful miseries. We would spare Ivy those same miseries if we possibly can, and spare ourselves the guilt of having failed yet another Wentworth relation when she desperately needs the support of people who mean well by her.”
“Ivy’s uncle means well by her,” Miss Abbott replied, though she was stroking her dragon with the tip of one finger, which Stephen took to be a hopeful sign.
Also unintentionally erotic, which was of no moment whatsoever.
