How to Catch a Duke (Rogues to Riches #6) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,3

One fellow lifted the lid of a tureen, and the scent of a hearty beef barley soup wafted to Abigail’s nose. The other footman set a second tea tray on the low table, except that the offerings also included a pot of chocolate, a carafe of claret, and a mug of cider.

“Would miss care for anything else?” the footman asked.

“What else could I possibly…?” She left off speaking as the footman ladled a steaming serving of soup into a delftware bowl.

“Lemonade?” Lord Stephen suggested. “A syllabub, a posset, orgeat? Three tugs on the bell pull means the kitchen is put on full alert. Battle stations, present arms, forced marches to the pantries and wine cellars. Tell Thomas your inmost culinary desire and he’ll convey it directly to Cook.”

Only a very wealthy man had the resources to put a kitchen on full alert at a moment’s notice. Abigail had made discreet queries into the extent and sources of Lord Stephen’s fortune, and the sums he was said to possess were nearly as staggering as those attributed to his ducal brother.

“The available offerings are more than sufficient,” Abigail said, as the footman set out cutlery on a tray and added the bowl of soup, thick slices of buttered toast, and a spicy mug of hot mulled cider.

“That will be all, gentlemen,” Lord Stephen said. “Though please have the fires lit in the blue suite.”

Abigail noted his lordship’s presumption, but she wasn’t about to take issue with his high-handedness until she’d done justice to the soup, a baked potato stuffed with bacon and brie, and an apple tart drizzled with some sort of raspberry-flavored cream.

As she finally, finally ate her fill for the first time in days, Lord Stephen arranged his booted foot on a hassock and leaned his head back against the sofa cushions as if—harmless old thing that he was—he’d doze off in the presence of a lady.

“I am being rude,” Abigail said. “I know I ought not to eat so much, and that I’m supposed to make polite conversation while I clean my plate—my plates—but I don’t take you for a high stickler.”

“I can be a high stickler,” his lordship replied, slouching lower against the cushions without opening his eyes. “I take very firm exception to marquesses who threaten my favorite inquiry agent, for example. Such fellows could end up facing me over pistols on the field of honor, whereupon their odds of survival are abysmal. Have another tart.”

She should decline, but the tarts were magnificent. Warm, sweet, rich, and spiced with cinnamon in addition to the raspberry drizzle.

“Will you share one with me?”

He opened his eyes. “You are trying to cozen me. Pretending we’re friendly enough to share a tart before you toss my hospitality back in my face without giving me a scintilla of the information I request. Then you will make your way through the dangerous streets of London to some poky little lodging house run by a grouchy widow. She will overcharge you for a thin mattress on a short cot and demand your attendance at morning prayers. Have the second tart, Miss Abbott.”

On principle, Abigail could not capitulate. “Only if you share it with me.”

“Then serve me one quarter, and pour me half a glass of cider.”

He sat up, pain flitting across his features. Lord Stephen spent so much effort being naughty and disagreeable that his looks probably went unnoticed, but they were interesting looks. Like his siblings, he had dark hair and blue eyes. His build was leaner than that of the other Wentworths, though his shoulders were powerful and his air more self-possessed.

The Wentworth siblings had been born to direst poverty, with an abusive gin-drunk for a father. That much was common knowledge. The oldest sibling—Quinton, now His Grace of Walden—had finagled and scrapped his way into the banking business, where he’d made a fortune.

And that was before an ancient title had meandered and staggered down familial lines of inheritance to add old consequence to new wealth.

Lord Stephen, the duke’s only brother, was heir to the title and to at least some of the wealth. Their Graces had four daughters, and Lady Constance maintained that the duke and duchess were unwilling to add to the nursery population when Her Grace’s last two confinements had been difficult.

Lord Stephen limped badly, often using two canes to get about. The limp ought not to slow the matchmakers down at all—in fact, it made their quarry easier to stalk—but the naughtiness and sour humor were doubtless more