She smoothed a crease on his sleeve. “I’m not in an interesting condition. I take precautions, because the sheaths aren’t reliable.”
“I meant if you ever found yourself in an interesting condition. My solicitors know how to reach me, and you know how to reach them. Your word on this, please.”
She nodded. “Did I do something wrong? Is that why you’re tossing me over?” Such vulnerability lay behind the ire in her gaze.
“Yes,” Stephen said, leaning against the door and mustering a scowl. “Yes, you have done something I cannot countenance. If you must know, I am growing too attached to you, and that will not serve. I have no time for maudlin sentiment or fawning displays, but you threaten my resolve in this regard. I hope you’re pleased with yourself, because German princesses and the most celebrated of the grand horizontales in Paris haven’t accomplished the mischief you’ve caused.”
Babette looked a bit less crestfallen. “You’re becoming too attached to me?”
“A man needs his dignity, Babette.” That qualified as an eternal verity. “With your sheer friendliness, your affection, your laughter…you put me at risk for foolishness. Better to leave before you set your hook and while we are still friends, wouldn’t you say?”
She finally took the paper. “What is this?”
Stephen put a gloved hand on the door latch. “You can read it for yourself.”
She opened the paper before he could make his escape. “This is the deed to a tea shop, my lord. You bought me a tea shop?”
The shop, the inventory, and the articles of the clerk who’d been working there for the past two years. The enterprise was operating at a healthy profit too, and Stephen had topped up its cash reserves and inventory as well.
“Bracelets as parting gifts show an execrable lack of imagination, and the pawnbrokers take ruthless advantage of anybody trying to hock such baubles. A tea shop will generate income and give you an option if you’re ever injured in the course of your profession. There’s a price, though, Babette.”
She tucked the deed out of sight. “What price?”
“You keep the terms of our parting to yourself. Say you inherited a competence from an auntie or that a friend of the family willed you the means to buy the shop. Keep my name out of it. Put it about that I’m off to the grouse moors when I quit Town. Grumble at my pinchpenny ways and tell everybody I’m a bad kisser.”
She peered around at her rooms, which were far more comfortably appointed than they had been several months ago. The carpet was Savonnerie, the drapes Italian brocade. The tea service was Spode—not antique, but certainly pretty.
“You are a splendid kisser, my lord.”
“If you insist on lavishing such compliments on me, I really must be going.”
Babette put her hand over his on the door latch. “You will drop in to buy tea from me from time to time?”
He’d more likely send a spy, at least until she was walking out with some worthy fellow. “You intend to keep the shop yourself?”
“I’ll give notice at rehearsal tomorrow and speak to Clare about coming to work for me. She can dance for only a few more weeks.”
An inordinate sense of relief followed that announcement. “Perhaps I’ll look you up when I return to Town, but don’t think we can resume where we left off, Babette.”
“My name’s Betty. Betty Smithers, purveyor of fine teas and sundries.”
“Betty,” he said, brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Be well and say grumpy things about me.”
She grinned. “You’re an awful man who has no sense of humor and no eye for jewelry.”
“Just so,” he said, lifting the latch. “And I make you late for rehearsal with my endless selfish demands on your person. You are well rid of me.”
Stephen left her smiling by the door. By the time he’d retrieved his horse from a sleepy groom in the mews, his relief at a friendly parting was fading. He liked Babette, of course, and was fond of her, but then, he liked most women, and was fond of all of his lovers.
Years ago, he might have been capable of risking his heart for the right woman, but life had taken him in other directions, and romantic entanglements didn’t number among his aggravations, thank the heavenly powers.
Miss Abigail Abbott didn’t number among his aggravations either. She was more in the nature of a challenge, and Stephen prided himself on never backing down from challenge.
Chapter Three
“You did ask us to wake you at seven, miss,” the maid said. “Shall I come again in an hour?” She was clean, tidy, and cheerful, like every female domestic Abigail had met in Lord Stephen’s abode. The men were also clean, tidy, and cheerful, and the lot of them moved about with more energy than was decent.
Morning sun slanted through Abigail’s window, and elsewhere in the house what sounded like three different clocks were all chiming the seventh hour—in unison. The result was a major triad—do-mi-sol—and the effect unusual, to say the least.
“I’m awake,” Abigail said, sitting up and flipping back the softest quilts ever to grace the bed of mortal woman. “Barely. Oh, you’ve brought tea. Bless you.” No toast, no croissants, though. No hope of escaping breakfast with his lordship. But then, Abigail had come here precisely to secure his lordship’s assistance, hadn’t she?
“Shall I help you dress, miss?”
“I can manage, thank you.”
“I’ll come back to make up the bed and see to the hearth. Your frock is hanging in the wardrobe, and Lord Stephen awaits you in the breakfast parlor.”
Well, drat the luck. Abigail had been hoping to enjoy at least a plate of eggs before she negotiated with his lordship. She ought to have known he’d not simply accede to her plan.
“I’ll be down directly.” Good food and rest had fortified her, and finding that the hem of her dress had been sponged clean and the skirts ironed added to her sense of well-being. She downed two cups of tea as she dressed and tended to her hair.
By the time she joined Lord Stephen in the breakfast parlor, she had resolved to tell him the version of the truth she’d concocted during her journey south.
“Miss Abbott.” He rose. “The sun rises to illuminate your beauty. I trust you slept well.”
He could not know how his levity wounded. “I slept soundly, my lord. And you?”
“I am rested. Help yourself to the offerings on the sideboard. I’d serve you, except handling two canes and a plate is beyond me.”
Walking into the breakfast parlor was like walking into heaven’s antechamber. The windows admitted bright morning light, the scents of toast and butter graced the air, and the room was warm at a time of year when most households were parsimonious with coal. His lordship sat not at the head of the table, but along the side closer to the hearth. Though the day was sunny, autumn had arrived, and a fire crackled on the andirons.
“I am entirely capable of serving myself,” Abigail said. “Have you been out riding already?” Lord Stephen wore riding attire, and he wore it well.
“I enjoy a hack on dry mornings. You are welcome to join me tomorrow if you like to ride.”