Chapter 10
“Friendship is love without wings.”
~Lord Byron
And just like that, Fleur and Hart, the Duke of Hartwell—Henry—became friends.
Though they managed to turn the whole affair into a chaotic mess with astonishing speed.
Friends didn’t share an embrace like the one that had nearly set Fleur on fire.
She had been kissed with a furious passion, but never with both the tenderness and then rabid hunger of Henry’s.
As for Henry? One wouldn’t know either way. With a detachedness that stung more than it should, he currently set to work righting her disheveled curls. Removing her combs. Tucking strands into place.
The entire time Henry tended Fleur, she stood motionless, certain she would live forever, high above the clouds. The act he performed was achingly sweet and intimate, albeit tempered some by his ducal lecture on how to conduct herself with Mr. Rundell.
Fleur tried in vain to follow him. She heard enough snippets here and there to gather that he feared she’d make a fool of him.
She floated back to earth.
Fleur blinked away tears.
What else would he expect of a lady who he constantly found in scandalous situations and now surrendered herself to passion?
Hart grazed his knuckles along her jaw. “Fleur?”
“I understand,” she said, staring defiantly—and mayhap more cowardly—at his cravat. “No quips. No jests. No insults—accidental or intentional. Do I have it all?”
“That isn’t what I was going to say.” He spoke with a gentleness she had believed him incapable of. “I wanted to…apologize. My behavior was reprehensible.”
The fact he hadn’t been calling her into question should make her feel better. Bizarrely, his apology proved worse.
“It was just a kiss, Henry.” Similar in ways, and yet so different than the other one she had shared. “Nor are you the first gentleman I’ve shared an embrace with.”
Henry had embraced Fleur as if she was both a cherished treasure and a drug he could not get enough of. But only her masked sweetheart, whom she had spent most of the ball with discussing literature, praised her wit and then quoted verse to extol her until her heart sang.
And yet, time had marched on from that night so fast, becoming more and more distant. Fleur found herself struggling to call forth that night. And she wanted to. But she didn’t have a face or a name, only a memory, which was why the man before her was the one who was somehow taking his place.
Lost in thought, Fleur was slow to notice the heavy quiet.
When she lifted a blank gaze, cold washed over her.
Muscles throbbed along Henry’s jawline. His eyes had narrowed to pinpricks. He wore the look of a man ready to do violence.
No. It’s disgust you see there.
Nausea roiled in her stomach.
Unlike another man, Henry had been horrified at Fleur being well-read. Of course he would be repulsed by her confession. What else would he think about her after she had admitted to having kissed before, let alone that she had lost her virtue against a shelf in Lord and Lady Rutland’s library?
Her shame was catching up—slow, inevitable, and crushing.
As she awaited his customary scorn, a fresh wave of tears threatened.
“I’ll be along shortly with Mr. Rundell,” he said quietly.
Fleur stared after his retreating frame. He could have summoned the entire staff and passersby outside with a single word or quick snap. But he gave her time to compose herself. No, he did more than that. He preserved her dignity.
He wasn’t willing to let things become strange between them. And she threatened to break the fragile bond they had just before.
“Henry?” she called.
He came to a halt and looked backward.
Fleur fisted the front of her skirts before she caught his stare on her troubled movements. She stopped herself. “I don’t want our relationship to change.”
His pause was eternal. “Don’t you mean our friendship?”
A loose grin played at his lips, and, with that, the pressure in her chest loosened. Her smile returned.
Hart gave a playful wink and headed into the silversmith’s workroom as if he owned the shop.
The moment he left, Fleur consulted the nearest mirror. She smoothed trembling hands over her face. With her swollen mouth and rosy-red cheeks, there could be absolutely no doubting what she had been doing out here with the Duke of Hartwell.
He was…protecting her. Warmth blossomed in her chest.
Some moments later, Henry returned with the crotchety proprietor.
As Henry and the lanky, sour-faced Mr. Rundell returned to his showroom floor, the silversmith kept a wary gaze on Fleur.
Through a blush that burned, she managed her best smile and waved.
His scowl eased—some.
“I have decided Lady Fleur and I may share the shop,” Hart said.
Mr. Rundell and Fleur spoke at the same time.
“As you wish, Your…”
“No, we can’t.”
This time, Mr. Rundell looked at both of them like they were mad.
This improved Fleur’s mood towards the proprietor considerably.
Given that men were always assigning the titles “problem,” “mad,” or “emotional” to women only.
It began to look as if the slovenly-dressed, angry-looking old man hated everyone.
And what a contrast he made next to the taller, well-formed, well put together duke—in some part, anyway.
Henry looked at her.
Both men did.
It was hard to say which of the surly pair was more put out with her.
“Fleur?”
No, it wasn’t difficult. Definitely Henry. His tone was as taut as a plucked bowstring. He wore his finest frown. Though he’d certainly believe it was his fiercest one.
“Yes, Henry?”
“I thought you had business to see to.” His words came out in the same sharp manner Fleur’s mother used when Quillon was…well, being Quillon.
“I do.”
He stared forever at Fleur. “And?”
She stared forever back at him. “And it is a matter that requires discretion and privacy.”
When he shook his head in confusion as only a man could manage, Fleur sighed.
She made a point with her gaze.
“Hell, Fleur. Am I supposed to understand what you’re saying without your saying anything?”
Apparently, she was as bad at conveying unspoken meaning as he was at understanding silent gestures.
“You cannot be here, Henry.”
“I…” Henry stopped himself abruptly. “Ah. I understand.”
Relief filled her. “Oh, thank you. I really didn’t want to have to say it aloud and be rude,” she confessed.
“Any ruder, you mean, young lady?” Rundell groused.
“Lady Fleur,” Henry said, cutting in before things escalated, “Mr. Rundell and his staff are the soul of discretion. Anything said or done here will not leave the walls of his establishment.”
With those words, Henry proved he hadn’t understood after all.
Oh, dear. She would have to tell him.
“This unsufferable chit!” A reprieve came in the form of Mr. Rundell. “Calling me a bloody gossip, is she?”
“No, that was not my worry at—”
“I’m the bloody soul of discretion!”
“Not at this moment,” she gently pointed out for all their sakes. “Given how loudly you are—”
Strange, garbled noises emerged from the old man’s throat.
And proof that Henry was deserving of the title “friend,” he positioned himself between Fleur and the blustering proprietor.
Mr. Rundell’s gaunt, bony face darkened to an alarming shade of red. “In all my years…all of them…the bloody au-au-dacity…” He spat to finish his sentence.
Fleur huddled closer against Henry’s back. “I fear he’s having an apoplexy.” She stole a glance about; by their expressions, Mr. Rundell’s staff shared her concern.
“If anyone could drive a man to his death, it would be you,” Henry muttered.
“That is unkind.”
Henry cast her a glance over his enormous shoulder. “Not as unkind as killing Rundell.”
This was really enough—the shop owner’s reaction. Her letting—of all people—the Duke of Hartwell smooth things over. Her hiding behind Hartwell.
Fleur stepped out from his shadow and raised her voice over his impressive rant. “Mr. Rundell?”
“What do you think you are doing, minx?”
Henry could command his way out of anything, but when it came to proud Mr. Rundell, who cared even less about his rank than Fleur, he was useless.
Ignoring Henry, she swept forward. “This has all been a misunderstanding. I am not concerned about your discretion.”
That stopped the gentleman mid-expletive. “You’re not?”
“Far from it,” she said, shaking her head. “Do I strike you as one who is worried about scandals and gossip?”
That penetrated.
Creases formed at Mr. Rundell’s brow.
“Why, if anything, the duke is more likely to fear his reputation.” She trilled a laugh. “Isn’t that right, Henry?”
The jeweler put narrowed eyes on the gentleman in question.
A low growl rumbled so deep from within Henry that Fleur felt the reverberations within her own belly.
Clearing her throat, she headed off another explosion—this time, coming for Henry. “As I said, I implicitly trust you and, naturally, your staff.”
“How lovely of you, my lady.” The faintest hint of amusement skimmed his gravelly voice.
But there was amusement, and she was back to being “my lady.”
“Who exactly is it you are asking to leave, Fleur?” Henry asked, a warning in his voice.
This was going to be awkward.
Fleur kept on going, right over his question.
“Henry, you might not know this, but most of Mr. Rundell and Mr. Bridges’ staff are, in fact, family.
Based on their striking resemblance, the dashing gentleman nearest and very protective of Mr. Rundell would be his nephew, Mr. Edmund Waller Rundell.
” Henry followed her gaze to the tall, well-dressed man with a smile he fought to repress.
She had a glimpse of what the elder Mr. Rundell had been like when he was the younger gentleman’s age.
Fleur nodded and smiled in acknowledgment.
“The other comely gentleman there, who also shows hints of Mr. Rundell, is none other than his sister’s son, Mr. John Gawler Bridge.”