Chapter 15
“Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.”
~Lord Byron
He was going to kill someone.
Hart took in the pair of Fleur and Kilmartin seated side by side on the balustrade, with her curled up close, her face tucked against the other man’s bloody, big shoulder.
A hard pounding filled his chest.
Not someone. Kilmartin.
He was going to kill the affable bastard.
And here he’d been besieged with panic as pandemonium broke out around Fleur.
The stalwart hellion—who could have battled all the King’s Guard and won—appeared pale and forlorn, was what gossips around Hart were saying.
He hadn’t seen Fleur whisked off, only the tails of the McQuoids as they rushed after her.
And the whole time, while Hart had been stuck with Lady Angela, completing the damned foolish steps of the Spanish Dance.
Through all that, all of Hart’s worrying about Fleur, the chit had been outside with his damned man-of-affairs.
Through a red haze of rage, he swept his stare over them. He surveyed her gown, making sure nothing was out of place. If there was, Kilmartin would lose fingers and teeth.
He eyed her mouth—the same sweet mouth Hart had kissed three days earlier—and the way her flesh trembled.
He stopped on the track of tears left on her cheeks.
His stomach knotted.
He bloody despised tears. They were, at best, pitiful symbols of a person’s weakness.
At best, they were cleverly wielded weapons aimed at weakening and getting someone—usually a woman—what they wanted.
Given his loathing for those pathetic drops, he should be relieved she saved them for someone else.
It was, after all, Kilmartin’s job to deal with all the unpleasantness Hart didn’t want to.
But Fleur’s tears? They were neither. Not if she had stolen outside and buried her face in Kilmartin’s bloody broad shoulder, with no witnesses around.
Wrong.
There was one witness—Hart.
He tightened his hands into white-knuckled fists.
Fleur cleared her throat.
“Henry. I wasn’t feeling well. Lord Cassian checked after me.”
Lord Cassian, was he?
Hart found a healthy target for his rage. “Kilmartin was checking on you because he saw your family’s suspicious departure and knows his job.”
His friend made a disapproving sound. “That’s not in good form, Hartwell.”
Hart swung a black glare on the gentleman. “Get out.”
Bloody Kilmartin did not heed the order.
The deuced handsome, charming fellow instead looked to Fleur.
To Fleur! For permission? To confirm—after she’d spent unknown minutes alone with Kilmartin—whether she felt safe with Hart.
Hart’s nostrils flared, and a searing heat ripped through his veins.
Then Fleur lifted her watery gaze to Kilmartin. Then, even bloody worse, she gave a small, near-indiscernible nod.
The two—Fleur and Hart’s friend—communicated in a hush that suggested deep familiarity. No, not just familiarity: intimacy. Theirs was a shared lovers’ language that required no words.
“Unless you are looking for new employment, I suggest you leave immediately,” Hart managed to say with a silk smoothness belied by the undertows of rage channeling through him.
Kilmartin departed; his bow, before leaving, was directed solely at Fleur. When he had gone, Hart swung the full extent of his anger on the sole person who remained.
“I asked you a question,” he said. “What was—What is this all about?” Hart slashed a hand furiously at the air.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be clearer, Your Grace.”
Your Grace, was he? While Kilmartin had become Lord Cassian?
Fleur started to leave, like the matter was settled, like he knew what the bloody matter even was.
Hart caught her lightly by the arm. “Why did you leave the floor?” Was it because she hadn’t wanted to see him with Lady Angela, any more than he had wanted to see her with bloody Markham?
“I felt unwell,” she said, steadily as sunshine and just as bright.
Somehow, he managed not to snort.
“What ailment complains you? Jealous you didn’t have all eyes on you for once, Lady Fleur?” he said.
“Actually, I very much enjoyed being spared from society’s attention.” Fleur smiled. “In fact, might I suggest you return to the lady, and the both of you can continue on with your performance.”
His performance. His brows lifted. “I bloody walked across the ballroom and danced with the lady.”
Twice and in so doing made a public declaration, which…blast and damn, seemed like a good idea—at some point. At what point that was, he couldn’t say.
“You stomped off to find a more agreeable partner right after you gave me your big, nasty glower for everyone to see.”
The bloody gall of her!
“I do not stomp, madam,” he gritted out.
“Maybe not usually, but this time you did, and in front of a crowd, which made it all the more memorable.”
She accused him of making a scene?
Fleur gave him the most bloody infuriating, patronizing smile; he wanted to kiss it clear from her face.
“What of you? As hearty as any ox…”
She sputtered her indignation. “An ox?”
“Collapsing shamefully and wantonly into Markham’s waiting arms…”
Fleur was going to kill him. Her flashing eyes said it. And he deserved it, behaving like a brute. Hart knew these things but couldn’t stop himself.
“…and then running off with my bloody man-of-affairs!”
“Here, I believed Lord Cassian followed me as a service to you.”
Curse her for catching his inconsistency and himself for not knowing why bloody Kilmartin followed her out.
Fleur batted her eyes because, of course, she did. She knew the effect that fluttering had on him and the rest of men everywhere.
“Trying to tempt me now, you little flirt?” he laughed coldly.
Did she hear how she left him half-mad? Did it bring her satisfaction? He was bent on a bloody knock-down bout.
“You couldn’t stand, all to snatch attention from my future bride.”
His petty accusation sucked the air out of the gardens.
Fight with me. Curse me.
Sadness glittered in her eyes.
Hart’s fingers quivered and curled into balls.
“You’re a bastard, H-Henry.”
That slight tremble undid him.
She started to go.
Did she truly think to march off without saying any more than that? Leaving it there, with the last words between them being his reprehensible accusation and his mentioning Lady Angela would be his bride.
At least, she might. He had issued an invitation to the Duke and Duchess of Talbert’s family to attend the dinner party he was being forced to host with the McQuoids.
But then, his whole dance with the striking beauty, he had obsessed over Fleur.
Had her swoon been pretend or affected for one gentleman, that soulmate she had spoken of?
Was Markham the sweetheart? St. James? Who? The bloody list went on.
Whereas Fleur? When he mentioned the courtship of Lady Angela, she invited him to court the lady further, to divert Society’s attention from Fleur.
Hart dragged both unsteady hands through his hair.
He called to her just as she arrived at the door.
“Fleur?”
She stilled with her fingers on the press-handle. The moon’s light threw an ethereal glow along the lady’s narrow shoulders and played off the proud, queen-like stretch of her neck.
Hart held himself tight.
“Are you all right?” he finally asked, wishing he had asked the minute he walked outside.
Hart dug his nails into his palms. He thought she would leave and knew, for his churlish behavior, she very well should.
Her nod came hesitantly, and she didn’t leave.
Despite him being an utter cad, she wanted to stay, but she was too proud to do so without him giving her a reason—as was her right.
She didn’t tolerate his insufferableness the way everyone else did, and perhaps that was why he hungered for her company.
“I am sorry,” he murmured gently.
It was the first time in his life that he had ever spoken those three words. Dukes didn’t apologize. They were infallible. Incapable of wrong, and only capable of being wronged by one’s inferiors, had been such a lesson or another that the late duke had imparted.
At this moment, as Fleur let her hands fall to her side and faced him, Hart realized his father had been wrong. Hart didn’t feel weaker for expressing remorse. He experienced a sense of greatness and relief—his sincere apology had kept Fleur with him.
“Truce?”
“Are we at war, Henry?” Fleur canted her head. Her gold curls bounced on her shoulders.
“Sometimes it feels that way.”
“Not to me. You are the one who cannot decide whether you hate or tolerate me.”
He frowned. “I don’t merely tolerate you, Fleur. I like you.”
And there it was. He liked a woman—this woman. His need for her was not purely sexual attraction. He enjoyed being in her company, and that went against the first and most important lesson the previous Duke of Hartwell beat into him.
“You like me?” Letting out a soft, sad little laugh, Fleur shook her head. “Then I should hate to see how you are with someone you don’t like.”
Her barbed lance struck—as it should.
Fleur wandered along the terrace and stopped at the seat she previously occupied with Kilmartin. She stared out.
Hart ran his gaze across her somber figure. Had Kilmartin awaited an invitation or swept over as if it was his right, a right that didn’t belong to Kilmartin or any bloody man but Hart, goddamn it.
When he joined her, Fleur gave no indication she registered his presence.
With her stare trained outward, he took in the other details of her appearance, details he formerly overlooked.
Impeccably beautiful, as she always was, he now saw the dark circles under her beguiling eyes. They made the big, greenish-brown pools a stark shade within a wan face. Her exquisitely crafted features were stretched and strained.
A cold knot formed in his gut.
“Fleur?”
She looked at him. Those wrinkles of sadness at the corners of her eyes deepened.
“Are you all right?”
Was she all right?
Fleur couldn’t be further from “all right” than had she hopped to another planet.