Chapter 18 #2
Had we never lov’d sae blindly…”
Fleur fought back a giggle—and failed.
“Never met—or never parted—
We had ne’er been broken-hearted…”
And before she burst out laughing completely this time, Fleur edged out of the Music Room.
Clamping her hands over her mouth, she ran off.
She raced past Henry’s elite golden-uniformed footmen, lining halls that went on forever.
Her breathing came in short, ragged spurts until her lungs ached and her side hurt. Until the exertion became too much.
Fleur collapsed against the panel. With unsteady hands, she scrabbled at the handle and let herself inside. Shoving the door closed hard behind her, she slumped against the sturdy oak door and laughed at the utter ridiculousness of it all.
But even she heard the fragile, fraying thread by which she hung, and then naturally it snapped.
Through her misery, the hall of overbearing, austere, regal, almost-royal Tremaine ancestors all peered down the lengths of patrician noses at her.
Their glacial gazes shouted through the centuries: you are unworthy of a Hartwell.
He deserves better. He will have better.
Fleur buried her face behind her hands. A sob ripped from her throat.
How could she survive this?
Any of it.
She would bear Henry a child, while another woman, an honorable, respectable one whom he could actually respect and admire, would share his name and his bed and life.
Fleur hugged herself and cried until she had nothing left to cry, and then breathed deeply.
It was enough. She brushed at her cheeks. Tears would solve nothing. As Mary had pointed out, Fleur needed to form a plan…for her future. For her and Henry’s child.
Rap-Rap-Rap.
Heart beating fast, she turned to the knocking.
As only the owner of this almost-castle in London could, the person on the other side pressed the handle without permission. Fleur’s breath faltered. Henry.
The moment she turned, her enthusiasm drained away. “Oh.”
Lord Cassian flashed a roguish half-grin that had likely earned him dozens of poor ladies’ hearts. “I have that effect on ladies.”
“Now that I don’t believe,” she said.
“Oh, no. It’s quite true. Being a second-born son and a man-of-affairs to the powerful Duke of Hartwell means I’m living in his very big shadow.”
Fleur stared at him with sadness and regret. How much easier everything would have been had she fallen for Lord Cassian, who didn’t take himself too seriously and didn’t care that she was a McQuoid.
“Then, why do you do it?” she quietly asked.
Lord Cassian took that as an invitation to close the door behind them. “Work for Hart?”
It occurred to her that, as recently as this afternoon, she risked ruination by being alone with him twice now. Being ruined granted her many more freedoms.
She nodded.
“We have worked together a lifetime. He hired me when I was ten. He was twelve.”
Fleur stared at him, waiting for a grin and a laugh—that did not come. “You are being serious.”
“Deadly so.”
“He hired you…?”
“When he was twelve, yes.”
“For…what?”
Lord Cassian clasped his hands behind him and joined her in the middle of the room. “To protect Captain Tremaine.”
Her mind whirled. “Protect him? But you were a lad yourself. What should he have needed protection from?”
Henry’s friend and servant stared ahead.
Fleur followed his fixed gaze to the portrait that had earned all his focus.
She canted her head.
“You did not know the previous Duke of Hartwell.”
She racked her memory before realizing Lord Cassian’s wasn’t a question.
“The last duke raised Hart in his image. He ingrained his beliefs about status, worth, and taught him to uphold the family’s honor above all else.”
“He excelled beyond his wildest dreams.”
Fleur nursed her bitterness in the open.
“Hart’s father was a harsh, cold, cruel man. He sent the duchess away and kept his sons, but only one of whom he wanted.” Lord Cassian spoke with a grave somberness, and every admission humbled her. “Hart took care to protect Tremaine from Hartwell, which is why he encouraged the friendship with…”
“My family,” she absently finished for him.
The love Henry had for Jeremy, that devotion to protect him above all else, even himself…offered a look at the father he would one day be. Her throat moved. And the fear she had about telling him, going to him for his help…seemed possible.
Lord Cassian filled the quiet. “Forgive me. These are not my opinions.”
Fleur cut him off with a gentle smile. “I am not offended. We are scandalous.” Her throat contracted. “But I am grateful we were able to show Tremaine the love he deserved and needed.”
Henry had not been so fortunate.
“Hartwell raised Hart in his image. He ingrained his beliefs about status and worth and taught him to uphold the family’s honor above all else.
The only thing Hartwell cared about was his heir.
He saw Hart as an extension of him, just as Hartwell saw himself as an extension of all the dukes before him. ”
Grief flowed over her, leaving her numb. Henry had been raised, not as a human with a heart, dreams, and feelings, but as an object.
Lord Cassian wasn’t anywhere near done breaking her heart.
“At the age of five, the late duke kept Hart to fourteen-hour workdays.”
Fourteen hours? Fleur’s eyes slid shut. She and her siblings, regardless of age, had played all manner of games and gotten themselves into terrible mischief.
Even Dallin, as the Viscount Crichton and future Earl of Abington, took part in the McQuoid fun.
Through it, Jeremy Tremaine, Linnie’s husband and Hart’s brother, had joined in their ranks.
And more, what had made the Duke of Hartwell this way?
She had marveled that Henry was related to a playful Jeremy. She had wondered what made him this way.
Now, she knew.
While children were out there being children, Hart had been stuck indoors at a desk, seated at the right hand of his cruel sire.
Her stomach turned over.
Here, she had mocked him for not being fun like Jeremy. Now she imagined him as a lad, near her nieces’ and nephews’ ages.
“He was just a babe,” she said in a whisper.
“He wasn’t, Lady Fleur. That is what I’m trying to impart to you—Hart was never a babe or child. He was born to serve one purpose and one purpose only—to serve the Hartwell line. That is all he knew. The idea of friendship and affection was foreign to him—until you.”
Until her…
Hope kindled in her heart—but only for a moment.
“Lady Fleur?”
She lifted her gaze.
“When he loves, he loves deeply. There’s only been one recipient of that gift—Tremaine—and Hart would deny it to even himself.”
Fleur drew an unsteady breath. “He cannot love me if that is what you’re suggesting.”
Lord Cassian bestowed a tender smile upon her. “You cannot undo in weeks what the last duke took thirty years to build.”
“There is Lady Angela—”
“Who is not his betrothed.” Yet. You are running out of time. “You need to tell him, Lady Fleur. If you don’t, you will regret it, and I have known Hart long enough to promise you he will too.”
Fleur searched her stare over his face, looking for indications that he knew she carried Henry’s bairn and found none.
“Thank you, Lord Cassian,” she uttered softly.
He bowed. “I am your servant.”
Fleur followed his retreat until he had gone. Then she moved over to the six-foot-long, gold-leaf frame containing a likeness of Henry’s father.
The roots ran strong between them. They shared the same hard, angular planes and dark coloring, but any similarity ended at their eyes. Not the shades of their irises, but the ruthless flash in the late duke’s punishing stare.
A cold fell over her, and she rubbed her arms to ward off a chill. Fleur ventured away from Henry’s father and took in all the other stoic ancestors around him.
Fleur stopped in her tracks and stood there, frozen, lost in another embellished frame.
From the way he held himself, to the hard look in his eyes, this Tremaine wore the same icy disdain as all the others before him, but for one exception—this Tremaine was a child. A lad.
And not just any child—Henry.
A wrenching pain pierced Fleur’s heart. She pictured a young Henry trapped under that monster’s thumb and starved of any affection.
What hope had he ever stood? The fact that Henry had secured Jeremy’s safety from that same fate proved Henry possessed the heart his predecessor lacked. But who had been there for Henry?
No one.
He had been…and still was all alone.
She wanted to climb inside the canvas and pluck Henry free, and bring him back to the McQuoids—to Fleur—where he could know the same warmth and love Jeremy had with the McQuoids.
Jeremy had the McQuoids.
And Henry…
Fleur drew closer to the portrait towering above her. Stretching up, she traced the cold canvas of his black leather buckled shoes. “You had no one,” she whispered, her voice aching.
How many times could a heart break? In how many different ways could it be shattered?
If Henry married Lady Angela, he would merely continue the cycle of empty, power-forged unions established by the Dukes of Hartwell before him. But it shouldn’t be that way—not for him; not for anyone.
Kilmartin’s guidance rang in her head more clearly; Fleur felt the bands of self-misery and regret lessen.
She wanted Henry’s love, and whether or not he wanted hers in return, she would do what McQuoids always did when it came to matters of the heart—she would fight for him.