Chapter 19
“The heart will break, but broken live on.”
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
~Lord Byron
Members of the Ton never refused an invitation from a duke, especially the Duke of Hartwell. High Society knew better than to slight Hart.
That was all of High Society, but for two.
It wasn’t concern over his image that roiled through him—it was something more intense, more personal, that made his emotions surge and twist inside.
This night, with the intimate affair Hart agreed to host at the McQuoids’ behest, two invitees were missing; their absences were all the more notable as they had been dining partners.
Kilmartin—Lord Cassian, Hart’s loyal man-of-affairs.
He was charming…
And Fleur…
With his words, he spoke to my soul…
Under his purposeful strides, Hart’s heels landed angrily upon the thin ivory carpeted corridor as he walked.
Since yesterday, when she’d wept in his arms, Hart had been swallowed up with thoughts of her.
The memory of her anguish had torn him to pieces inside.
Sleep had escaped him. Instead, he had marched to his chambers, torturing himself with thoughts of Fleur and her lover.
He had tortured himself by reliving her breathless admissions…
“…I had never been kissed. Not by a stable-hand, nor a village lad and his kiss, it was like nothing I’ve ever known…He kissed me like I was the air he needed in his lungs…”
And then he had imagined Fleur in that other man’s embrace. A blistering something that promised to tear him asunder for the fact that it had been real and not just imaginings.
His blood simmering hot in his veins, Hart picked up his stride.
He had dedicated himself to being Fleur’s friend, to helping her and finding the gentleman who had taken her virtue.
Ah, you mean, who she gave her virtue to. The Devil delighted in reminding Hart that both these heinous things were true.
Avenging Fleur had previously distracted him from his own emotions. Now, with no enemy left to blame, Hart was forced to face the jealousy festering in him—raw and unbearable.
He’d given up on sleep around five o’clock in the morning and taken his mount for an early ride.
The feel of the stallion’s hooves drumming on the earth and the sharp rush of wind in Hart’s face hadn’t helped.
For once, there had been no distraction found in the form of his ledgers and reports—and certainly no thought of his progressing courtship of Lady Angela.
How could he spare a thought for the colorless lady when a spirited beauty like Fleur had affixed herself inside his head? Even when the chit was not about, she owned Hart’s thoughts.
“…It wasn’t just a kiss, Henry…”
Another man had availed himself of her sweet mouth.
“…It wasn’t just a kiss, Henry…”
Someone else had seated himself between her shapely thighs.
“…It wasn’t just a kiss, Henry…”
Another had filled his hands with her full breasts. Thrummed her nipples. Tasted them.
“It wasn’t just a kiss, Henry…”
“It wasn’t just a kiss, Henry…”
Hart slapped his hands over his ears again and again.
Why? Why in hell should he be so consumed by her?
It had nothing to do with friendship. As he’d determined from the very start of that preposterous suggestion at Rundell’s, there was nothing friendly between them.
Not when sexual tension glowed. Not when he wanted to lay her bare, bring his body over hers, and possess her over and over and over.
Again and again. Until he drove the memory of her lover’s touch from her body.
Purged thoughts of that man from her mind.
“…He did not force me…Yes, I was caught up in a whirlwind, but it was my choice, and I enjoyed all of it…”
But no, the Devil in his head delighted in pointing out. By the lady’s admission, she hadn’t enjoyed all of it.
“…I could have done without that part…”
The consummation, that most important part, the fiend had fumbled.
Of a certainty, if Hart had been Fleur’s first lover, she would have touched the moon and grabbed a few stars upon her eventual, gradual descent to earth.
Pain flared. His head pounded with relentless pressure.
But it hadn’t been Hart; rather, some stranger out there.
He cared—far more than he dared admit, even to himself.
Too much—it scared him to realize just how deeply he felt.
Hart stopped in his tracks. With a roar, he punched his fist against the Toile de Jouy wallpaper where a prancing gentleman seduced a lady at a lake. The crystals dangling from their gold sconces jingled.
Sweating, shaking, he stared crazily at the happy couple embroidered within the material.
What was happening to him? Why was he losing control?
Hart’s eyes slid shut. He didn’t recognize himself—first with confusion, then with a harsh realization. Fear wound tight in his chest, raw and overwhelming.
Shouldn’t he be disgusted with Fleur? Her attendance at Rutland’s masquerade, where she lost her virtue, seemed proof of the late duke’s warnings. The late duke’s voice rang loudly in his head. Instead, he wanted to tear down every man until he reached the one behind her dreamy, far-off expression.
Horrified, he straightened and did a slow circle. The row of liveried footmen lining the hall kept their gazes forward and stood firm and stiff and unmoving as the row of Hartwell armory on display, which led the way to the Hartwell Portrait Room.
His pulse drummed a sick, nervous beat in his veins as confusion and dread mingled inside himself.
Nothing was making sense anymore. Nothing had since he agreed to their friendship.
No, from even before that.
The pressure in his chest grew.
Back at Chilton’s auction, when the saucy minx commanded a monocle to look him in the eye, he’d been swimming upstream.
Hart dragged a shaky hand through his hair.
My God, this is what his father had warned of. High-spirited beauties that made a man forget himself. Lose himself.
“What are you doing here? You left during Lady Angela’s performance.”
And with that insolent question, Hart found the perfect source to vent his rage.
He watched Kilmartin’s bold, overly confident approach, the man walking as if he owned time, instead of answering to Hart.
With every step that brought the other man closer, Hart’s anger—and suspicions—grew.
She didn’t know the masked man’s name, but it could be Kilmartin. Despite his denial, could the gentleman be sure?
From the seeds of those dark suspicions, a horrifying possibility took root. And grew.
How many times had Hart found Kilmartin and Fleur meeting in the dark like secret lovers, stealing whatever time they could—last night and, now, this evening?
Hart knew the moment Fleur arrived and felt her presence, even when no one else looked back.
Trapped in conversation with Lady Angela and her family, he stole a quick glance at Fleur.
She didn’t see. Her focus was on the affable, classically handsome man in repose, shoulder to the doorjamb—Hart’s friend.
His features tightened.
Not a friend. As Fleur reminded him, Kilmartin was a paid employee first.
Damn Hart for forgetting that very important distinction and detail.
When Kilmartin reached him, all Hart wanted to do was kill Kilmartin.
“I don’t pay you to be late.” He didn’t hide his fury. “Where exactly have you been?”
Kilmartin stiffened. The man was clever and would catch Hart’s emphasis on their status: employer and servant. Kilmartin’s wit was why Hart kept him, plus his loyalty to the Tremaine family.
At least, he had been.
Kilmartin winged an insolent eyebrow. “Is there a problem, Hart?”
He studied his too-comfortable man-of-affairs. When had Kilmartin grown this confident? Another mistake. More weakness.
“I believe I’m the one who should be putting that question to you, Kilmartin.”
In the first inclination the other man had that he had overstepped a mark, Kilmartin drew his shoulders back and bent him a bow.
Fuck his bow.
“I asked you a question.” Hart’s jaw contracted. “I sent you to obtain a package and gather information. You return now, late for my private affair?”
“My apologies, Your Grace.”
Any other man would have noticed the near-indiscernible pause before Kilmartin spoke.
Hart wasn’t most men. He wasn’t even human.
But when you’re with Fleur, you feel that. And so many damned things. What else was this rapid descent into madness if not the most pathetic of human emotions? All of these feelings weakened him. Made him forget himself. It was why…
No, she was why Hart wasn’t seated at a damned event he himself was hosting, beside a woman he was supposed to be courting.
“I don’t want your apologies,” Hart said in silky tones. “I want to know where you’ve been.”
Kilmartin spoke carefully. “I was seeing to all the assignments you tasked me with, Hart. What else would I be doing?”
“I find it convenient that you and another one of my guests should both happen to miss the dinner portion of my damned gathering. A gathering I only agreed to in order to shut up my brother and save face for the wrong that the family did me.”
“You’ll have to remind me which guest, Your Grace.”
Hart’s eyelid twitched. Kilmartin sounded so damned bloody amused, Hart wanted to make the other man swallow his even, pearl-white teeth.
“The only other guest who failed to arrive,” Hart snapped.
“We almost did.”
We.
With a single word, Kilmartin united himself with Fleur.
Hart’s world went red. “Have a care, Kilmartin.” He issued that silky warning. “I’m not in a particularly good humor.”
“No, you aren’t. Not since your meetings with a certain lady.”
He didn’t take the other man’s bait. His man-of-affairs had gotten too comfortable. It was another error Hart had made and would correct.
Kilmartin scanned the area.
He narrowed his eyes. “Looking for someone?”
“Indeed.”
Hart stiffened.
“I’m verifying that Lady Tremaine or anyone else has come to check on your whereabouts. Your current absence will draw far wider whispers than that of mine and Lady Fleur’s late arrival.”
“Protecting my reputation,” Hart said frostily. “How good of you.”
Kilmartin pinned a hard stare on him. When he spoke, he did so with steady calm and control that Hart couldn’t seem to bloody manage anymore.
“Why don’t you stop dancing around what it is you’re dancing about, Hart, and say what is on your mind. This is about Lady Fleur.”
The hell it was. It couldn’t be. A fresh sweat moistened Hart’s skin, and a knot constricted in his stomach.
“You presume much, Kilmartin.”
The other man kept up his assault. “You employ me to give you truths.”
“I employ you to handle my accounts, business affairs, and private affairs I authorize. At no point did I make it part of your job to tell me anything about the young lady.”
“Actually, since you’re being so blasted irrational, permit me to remind you.
” Kilmartin took one bold, warning step forward, until their chests nearly bumped.
“Conducting research on the lady is exactly what you ordered me to do. Why did you send me to Rundell’s?
What inquiries did you direct me to make about Rutland’s? What—?”
“Enough!” Hart thundered.
Hart slammed his hands against Kilmartin’s chest.
And it didn’t matter that Kilmartin complied, or that Hart was being just as irrational as the composed man accused.
Bloody spoiling for a fight, Hart shoved him repeatedly. Through his onslaught, Kilmartin held stubbornly planted.
Kilmartin’s gaze moved to a point beyond Hart’s shoulder.
Wheeling away, Hart battled down a flood of irrational rage, his heart pounding hard. Fleur stood five paces off, looking hesitant, unnerved, and unquestionably guilty. She moved her stare between the two men before settling on Hart.
Tugging at his lapels, Hart stepped past Kilmartin.
“Ah, Lady Fleur. Wonder that you should be here now. We were just speaking of you.”
Fleur dampened her mouth, which only reminded Hart that another man had savored that plump flesh. “Were you?” She slanted a glance at Kilmartin.
Looking to Kilmartin for support, was she?
And from the corner of his eye, Hart saw him give it to Fleur in the form of a slight shake of his head.
Hart’s focus tightened. “Leave us.”
A pale Fleur bowed her head. “My apologies. I will—”
“Not you,” Hart said frostily.
Beside him, Kilmartin closed his eyes. “Do not be a bloody arse,” his man-of-affairs muttered.
An arse, was he?
Then the unthinkable occurred. Kilmartin shared a soft, silent look with Fleur, a brief tie that made Hart feel utterly alone—on the outside of what was occurring between them. Watching them, Hart’s fury became an agonizing, self-consuming fire, incinerating him entirely, repeated without end.
And then, with a deferential bow for Fleur alone, Kilmartin strode from the hall.
The minute they were alone, Fleur spoke in her soft, tender tones. To him? “Henry…”
His name. It was too bloody much.
“Where have you been, madam?”
The lady’s mouth moved. She cast a glance back in the direction she—her and Kilmartin?—had come.
“I…the Portrait Hall.”
That brought him up short. The Portrait Hall? He had been referring to her absence.
His brow furrowed.
Soft fingers brushed his sleeve, jolting him.
“Henry,” she began softly. “I would—”
Hart cut her off. “I would rather we not air your dirty laundry here, madam.” Sweeping his arm out, he motioned ahead. “Why don’t we return to the Portrait Hall?”