“You are saying it is me who claimed you at Rutland’s?”
Claimed her…
It was he who had made love to her…
“We met in disguise,” she uttered softly. “Neither of us recognized one another’s identity. But it was our destiny to be together that night.”
“Destiny,” he stated flatly.
She felt the fresh chill of unease, but reminded herself that all of this was new to him, the ideas of love and destiny and fate. She would teach him so much if he but let her.
“Madam, the only woman I took that night was a French courtesan who was no more a virgin than I was,” he said bluntly.
“J’ai parlé français ce soir-là, Henry.”I spoke French to you that night. “Mon cœur bat pour toi.”My heart beats for you.
Surely he remembered rasping those desperate words against her breast.
But his gaze stayed cold, unknowing, without even a flicker of recognition.
“Why don’t we play a guessing game, my dear?”
If he gave her the chance, she would have whispered she’d never play a game with him when he was this cold.
“You are with child.”
She froze. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest.
A cold smile crossed his lips.
Through the cloud of shock, she registered the hate in his eyes.
Fleur was already shaking her head.
“You’re not?” he sounded surprised.
“N-No.” But her protestation emerged as a whisper and was in vain. “That is…I…am…”
“Convenient.” Henry drummed his fingertips across his opposite arms. “You must say, the timing of it all is rather serendipitous, is it not?”
A fresh chill wound along her back. “I-I can see how it seems that way.” She hadn’t wanted to tell him like this, with him pulling the information out of her and making it seem like she was some sort of shameful schemer.
Henry chuckled. “Pointing out I don’t have any true friends. Reminding me that Kilmartin is my employee first. And Tremaine is my brother.”
Oh, God.
“I didn’t….that’s not what…” Fleur held a hand to her aching heart. She had hurt him. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Correction. It isn’t what you implied, madam. It is what you said. And on the heels of those reminders, you positioned yourself as my one true…” His lip curled into a derisive sneer. “Friend. Now it makes sense. To get yourself closer to me.”
Fleur clutched him by the arms and dug her nails in. “Never,” she rasped, trying to shake it into him, but he was as immobile and impenetrable as an oak. “I was trying to point out that we were the same in that our relationships are forged by blood and not choice. But—”
He shrugged off her hold. “It is all right, Fleur. Everyone wants something from me.”
“Not me,” she spoke quietly.
“Don’t you?” He put her through a punishing once-over that reduced Fleur to mere inches tall.
“I would say foisting your bastard off on me is the biggest ask anyone has put to me yet.”
