For Tremaine—and only for Tremaine—Hart had broken one of the duke’s hard and fast rules; Hart loved his brother.
His love for Jeremy and a desire to expand their power over the seas led him to believe that marriage to Miss Meghan McQuoid-Smith, of inferior origins, would bring more benefits than not.
In the end, Hartwell had escaped a disastrous union with the empty-headed tart—but in a public way. One he could not forgive. Nor forget. On the way to the altar, she had run off with the Earl of Culross, jilted Hart, and worse, made a bloody fool of him. It could have been worse—he could have actually married into the shameful lot.
What he could not escape, however, was the Church Bell seated at his right.
“Hartwell?”
He kept his gaze forward.
“Hartwell?” she whispered more loudly this time.
He scowled Lady Fleur to silence.
She proved impervious. Or stupid.
“If you did not love Meghan, then why can’t our families be at peace?”
Even her cousin, whom he had been slated to wed, had known better than to speak when given that look.
“Odd, you speak about peace,” he said, speaking through tight lips. “Something tells me you wouldn’t recognize quiet if I placed it in your palm and folded your fingers around it.”
That managed to silence her.
For a moment.
“There’s a difference between peace and quiet, Hartwell.”
“They are naturally paired.”
“Not this time.”
Certainly not.
He loathed the McQuoids. They were a loathsome lot, given to scandals, displays of emotion, and loud laughter.
And yet, he found himself diverted by the lady’s fearlessness.
Horrified—but also diverted.
And it was not simply the single golden coil Lady Fleur’s maid had left dangling at her mistress’s cream white shoulder, though that worked to highlight the lady’s gentle curves. Curves that had gone unnoticed by him—until now. Now, he took in the soft swell of her bosom. Peaches on a plate were how the decolletage was known. It was a bloody silly name to ascribe to a woman’s bust or the silly fripperies they donned. But in this case, with the pink blush over Lady Fleur’s warm olive tones, he understood the descriptor and appreciated it on this blasted woman.
“Why are you looking at me, Hartwell?” she said in a whisper. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
If Hart lied, she’d pick those pearly white rows. He knew it.
If he told her he’d indeed been staring, and a great deal lower, she’d run. For that reason, he briefly considered the truth.
“Do you know what I am thinking about, Fleur?”
Wide-eyed, she shook her head; that curl slipped in the crevice of her breasts, between her low, square-cut, but lace-trimmed neckline.
“You’ve done an impressive job in collecting the names of those who would be in attendance.”
“And?”
“I suspect you’re not here for any actual book. That you were sent by your family to try and smooth relations between our—”
