“I-I know.”
Henry dragged a fist through his hair. But then, as dukes did, he hurriedly set those neatly combed locks to right.
Please God, do not let me cry.
And somehow, as he straightened his garments and left her in yet another stolen room, Fleur had one of her prayers answered—she did not cry.
“Je te suivrai partout,” she whispered.
I will follow you everywhere…
Only when he left did she let the tears fall.
Chapter 25
“Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.”
~Lord Byron
For the first time in his life, Henry Edward William Charles Tremaine, the Marquess of Dorchester and 11th Duke of Hartwell, didn’t care about the scandal he was about to cause.
There hadn’t been a scandal Hart himself been responsible for. Not entirely anyway.
He’d been jilted by a bride—thank God, he had only just come to believe in—which caused him a headache and put gossip on him. But not his fault.
Then there had been the whole Byron bruhaha earlier in the year, which he’d allow might have been some of his fault, a sliver, Fleur’s, and mostly Byron’s. After all, they didn’t call him Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know for just any reason.
But cutting out of a ducal box without warning in the middle of an opera and only returning to beg off for the night, and the whole courtship would be a scandal that shook the ton and set tongues wagging, and he didn’t bloody care. At least for him. He was just beginning to embrace the whole scandal business, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still honorable. There was Lady Angela. He couldn’t leave her in the lurch, not without an explanation.
As it turned out, when he arrived and explained to Lady Angela that his heart belonged to another and that he must follow it, the lady smiled, patted his hand, and said, “I know.” Lady Angela also explained it was all really a relief, as they wouldn’t suit. She could never marry a gentleman who didn’tshare her love of the theatre. “It is just a wonder the lady does not, as you could not take your eyes from her the entire night.”
That was when Hart realized it had been so obvious to everyone that he was head over heels in love with Fleur McQuoid—even a stranger had noticed before him.
Which was also when he glanced at Fleur—and saw she, Kilmartin, Linnie, and Tremaine had left.
“Go,” Lady Angela urged. She freed Hart of guilt for loving another, but warned he’d be unforgiven if he ruined Linicius’s grand rescue of Julia in Act III.
And so Hart left.
He did so with a jaunt that had never been in his step.
He wore the goofy smile of the besotted and felt lighter than ever.
There would be a scandal, and it didn’t even matter one whit.
The moment he returned to his once lonely, never-to-be-lonely again residence, now that he would have Fleur…and their babe, he collected everything he needed to collect.
Because, as Lady Angela pointed out, it had been obvious all along—Fleur was his destiny.
As he was hers.
And deep down, Hart himself had realized it, too. The truth had found its way to the darkest corners of his heart and soul that he had kept closely guarded, wrapped in locks and chains to protect himself, and Fleur had found the key.
Of course, she had. She was Fleur. There was nothing the stalwart, exceptional hoyden couldn’t do. That included teaching a cold, heartless beast like him not to love again, but to love for the first time.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could stop him from reaching her now. The longing seared through his veins like fire.
Nothing and no one could or would ever come between them again.
