But if Hart simply wanted the book so he could tuck it away, forgotten, on his shelf, just for the sake of having and not reading and appreciating… God help him, his was a crime worthy of whipping at the Cart’s Tail.
“Hart?” she whispered.
He slid his focus from the bidding action to meet Fleur’s gaze and waited.
“Did you purchase it for her?”
The dark bold slashes of his eyebrows came together.
“Your…”Wife. She couldn’t say that. Not when doing so would remind him that Meghan had jilted him and accounted for the tension between Hart and Fleur.
He stared at her quizzically.
“Your future bride.”
One side of his hard mouth kicked up. “My bride will not read such material.”
Fleur couldn’t tell whether that was a smirk or joking grin.
“Ah, that’s right.” She tipped her head back. “She’ll readDebrett’s.”
His previous half-smile became a full one. “Obviously.” He winked.
It was in that instant Fleur came to the decision men should be banned from fluttering their lashes so. It confused the senses and made even the most disagreeable (that being, Hartwell), agreeable.
“Gentlemen, we continue with Lot Number 621. The illuminated work of poet and artist, William Blake.The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”
Fleur pressed her knee lightly against Hart’s.
“Because you wouldn’t allow it, or because you will not marry a woman with an expansive appreciation of literature?”
“Both.”
Hart returned to the heated back and forth between a pair of bidders—the matter settled.
For him, anyway.
Hart spoke of some illustrious, impeccable lady, too lily-white to ever dare read a tale of passion.
Someone not like Fleur, who would read whatever book she pleased—and did—and sneaked out to attend forbidden balls, and lost her head and senses to a charming rogue.
Not that she wanted to be a candidate. Good God, no. She would rather chew off her own toenails.
“Why could you possibly wantDon Juan?” she asked while he attended the bidding.
“Given the scandalous nature of the work, I should be the one asking that of you.”
His mouth twitched like it didn’t know what it wanted to express more—disdain or amusement. Both were unforgiveable.
“No, you shouldn’t,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. “I, as a woman, have as much a right to read any work of literature as you or any man.”
“Not if you give a jot about your reputation, which…” He glanced her over. “Given your history, you clearly do not.”
How dare he shame her and make her feel even a little guilty about her stolen night of passion? Why should she or any woman, for that matter, be held to such exacting standards, when he and his fellow man everywhere were free to conduct themselves without any censure or oversight?
He thought that her greatest sin was she attended the Rutland’s masquerade? She could only begin to imagine his horror were he to learn the full extent of her transgressions. They two were oil and water. Fire and ice.
She nibbled at her lip. When thought of in those terms, her and Hart’s butting heads made complete sense.
