“I’m not quoting Lord Byron. I’m quoting the lyric he used from a beloved Scottish song, ‘The Jolly Beggar.’”
“Of course you are,” he muttered.
She launched into a discordant, slightly pitchy song that did her no favors.
“There was a jolly beggarman.
Came tripping o’er the plain
He came unto a farmer’s door
A lodging for to gain…
The farmer’s daughter she came down
And viewed him cheek and chin
She says “He is a handsome man
I pray you take him in…”
“Thank you for that rousing performance,” he cut in, sparing her from the next lyrics. Sparing himself. He was sparing himself.
Fleur beamed her enormous smile and gave her fingers a little waggle. “Fear not, Your Grace. We have but one dinner, one ball, and a trip to the theatre. Then we will be free of one another.”
Hart was counting down the minutes.
Chapter 8
“For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.”
Lord Byron
The next morning, Fleur took a hackney to Rundell and Bridge. She had dressed in her finest; nothing less would do for the King’s goldsmith and jeweler, and she was pleased with her efforts. She wore a deep, satin-lined lavender muslin cloak over her matched lavender day dress. Her lavender satin capote bonnet, ornamented with bows and crystal beads along the brim, provided deep cover. If anyone lingered too long on Fleur, they would be too taken by the sprigged lilac and white silk roses sewn on the crown to notice her as the wearer.
Not that Fleur required such elaborate concealment.
The highest-ranking peers who frequented the renowned establishment would have returned only three hours after the balls and assemblies. On the quiet streets, young men and women swept stoops, and delivery men brought packages for the shops lining Bond Street.
As Fleur’s rented carriage rattled along the cobblestones, Fleur’s token from the Rutland ball burned a hole in the pocket-slit she had—since that night—sewn into all her gowns. She always kept it close. She felt it pulse against her thigh, saying:Fleur, the longer you wait, the longer it will take to find him. Hurry now. Do not tarry.
And yet, she could think of nothing but her encounter with the Duke of Hartwell last night—and what she happened to overhear.
“…They are vulgar and crude. Those are not the worst grievances against them…”
Though he fancied himself God’s gift, the duke spoke too freely about his hosts and guests, including Fleur. How dare he judge her family so harshly?
Fleur gnashed her teeth. In her fury and annoyance, she could have ground them to dust. Thinking about the laugh Hart would have at her ruined smile was all that kept her from giving her jaw a rest.
She didn’t know why she should care either way. She quite disliked him. No. She despised him with all the heat of hell’s flames. A man without a romantic bone in his body, she shouldn’t expect him to understand Fleur and the rest of the McQuoids who believed, above all else, in love.
If anything, she should pity him.
The poor man. The poor, poor, poor, poor,pooorman. It brought her a childlike delight in describing him so—if even just to herself. He’d be enraged to hear her pitying.
He had absolutely no right occupying so much of her thoughts this day or any day.
Fleur had actual matters to attend.
