“Sod off. You can’t find a better man-of-affairs in the kingdom, and you know it.”
Hedid. They had met through Hart’s father, the duke, a longtime friend of Kilmartin’s sire, the Marquess of March. On occasion, March brought his son around. Hart had puzzled from afar. The best answer for why that he could arrive at—March actually seemed to…enjoy his son’s company. The wheels in Hart’s head turned, and soon he’d had the idea to put the smiling lad on his staff. Hart had been twelve.
“…Are your friends also on your staff…?”
Hart’s gaze caught upon the blonde-headed, mischief-making minx, now dancing through a lively country reel, who had posed that cheeky question. “As if it bloody matters anyway.”
“What are you on about, Hart?”
Yanking his attention from Fleur, he glared at a much less smugly amused Kilmartin. Irritation welled inside him.
“Only a man who considers me a friend would speak as candidly as you did, without fear of retribution.” Hart’s raised voice earned stares from the guests clustered around them.
“Hart?” Kilmartin’s brow puckered with genuine concern. “Is everything all right?”
“What the hell do you think?”
“I…actually, I’m not altogethersure.”
That bloody embrace. He had made love to her mouth and she had kissed him back with delight. Then they would both act as though nothing had happened?
The very chit responsible for Hart’s descent into madness chose that very moment to dance directly across his line of vision. To be precise, she whirled by, both hands clasped in those of the notorious rogue and committed bachelor, Lord Anthony “Tony” Markham.
The only thing Markham appearedcommittedto doing this moment was getting a better look at Fleur’s impressive cleavage.
Despite that rash, explosive, and forbidden moment of passion between Hart and Fleur, it was just that—forbidden. Fleur was still a proper, virginal lady.
A detail Fleur’s current partner didn’t appreciate. Hart sharpened his stare on the happy couple—specifically, Markham’s adroit fingers that snuck a stroke along the base of her narrow back, too close to her bottom for a proper lady.
A faint rumble sounded in his throat.
Kilmartin followed his stare. “Ahh, now I see the source of your malcontent.”
If Kilmartin understood, that made bloody one of them.
“You believe the Earl of Whitehaven is positioning his brother for an alliance with the McQuoids.”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to him—it should have. If he hadn’t a justifiable reason to interfere in a potential match, his man-of-affairs just gave him one.
Finally,the reel ended.
When the lady reclaimed her seat, Hart’s shoulders relaxed.
Only for an instant. In every direction, would-be suitors and eager lads clamored around her.
He gritted his teeth, jaw aching. “Kilmartin?”
“Yes?”
“Are wefriends?”
His man-of-affairs froze with his glass halfway to his mouth. “Are we…?” Kilmartin’s brows dipped at the corners.
“Friends,” Hart snapped. “As in chums.”
“I…am familiar with the word—both of them. And…of course?”
As he had thought. Hart disregarded the fact that Kilmartin’s affirmation had ended in the uptilt of a question.
