Fleur went motionless.
Hart followed her stare, expecting to see Markham and finding the Marquess of St. James instead. The gentleman was two or three inches past six feet, dark-haired, wealthy, powerful, and dogged by a scandal that dated back years to when his brother killed a young lord across a dueling field.
One scandalous family deserved another.
“St. James?” he gritted out.
Fleur blinked slowly, and hell, she might as well have been batting the long fringe of lashes. However the hell she moved them always had the same seductive effect.
Hart folded his arms at his chest. “Ishethe one you’ve settled on?”
Finally, the lady stopped looking at the debonair marquess and looked athim.
“I won’tsettlefor a gentleman, Hart. He’ll be my soulmate.”
“Your…?”
Hart laughed.
This time, he was the bringer of stares, the cause of intrigued onlookers, and Fleur smiled all the way through it.
“I thought you would be offended at my finding talk of soulmates utterly laughable, Fleur?”
“Hardly. I feel bad for you. Plus, our smiling and laughing together is beneficial to our families.” Her lips curved into an even deeper smile, and she carried on with her search.
Hart didn’t hear her latter words, and he definitely didn’t want to notice that entrancing smile of hers, or think about Fleur focused on her soulmate while she spoke tohim.
“Pity,”he said through strained lips. “Say what you mean. You pity me.”
She shifted her confused gaze to his enraged one. “I would never use that word, Hart.” Her lips parted in a surprised little moue; her lush mouth turned it into an enormous one. His mind circled to the same place it had spent the last three days—in Rundell’s with Fleur pressing her body against his and moaning.
A hot shock of desire raced through him. “Given our close friendship, I know that would upset you too much to use that word. Even if it is the most accurate way to describe it.”
His head was going to explode.
“Not that it’s how I feel,” she said. “I don’t. I was more indicating it is a formal definition.”
Hart no longer cared about that. “If we’re friends, doesn’t it seem natural to confide—”
“You wouldn’t confide in me,” she pointed out. Frustratingly and accurately.
“Ah, a petty woman.”
Her lips turned down. “I am not being petty. I am taking my cues from you. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing about your future bride with me, then that means we are friends, just not very good friends.”
A voice inside his head was shouting, “Give it a rest.”What do you care? You don’t need to know which scoundrel out there she’d labeled her soulmate.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
It didn’t help.
He followed her stare, entrenched across the ballroom where St. James conversed with his brother and sister-in-law, Lord and Lady Knight.
Hart angled his body, putting his shoulder between her and the obnoxiously conventionally good-looking fellow.
Fleur canted her head.
Her wide, innocently expressive eyes may as well have said,Oh, you’re still here.
