“Now, I’ve heard it all,” he drawled.
Had she thought him charming?
If so, it was only because Hartwell had bounced her back and forth and all around with his competing personalities.
He must have sensed her irritation…
“Do you expect an apology, Lady Fleur?”
Her annoyance didn’t bother him; itamusedhim.
“What Iexpectis irrelevant given you are incapable of apologizing, so it needn’t matter if I did.” Fleur sniffed at the air.
“Rest assured, we have not come to bid on the same book, Lady Fleur.”
“Of a certainty,” Fleur agreed. “You’ll be looking for…” She regarded him carefully. “Not Shakespeare’s First Folios.”
“You believe I don’t appreciate the Great Bard?”
“I anticipate your collection already includes Shakespeare’s First Folios, Your Grace.”
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth; one that said he was amused—and she had been accurate.
Fleur tapped a finger against her chin. What had brought this hallowed duke here? A duke who was part-owner in a shipping venture.
It came to her; she stopped abruptly.
“You believe that you have it, do you?” His smug tones said he believed she did not.
“ItcouldbeA Voyage into the Levantby Tournefort.”
Hartwell nodded slowly.
Her triumph proved short-lived.
“It could be, but it is not.”
“That is helpful.”
His mouth lifted at a corner.
Her heart did its obligatory jump. He really wasn’t all that bad-looking when he smiled. Neither classically nor conventionally handsome, but strikinglydistinctive.
That reluctant grin did him favors that his too-square features did not.
Fleur sighed.
She hated herself for noticing that, on account of everyone noticing Hartwell, and she refused to be among their ranks.
“Strange you found it helpful, while a beleaguered sigh tells of your disappointment, Fleur.”
She carried plenty of disappointment, not about her guessing game with Hartwell but with herself for being oddly charmed. Fleur would burn this gorgeous library and all its books and history down before ever confessing such a sin.
And so, she turned the tables. “Tell me, Your Grace, do youalwaysassign emotions to involuntary respiratory movements?”
His brow lifted in surprise.
“DaVinci’s claims,” she said. “Not mine.” Settling in, Fleur arranged her skirts artfully about her and brought her palms together. “In fact, he asserted that when one forces a breath out too rapidly, it can result in a faint. Therefore, mine was merely a natural movement of my lungs that had nothing to do with any disappointment on my part.” She hoped she had confused him as much as she had confused herself.
