“I’m gladoneof us thinks this is amusing,” she muttered.
“Everyone wants something from him. His staff. The men of his shipping line. His tenants. His peers. Me. Even Tremaine, his brother. He cannot conceive of a world where there is someone who just wants…him.”
A fresh onslaught of nausea took hold—this one having nothing to do with her abated illness of before. Panic. Sheer, excruciating, mind-numbing panic.
She somehow managed to squeeze out a reply. “Is it that obvious?”
“Given Hart has known me since he was a lad and needs to ask if we’re friends, I would say he remains embarrassingly oblivious.”
He handed her a clean kerchief in anticipation.
A tear slipped out. She wiped it away. “I don’t know why I…why I…”
“Yes, you do,” he murmured gently.
Yes, she did. “The thing of it is, Lord Cassian, I believed my family to be the most honorable and loyal, but then I came to know Henry, and he extends those gifts to people deserving and not just because they are family by blood. And he is obstinate as a bull, but he can be made to see reason.”
A watery giggle bubbled past her lips. “And I, from being surrounded by males of all ages, can attest to the rarity of that. And he is well-read, but not one of those fellows obvious in being well-read, who seeks to show off…but who truly knows verse, and it’s all because of Mary Wolverston.”
“The…pirate?”
“At Jeremy and Linnie’s wedding, my brother Quillon insisted there were few female pirates, and from across the table, Henry called out…Mary Wolverston and then there was the fight, when Lord Culross arrived and accosted Linnie.”
“You saw that, did you?”
She nodded.
“My apologies. That is unfortunate.”
“Do not be. I’m not. His Grace was all too happy to let Jeremy kill him, but then, from the end of the hall, he caught me watching and…intervened. Everyone had lost their heads, andthe duke was so…calmand resolute, and I’ve never witnessed that before. McQuoid men are a passionate lot by nature.”
“You don’t say?” he drawled.
“I just felt this sense that Henry could right an upside-down world, because he did, and I never realized how my body could feel amidst a calm. But whenever I talk to himnow, he’s smiling and laughing one instant and the next he’s a snarling bear.”
Fleur stared forlornly at the jewels pasted over the front of her sparkling slippers.
“Do you know why that might be?”
“The conclusion I arrived at is that he loathes my family so immensely for injuring his pride that his disdain extends, by very nature of my name, to me.”
“That’s the conclusion you reached?”
“What else could it be?”
“Lady Fleur?”
She lifted her gaze.
“I have known Hartwell nearly all my life. Do you know how many people he’s given leave to use his Christian name?”
She hesitated and then shook her head.
Lord Cassian placed the tip of his index finger against the pad of his thumb, forming a perfect circle. “Not even Tremaine.”
His admission hurt her heart. “No one?”
He looked at her with gentle eyes. “You are missing the point I’m trying to make, Fleur. He allows you a privilege he’s granted no other. He only laughs with those closest to him, me, Tremaine, our crew…and…nowyou.”
