The teasing lilt in her speech penetrated the dark place he found himself in.
His head clearer, he found her siren’s lips curved into a smile.
“I hear you just fine, Fleur. I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to say.”
Her slender features trembled, then crumbled completely.
His heart pounded erratically, an uneasy rhythm echoing terror.
“You know I’m new to this friendship business, Fleur,” Hart said. “I’m not used to these talks, and my experience with innocent young ladies is lacking—by design,” he explained.
Her lower lip quivered.
Bloody hell. “What I mean is I’m figuring this out and will make mistakes.” He dragged his hand through his hair.
Christ. Had he acknowledged he had made a mistake?
“Oomph.” Fleur launched herself at him. He just managed to catch her and keep them both from tumbling over.
She lay her cheek upon his chest. “I believe, Henry, you are the best friend I’ve ever had.”
His heart beat harder.
He grunted. “That is not saying much about your friends, I regret to inform you.”
“Can you believe how much alike we are?”
He knew they were nothing alike, but if he said so, she’d either cry or talk him into tomorrow about their similarities.
“Oh?”
“Neither of us has any real friends whom we chose ourselves. Our families and servants weren’t chosen by us. They will fight a Redcap for us, but we didn’t find each other through family. You and I, Henry, actually found each other.”
No one spoke to him as she did. Unnerved, he wanted to say she’d chosen him, and he had just followed to keep her from crying. It was too late to argue; they were too deep into being chums.
Through some bizarre logic, Fleur’s words made sense.
“What is a Red Cap?”
“Not a red cap. ARedcap.”
“I’m certain we are saying the same thing.”
“Well, of course you are; you’re a duke who thinks he knows everything,” she said, giving Hart a deliberately confusing smile. “A Redcap is a malevolent, murderous goblin.”
One of her Scottish folk stories, no doubt.
He saw her smile and chatter as stalling—just as he had done. He wanted to stall, too, delaying the conversation about her feigned smiles and nervous talk.
“So, given I’m your friend, is there some Redcap I’m going to have to slay for you?”
He intended it as a jest.
No.
Even now, he believed voicing his fear—that Fleur wasn’t truly ruined—would make her laugh, and his anxiety would vanish. They’d both laugh, and Fleur would kick him for suspecting she could be seduced by a scoundrel.
That was how it was supposed to play out.
