Fleur pressed her fingertips against her quivering mouth. “Truly?”
He gave a smile for her benefit. “Never say you’re calling my honor into question?”
She laughed; a watery laugh, filled with tears. “Never. You are the most honorable man, Henry, and I…I…”
His heart thundered with renewed force.
“I am so fortunate to have you for a friend.” Lifting her hand, she gave him an innocent wave.
Hart let her leave this time.
When she had gone, he uncurled his clenched hands at his sides.
She believed he was motivated by friendship. He wasn’t so magnanimous. His motives weren’t the pure, selfless ones she took them for.
He wanted that information for himself.
Hart narrowed his eyes.
And when he had a name, thegentlemanwould regret his artful seduction of Lady Fleur McQuoid.
Reaching a shaky hand inside his jacket front, Hart withdrew one of his cigarillos and touched the tip to the candle inside. The catch of flame filled the quiet. Hart took several long, slow pulls. It didn’t have the calming effect it usually did.
An insupportable feeling of bitterness welled up in his throat, nearly strangling him.
He stared out over the soft cloud of smoke left by his cigarillo and flicked the ashes.
The night of Rutland’s, Hart had been there in differentcapacities.
First as an attendee, where he had enjoyed the services of a delectable French siren; that woman he intended to make his mistress—orhadintended. Since he had gotten himself all tangled up with Fleur, he hadn’t thought of his enigmatic lover once.
And then, when Kilmartin knocked three times and brought his tryst to an end, to inform Hart the future duchess was in attendance at the forbidden affair. He had reluctantly put aside his demonstrative French lover and gone to find Miss Meghan McQuoid-Smith. He would find her name and identity later.Extracting his flitty betrothed before she brought a scandal crashing down on both of their heads had become the priority.
Through all that, Fleur had been in attendance.
Hart took another, this time slower, draw from his cigarillo.
Somewhere between the time he arrived, had his assignation, and ferreted out his bride-to-be, starry-eyed, naïve, trusting Fleur was being corrupted by some nameless wretch who had made her feel beautiful. Made her feel beautiful?
Which implied she had no bloody idea she possessed a face to launchone hundred thousandships.
Hart took an unsteady pull from his cigarillo.
She should have been garbed in Italian white lace, lain on a white satin sheet, and made love to in a proper four-poster bed like the queen she was, not taken in some alcove or hidden room like a tart.
His eyes clenched shut.
He had dispatched Kilmartin and several of his other men—he couldn’t even remember which ones—to find whatever other McQuoids were in attendance.
His gut churned.
What if itwas, in fact, Kilmartin?
Certainly the other man knew a thing or two about charming ladies. A profligate rogue with a smooth tongue and effortless charm—
Hart drove his spare palm against his forehead several times.
It didn’t help.
