“What specific inquiries?”
“I want to know what business Lady Fleur had at Rundell’s. That will be all.”
With a bow, his friend strode off to see to the assignments laid out.
Hart remained on the porch for another cigarillo.
There was a reason Fleur had been at Rundell and Bridge’s, desperate for a meeting with the goldsmith and desperateenough to fight her removal—a reason that could only have to do with the fiend who took her innocence.
Hart was going to find the man and, when he did, destroy him.
Exhaling a white circle, he flicked the nub of a scrap to the terrace floor and crushed it under the heel of his boot.
Chapter 17
Lady FM Performs Full-Swoon to Steal Focus From Lady A
Thiswas the way thisparticular headline about Lady Fleur McQuoid read.
Naturally, the loyal McQuoid clan went into full Scottish outrage on Fleur’s behalf.
“Bloody rubbish it is.” Cousin Andromena beat a back-and-forth path across the hardwood floor so fast that Fleur had begun to grow dizzy and looked away many minutes ago. “Bloody, bloody rot they have printed!”
Cassia pounded her hand on a nearby Louis XV ormolu side table where she and Myrtle sat. “The utter gall!”
“Indeed!” Quillon piped in from where he sat, a leg thrown over the arm of his sofa. “As if my twin is anything less than shining.” Her brother’s heartfelt support was the only thing that managed to pull Fleur’s attention briefly into the fray.
He held Fleur’s gaze when he spoke. “Everyoneknows diamonds don’t even tarnish.” He cast a worried glance Fleur’s way. “Why, it’s in its Greek name—Adamas.” He paused, locked in on Fleur. “Unbreakable. Invincible. Unconquerable.”
She favored her loyal brother with a small smile. For all the ways her brother was a bother, he was also her best friend. Or he had been until he’d become a man and craved the elder gents’ company.
Warmth moved her heart. Fleur touched her fingertips to her chest and communicated her love, because as twins, they understood one another.
Quillon acknowledged her with a wink and then returned to the McQuoids’ forceful denunciation of vile scandal sheets and their squandering of the written word.
Unlike her family, Fleur’s own emotions did not mirror their passionate outrage. Instead, her thoughts remained fixed on Henry, leaving her indifferent to the commotion.
How enraged he had become on her behalf.
“…What I believe is that there is a man out there in desperate need of killing…”
How sweetly he had proven a friend and offered his support.
“…Your secret is mine. I will help you find his identity. We will find it together…”
And, how tender, how precious the gift he had given her. The one which she had arrived home to find waiting in her bedroom. On her bed. With a black velvet ribbon wrapped about it and a note affixed underneath the tie.
And so, the printer could print what the papers wished to print. The gossip could talk. None of it mattered. Henry had gifted Fleur the works he coveted and spent a fortune on—hisDon Juan.
Fleur lovingly glided her fingers over the inscription inside written in a bold hand.
“’T is sweet to win, no matter how, one’s laurels,
By blood or ink; ’t is sweet to put an end
To strife; ’t is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:
