Hart could sooner lop off an arm than leave. For a second time, he had made her feel shame.
He sat.
Somehow, from a place of strength he didn’t believe even he possessed, Hart smothered the embers of white-hot jealousy. “You are not the only woman who has been swindled by a scoundrel.” But only one of those women was Fleur.
“He didn’t swindle—”
Hart exploded to his feet. “Bloody hell, Fleur, will you stop defending him?”
Chack-chack-chack.A trio of blackbirds startled from their sleep, burst from nearby shrubs, and took flight.
The calm after they’d gone ushered in an ominous quiet.
So much for composure and self-control. Knowing what she needed from him, but unable to summon it forth, Hart yanked his gloves off and tossed them across the terrace. They hit somewhere with athwack.
Fleur flinched.
She feared him. Worse, he had made her fear him. Both made him want to toss his head back and pound his chest.
When he trusted himself to speak, he dropped to a knee before her. “Did he offer you marriage?”Would you allow the dastard to marry her, either way?
“It happened so quickly…”
Dead. Hart had his answer. He would kill the man before he let him wed Fleur.
Hart sluiced a look, imploring her to silence.
“And then he had to leave.”
What had he been? Late for a bloody meeting?
“Who is he?” This time, the question came easily. He absolutely needed the name. Because Hart was going to kill the wretch, anyway.
Hart froze. A strange humming rose in his ears. With a sickening horror, he looked to the door his man-of-affairs exited, and then slowly back to Fleur.
His abdomen clenched.
“Kilmartin,” he said thickly.
Oh, God. It felt like his insides were being torn apart.
He didn’t wait for her answer, because he dreaded it too much.
“St. James?”
Her eyes glimmered and sparkled.
Tears.
Did that mean…?
“Markham?” The scoundrel’s name ripped from his throat.
“I don’t know, Henry.”
His nostrils flared. Would she lie to him to protect the fiend? This feeling was even worse. “You do not know,” he repeated, silkily.
“I don’t. Iwantto,” she explained.