Page 104 of Lessons for Marquesses
Anthony Philips was a rake, no good, like the rest of them. But was Nicholas good? Not a chance. Anthony was young, charismatic, where Nicholas was sullen and unknowable. Anthony was handsome without a scar disfiguring his smile, without scars marring his body or his spirit. Anthony had two working arms that could wrap themselves around Georgiana’s slender waist. Anthony Philips had a left hand that could feel, makeherfeel.
Oliver tapped his shoulder. Turning, Nicholas saw the letter.
“I’ll save you the postage,” his friend said. "She wishes to negotiate.”
Georgiana had written Eastwick. The absurdity killed him that he saw Eastwick as another.
Nicholas read the letter. Georgiana assumed the bank was to sign the lien over to him, admitting she did not have the funds to prevent it. She was polite. She wrote an apology without providing excuses. More, she was deferent. She agreed that he had had the right to demand her horse be pulled from the Fordyce Stakes. She praised him, his family, for their dedication to and love of horses.
My lord, please forgive my candor, but do we not have more in common than we have differences?
She wanted to meet him.
“Well?” asked Oliver. “What does she say?”
Nicholas tucked the letter in his coat. “Everything a lady would.”
What would it be like to spend his life with this woman eager to learn, who had a tree of dreams, and yet wished to shed her open, optimistic spirit to be ruthless and godless like him? He would tell her of his long-lost dreams and the ghosts that plagued him. Would she accept him? Love him?
And there it was. The truth.
He loved Georgiana.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Kitty spokewith such enthusiasm at the picnic with Julian’s friends, it made Georgiana’s heart ache anew. Was she truly happy? And why was Kitty being married off to a man she didn’t love and Georgiana in love with a man she couldn’t marry?
The last question struck her while the witty repartee lilted and swirled in the late spring splendor.
Tearing off her coat, Georgiana crawled to her stomach and ripped at a patch of grass. She tried to concentrate on the conversation on Caroline’s treachery. She heard little over her thoughts, but she stared with intention at Kitty’s expressive face, the way it twisted into frowns, broadened with shocked gasps. It was delightful like the rest of her, petite and soft with a joy emanating like perfume over her audience.
Georgiana hoped it was real and not forced.
“Extra yardage!” Kitty exclaimed. “I should like to extra yardage her. However that is done.”
“It’s called burying,” Julian offered.
“Alive,” Blackwell added.
Rupert served Kitty a generous portion of cream cake, approving of her balled fist. Her old butler did not shake ortwitch as he filled glasses and plates and when done, plopped on the grass and lifted his weathered face to the sun.
“She tried to displace Mrs. Thistle,” Georgiana said. “And sacked Mary, a kitchen maid, for having pocks on her face.”
This was too much for Kitty. She fell backward and Lord Greville was there, looking her friend over like a dollop of delectable pink cream.
“Greville,” Julian barked, calling him off.
As Georgiana had predicted, a surfeit of tricks began to stream from Kitty’s angelic lips on how to ruin Caroline’s ball. Unleashing the barnyard into the ballroom, ipecacuanha syrup, antimony.
“But it must appear to be her errors in planning and judgment,” Lady Sybil said. “Not trickery.”
“Then we will salt the beverages,” Kitty supplied. “But not all of them. And not hers. There’ll be a fly or two in the canapés. And worms.”
“You play deep, Miss Babbington,” Blackwell said.
“What’s the use of a challenge,” Fitzwilliam muttered to his glass of champagne, “if one isn’t prepared to maim?”
Georgiana never wanted to be on Fitzwilliam’s bad side.
