Page 109 of Lessons for Marquesses
“I suppose she’s already returned home.” Kitty considered Teague. “My, he is large. Must I jump on top of him from here?”
“Take my horse,” Caroline said. “I will ride with Mr. Wolf.”
For a moment, Nicholas thought Caroline offered out of generosity. Until the rapacious glint in her emerald eyes met his. She planned to accost him the entire journey back to Farendon.
“Oh, thank you, my lady. So gracious of you, truly. But I do not ride. No, I’m positively terrified of managing a horse. I broke my arm once taking a hedge, and now I walk everywhere, unless there is someone like Mr. Wolf to assuage my fears.”
Nicholas coughed to cover a chuckle. Teague veered his roman head in Kitty’s direction as if he too caught the lie.
A rock skidded and plunked within the tower, clattering down the stone steps and rolling to a halt at the entrance of the main hall.
Kitty grabbed the stirrup leather. “Mr. Wolf, perhaps, you could just lift me.”
Caroline lurched down from her sidesaddle without assistance and caught her fall with a quick hand before marching toward the tower.
This might prove interesting. Uncomfortable, yes, but like everything so far in his acquaintance with Georgiana St. Clair, exhilarating. And as long as Georgiana remained where he ordered, Caroline would never find her.
Kitty scurried after Caroline. “My lady, do be careful. There are ghosts in this ruin.”
After looping the reins over Teague’s neck, Nicholas tracked after the ladies.
“Utter tripe!” Caroline fumed. “She is here. I know it.”
“Who?”
“Georgiana. Hiding from me.”
“But that is impossible. Mr. Wolf said she was not, and why ever would he lie?”
Apathetic is how Nicholas felt. The singular desire to do and say nothing. The opposite of seeing Anthony Philips making love to Georgiana’s hair. Which is how he’d seen it.Making love.
“Lady Tufton,” he forced out, “the stairs are treacherous and not fit for scaling in skirts.”
“I shall be the judge of that,” she snapped with her first steps up the tower.
“Stay right then,” he said.
Ignoring him, Caroline splayed her kid-gloved hand along the left wall and climbed.
“Stay right, my lady!” Kitty warned.
Caroline continued on the left. “Georgiana! Come down here at once! Georgiana! I know you are up there! Show yourself!”
A scream and a crack of rock rent the stone walls. An avalanche of stone tumbled out of the gloom, followed by a thud, a scream, and a mass of blue wool hitched up at Caroline’s hips. She bumped and thrashed down the stairs and landed face up on a patch of grass, wailing, with a bloody nose. From her half boots, scuffs and scrapes scoured her legs all the way to her goods, bared in golden glory for all to see.
Kitty sprang into action, yanking down Caroline’s skirts, ripping off her own lace sleeve and mopping the blood from Caroline’s nose. A sob, that was actually a laugh, racked Kitty’s slight frame.
“My face! My face is ruined!” Caroline cried. The cut at the bridge of her nose would make for two black eyes. Would it heal before the ball?
“Just a few scrapes,” Kitty soothed.
Caroline knocked Kitty’s hand away. “What am I to do? I am ruined three weeks before my ball!”
Ah, there it was.
Rage stiffened Caroline’s spine as she shot a tattered glove at Kitty. “You did this to me!”
“My lady, I told you to go right.”
