Page 124 of Lessons for Marquesses
“He did not go,” Georgiana had said after he had told her of the boy with the scalping knife plunged in his chest.
Nicholas had closed his eyes. “No. I did not give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Tucked at his side, her fingers had grazed his mouth like a kiss. “I assume you cannot do that in war or you would be dead.”
So right she had been. So caring. So vulnerable as she had shared her fears for Kitty Babbington in his arms.
“I pray that one day she has what I have,” Georgiana had whispered in the dark, so hopeful, so happy withhim. The Marquess of Eastwick.
A casement opened. Nicholas opened his eyes and found Georgiana in the window seat—their window seat—in her shirt and breeches. The soles of her bare feet were tucked beneath her bottom as she leaned out the window. They had traces of dried mud on them. She had left the house some time ago.
When did his love sleep? He was a loiter-sack, lazy good-for-nothing, compared to her.
Nicholas rose on his elbow. “What are you about?”
She withdrew a coin from her pocket and set it on the neighboring window ledge along with a handful of something. Closing the window, she waved him near. “Come see.”
He joined her, unable to keep his hands from her. He smoothed over her shoulder blades as she pointed to the tree outside the window. The handful she had placed was grain.
“Do you see the magpie’s nest?” she asked. “They have been coming here all my life to have their babies. If we sit here, one of them will come and pick up the grain.”
Her smile reflecting in the morning sun gave him dangerous hope.
How had he never seen a magpie nest? It was enormous, sticks and earth plastered together more than two feet high and equally wide. A glossy black head popped out from the entrance hole.
Georgiana whispered, “There she is.”
“She?”
“Smaller than the male. Oh, here he comes. Up in the branch, do you see?”
With a pure white breast and black wings edged in shimmering violet, the male cocked his head to the window. After a careful measure, a turn on the branch, he swept down and scooped up a beakful of grain. Georgiana let out a sigh of delight, her head coming to rest at his neck.
“Do they have names?” he asked.
“Charles and Mary.”
Nicholas laughed at the speed in which she answered. Ah, but she was beautiful with her country-girl simplicity of being happy to see a bird snatch grain from a window.
“How do you keep track?” he asked.
“I don’t. They know who they are.”
He wasn’t really Eastwick, never would be. “I suppose you’re right. Even without names, we know who we are. But if we have the wrong name, it can be unfortunate.”
“Like if you were Agatha,” she said.
“Or you were Ralph.”
He studied her smile. It reminded him of spring, of his new life, of the first time he had walked with her to the cockpit and she had told him she descended from Penda, the last great pagan king. Love welled up within him.
She leaned across the shaft of sunlight. He savored the chasteness of her kiss.
“I love you,” she murmured. She kissed him again when he hesitated.
His hand slipped into her hair. “I love you.”
She followed his hand with her cheek. Which he kissed, right at her temple and there whispered, “I will love you always.”
