Page 134 of Lessons for Marquesses
“I do not know.”
“Why would the magistrate lie?”
“Perhaps he was ill-informed.”
“Or you lie.”
She was on trial, wasn’t she? Not just Nicholas. It was best to be expedient and better still that she reveal she was not this docile, trembling fluff on the verge of a faint but a person capable of knowing and speaking her mind.
Georgiana considered the room. The fans waving, the eyepieces below plucked brows and pristine wigs, all the eyes and hard mouths waiting. It was no wonder Nicholas wanted to be Mr. Wolf. These courtiers and ministers of justice who steered her country wanted him to be guilty. All of them were Carolines who wanted an object to stick their hate into like a pig on a spit.
They could hate her instead. She didn’t have to live in their world like Nicholas. There would be no celebratory feast. She would return to Farendon, pack what belongings were rightfully hers, and live the rest of her days alone.
Georgiana defied the constraining bodice and pressed her shoulders farther back as she looked at Cobley. “Sir, I came forth to tell His Majesty the truth of the matter and it is your right to examine my veracity. However, if I am forced to fit my story within the context of your questions, then I fear the truth will be lost in the well-intentioned interest of ensuring justice.”
A collective murmur encircled her.
“That is not for you to decide,” Cobley asserted.
Mr. Braunstone stepped forward with a bow. “Sir Thomas, if Miss St. Clair might be allowed to speak freely?”
Ignoring Mr. Braunstone, Cobley unfolded a paper. “You are aware there was a man who swore witness to the present Lord Eastwick’s crime?”
Georgiana faltered for a moment at what her father had done to revenge her. “No, sir, I was not aware. But I swear on my life, there was only one witness, and she never swore any testimony.”
Nicholas’s brows slashed a vertical line between them.
“I was with my father,” she said for all to hear. “Not in the stables. And Lord Eastwick was not in the billiard room when his brother was murdered. I was.”
Cobley stuttered in a state of speechlessness.
She could feel Nicholas staring over the heads of the men straight into her.
The king pounded upon his chair to set order to the crowd that had erupted in shock and with the sudden silence, he announced, “We would like to hear the truth.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Nine Years Prior
1 July 1754
Notfelle Estate
Huntingdonshire, England
No one had ever conqueredthe Notfelle Hedge before the age of thirteen. Kitty’s father, Sir Jeffrey Babbington, claimed no female ever had. But today was the day Georgiana, twelve, female, descendant of the last great Anglo-Saxon warrior king would prove that she deserved the honor of her ancestry.
Georgiana St. Clair, the granddaughter of Penda of Mercia, forty-eight generations prior.
Turk, her strong and true chestnut gelding, pawed at the fallow ground. Down the stand of oak and birch, Kitty’s white frock with a pink sash billowed in the July sunshine. The previous record of thirteen years, twenty-two days was held by Julian. But starting today it would be twelve years, three hundred thirty-five days. And female.
She rose in her stirrups to ensure that the leathers were set not too short that she’d be launched overhead nor too long that she’d have no leverage.
“Are you ready boy?” Georgiana whispered.
Turk’s summer coat quivered, his ears pinned to the task at hand. Georgiana squeezed her calves, and Turk shot off. She circled him wide over the field until his rhythm was relaxed.
They came alongside the trees, held west, and cantered down the stand. Her gelding increased his pace, his shoulders undulating with eager power, his prize ahead, past a narrow passage leading to a brook preceded by a precipitous drop. And on the far side of the stream, the monster known as the Notfelle Hedge.
