Page 137 of Lessons for Marquesses
Her father shook with a fulsome rage. “Remove yourself, at once, from my home.”
“After I am paid my due. Go on, I’ll wait. And be a chum and have that chestnut saddled for me. I shall ride him back to Farendon.”
Her father stalked from the room. The man smirked and considered the fingers of his left hand. A fire rose within Georgiana’s chest, the temper her father was forever warning her against giving in to.
Put a face on it, George, he had advised just the other week when she had been angry with herself for failing a jump and almost injuring Turk. Her father had brushed back her long, red curls from her face.Never allow your temper to rule you.Smile through your anger. That’s my girl.
But the fire gained force the longer Georgiana watched the man. He could not steal Turk from her. And whoever this brother was did not deserve her beloved horse as a birthday present. Turk was hers!Hers!
Georgiana rushed into the room. “Turk is mine! You cannot have him!”
The man pushed off the table. By his weave as he skulked across the carpet, he was drunk. His blue eyes stripped the length of her. She only reached his chest. “My, aren’t you a pretty piece.”
She worked her riding glove from her hand. It made a resounding slap on the man’s cheek.
He laughed. Reaching out unsteadily, he tugged a lock of her hair. “Fetching hair you have, sweeting. Like a Celtic whore.”
Georgiana kicked his shin.
His arms swooped around her middle, hurling her onto the billiard table between his legs where she froze.
He breathed deeply at her neck. “And what do I get in exchange for this Turk, you fiery little hellion?”
He pressed his lips to her cheek, the scent of liquor turning her stomach. She knew something had gone very wrong.
“L-Let me go, sir.”
“My lord to you, my little Celtic whore.” He clenched his fist into her hair. His other hand landed on her breast and squeezed. “Say it. ‘My lord.’”
Her heart hammered in her chest. “M-My lord.”
His fingers walked up to her stock. The small breakfast she’d had hours before moved up her throat. “Hmmm. What say you? Care for a stretcher?”
“I-I don’t know, my lord.”
“Well then, I shall show you.” In one wrench, her shirt and waistcoat were torn wide open. He was too strong to push off when he went for her breeches, and she didn’t know why he wanted her breeches, why he ripped her fall, sending the buttons flying, but she didn’t like it, and it was wrong, so, so wrong.
He shoved her back. Easily pinning her to the table with one hand, he fumbled at his own breeches. She slapped him, pulled his hair, tried to kick him again, but he only laughed.
“Papa!” she screamed. “Papa!”
The man backhanded her cheek. Georgiana bit her bottom lip at the frightening sting. She tasted blood on her tongue.
“Sorry, darling. Papa can’t save you.”
“Please! No!” Her eyes widened at his breeding organ unleashed at his drawers.
He wrenched open her thighs. As his face neared hers, she slammed her forehead against his nose. Another slap, more blood in her mouth. He clutched her throat and squeezed until her breath was gone.
“You’ll learn,” he growled at her cheek, “the Claytons are rotten through and through.”
A billiard cue struck the man’s head. He stumbled back, his fingers clawing for the baize. Swinging it like a cricket bat, Beedle, the butler, whacked the man’s chin and sent him reeling against a chair.
Appearing at Georgiana’s right, her father planted his hands at the man’s fawn waistcoat and shoved. When the man tried to catch himself, her father shoved him again, and finally, with a boot heel driven in his knee, the man dropped backward, bangedhis head upon the marble table, and dropped dead silent to the carpet.
“Get out of here, George,” her father said, yanking the cue from Beedle’s hand. “Now.”
Before she left, she saw her father raise the cue and smash the butt into the man’s aristocratic nose.
