Page 15 of Lessons for Marquesses
None of the men at Newmarket questioned their place. None of them hated their place. They had been bequeathed nicknames to differentiate them from their fathers, for their pursuit of women, wagering, and drinking. None had earned those names through killing. None were the Wolf.
The youth exited the Jockey Club door and wandered out into the twilight.
Nicholas pushed off the wall. If it was René Durand’s ghost, then where was the knife between his ribs? He tracked the youth southeast through the crowded street, fearing he would lose him, afraid, more so, to confirm his own madness.
The flesh at Nicholas’s collarbone throbbed as if just smashed by a French saber. He shook his left arm. A sting of shocks ripped through him as the tendrils of lucidity crept into soul. He dug his heels into the street, allowing the youth to escape. Clear like smoke lifting to reveal the dead blanketing thebattlefield, there was no René Durand here. Here the ghosts of the night had converged with the pounding vengeance of day.
Nicholas pinned his gaze to the cobbled walk. His fists squeezed, his left hand still strong. He was in England. He had been in England for five months.
Whenever he doubted his sanity, Nicholas replayed the litany of his life after his brother’s death. The war and after, where he had waited in America upon his father’s death, unable to bring himself to return as the seventh Marquess of Eastwick. He had tried to forget with a small string of racehorses. Then Oliver’s word had arrived of William St. Clair’s untimely demise—suspicious he’d named it—and Farendon’s perilous position.
Nicholas had immediately sent his offer which had been more than fair for having it stolen from him. In return, he had received a rebuke. Oliver hadn’t described it as such, but calling Georgiana St. Clair tenacious was a parliamentary way of saying,she said go to hell, Nick.
Georgiana St. Clair was in the grips of a delusion without the sense to recognize that God had deserted her.
Years ago, Nicholas had had the same delusions. Boarding the ship to the colonies, arriving in New York, sailing up the Hudson and flanked by the crushing wilderness. It hadn’t then occurred to him that he was going to have to fight in that wilderness, with trees so thick that to run through them, a man had to zig and zag like a murderous rabbit. He had met the sergeant with the Yorkshire accent who had informed him that the colonel Nicholas was to serve had died of typhus and his replacement had no need for him.
He’d had the musket shoved in his hand and a pack thrown at his feet. Meek was what he had been, following fate with his tail tucked between his legs.
Georgiana St. Clair owned Farendon. But today he had brought himself one step closer to his goal.
Georgiana weaved through the High Street crowd who feverishly discussed the near murder of a pickpocket until finally she arrived. The plaque beside the black door proclaimed the importance of the office within.Richard M. Drearden, Esq., Clerk of the Course, Newmarket.
Along with leather and saddle oil, the paneled walls and waxed floors smelled of privilege. She walked the corridor lined with portraits of horses, their owners and jockeys painted in warm hues, with strokes that rendered their subjects vigorous even in the most fixed poses. Behind a door, men conversed in jocular tones.
Georgiana knocked and bid entry, opened the door. After a quick analysis of the three men, she addressed the one behind the desk. “Mr. Drearden?”
The man, strong shouldered and vigorous like the portraits, nodded.
“I am George St. Clair.” She pushed the racing paper across the desk. “I’ve come to inquire on why you have reported that my horse has been pulled from the Fordyce Stakes.”
Mr. Drearden’s gaze consulted silently with his partners.
“Miss St. Clair,” he said, a note of weariness in his address, “you are not a gentleman. The Fordyce Stakes was founded with the strict rule that subscribers be gentlemen and the horses run be owned by gentlemen.”
“My father was a gentleman and he paid his subscription.”
“Your father, Miss St. Clair, is dead.”
“And yet you took my last payment when you knew he was dead. Did you believe it had fallen from heaven?”
Behind her, one of the men chuckled.
Mr. Drearden came around the desk and offered her a seat.
Georgiana stood firm. “Thank you, sir, but I do not wish for a chair. I wish to know why you took my money, knowing I was not a gentleman, accepted my entry to race, and now, in a sudden adherence to rules, strike the best horse from the field.”
One of the men sighed and launched forth. “We are sorry for your loss. In times of grief, it is most challenging to see what is best. But the Lord works in ways you will, one day, understand.”
Georgiana gawked at the man’s absolute study in placation, complete with a pitying grimace. “I understand exactly what has occurred. I have been cheated. My horse will run.”
“Unfortunately, it will not.”
“What is your name?”
The man harrumphed. “I think?—”
Mr. Drearden cut off the man’s reply. “Miss St. Clair.”
