Page 20 of Lessons for Marquesses
She shoved him again. He shoved her back and the force of it threw her to the street. She landed in a puddle in her finest suit.
He was more shocked than she was. “Bloody hell. I didn’t realize you’d be—you’d be so damn light!”
“Thank you. Now leave.”
“Let me help you.” He knocked her shoulder.
Clawing a handful of mud, she hurled it at him. “Leave me alone!”
“Come on now. No need to get your back up.”
A voice, taut as a ligature, cut the night. “If I’m not mistaken, I heard George tell you to leave her alone.”
Georgiana jerked toward the voice and the powerful shadow emerging from beneath an eave. The man had followed her. If he hadn’t spoken, if he’d been bent on killing her, she had never known she was to die before she died.
Anthony bowed away. “Mr. Wolf, my apologies.”
Mr. Wolf? Mr. N.S. Wolf, owner of the stallion Palliard who was to run in the Fordyce Stakes?The odds had his horse as the favorite even before Minion had been pulled from the race. She had gleaned what she could of him as she had the other owners and horses, which for Mr. Wolf was near to nil. He was a wealthy merchant from the colonies. Shipping, it was said, and the inference was smuggling.
Mr. Wolf drew Georgiana to her feet. “Are you hurt?”
A laugh bubbled from her lips. She’d survived soaring flights from galloping horses. Of course, with his want for humor, he didn’t share her amusement.
“I am perfectly well, save my suit,” she said.
Mr. Wolf regarded Anthony who apologized and said, “I’ll purchase you a new suit.” He measured Mr. Wolf’s silence. “From London. From my tailor.”
Mr. Wolf added, “It was vulgar and reprehensible?”
Anthony nodded. “Yes, it was. Vulgar and reprehensible that I suggest you patronize a brothel. And used that word.Quim.”
“The word did not require repeating,” Mr. Wolf said.
“True.”
“And?”
Anthony nodded again. “I should not have mentioned plowing.”
“George does not wish to be your friend.”
“I understand.”
Anthony asked if he could leave.
What power Mr. Wolf had! Yes, surely part of it could be traced to the sheer size of him, the wide shoulders, his height, the arms that tightened his sleeves when he moved. And his hair, definitely the scar, the strict avoidance of a razor like meat on Fridays.
“George? Shall I escort you to your destination?” Mr. Wolf cleaned her muddy hand with a handkerchief as she gazed on.
Still, still there was another element that if placed in a man half his size, in Georgiana, the world would listen. The world would ask,may I leave, sir?
So the ghost wasn’t.
The ghosts still existed. Merely, Nicholas was relieved they had not obtained bodily form.
George was a girl. George, who leapt off front steps and screamed into her hands. After that, she had flown down thestreet. She had shoved a man. He had seen many things in his life but never a female dressed as a man with the audacity to shove a man.
He had lost his chivalrous nature, didn’t fawn over women—she was hardly a woman—so why had he helped George to her feet? She had sprung up without needing his help. She had laughed.
