Page 21 of Lessons for Marquesses
Hardly a woman.
George matched Nicholas’s strides handily as they started up the street. She studied him with her impossible eyes, not as a female, but a conquistador surveying a new land and devising how best to strip it of its value.
She sighed and it was oddly warm, sweet. “Well, on the bright side, I now know I am lighter than I appear.”
“I estimated you to be at least twelve stone,” he said.
Frowning, she opened her coat and considered her slim lines.
“That was a jest, George. Obviously, a poor one.”
She giggled, and just how deranged was he to have thought her a male, let alone a ghost? “Keep on, Mr. Wolf. One must persevere.”
He tipped a smile despite himself. “George, I admire your pluck, but if that had been a different man, or if he would have taken offense at your shove, your suit wouldn’t be the only thing ruined.”
“I suppose.”
“Suppose nothing. You’re dressed like a man, and men will assume you can take the blows that come with those fine clothes. Which, I can now say, your limbs are too slim for a man.”
“They’ve quite a bit of muscle. Along with my stomach.” She curled her arms. “And these.”
Who was the wolf here? She might have been raised by them.
She led him to Twain’s cockpit, slowing as they neared the entrance and taking her eyes off him only to hop over a puddle.She stopped at the door, folding her arms. “Did you know I descend from Penda, king of the Mercians? He was the last great pagan warrior king of the Anglo-Saxons.”
“Are you a pagan?” he asked flatly.
“A conqueror. And I will conquer one day. Just… not at present.”
“Not persevering?”
She twitched a finger. “One day, Mr. Wolf. Would you like to see my horse?”
Nicholas narrowed a glance at the round house. “In there?”
“Mr. Twain was gracious enough to charge me seven guineas for board between eleven at night and the following afternoon.”
That was perseverance on her part. Highway robbery on Twain’s.
Suddenly tired of her, he said, “Another time.”
She fixed him with a penetrating stare, her brows flattening. At his silence, she wrenched a shoulder. Was this girl attempting to mimic him?
In a valiant effort not to cuff her dainty ears, he jerked his head toward the door. “Go on. Let’s see this horse.”
Her face glowed in the moonlight like a wonder lay beyond the door. He could smell the chicken dung and blood before she opened it. A redheaded boy, a sorry excuse for a groom, hurried to George, squeaked an apology, and provided a litany on his attempts to secure the horse’s comfort.
Nicholas stepped forward and his heart stuck in his throat.
In the center of the pit, a magnificent bay horse without a trace of white screamed and stomped a hoof. The angry call of a mare ready to pick George up by her coat and fling her to the straw for her neglect. The mare’s eyes flashed, so dark as to not see the pupils. Eyes that saw only George. They were large, set low under an upward arching socket, giving the marea pronounced air of intelligence, and when, having vented her spleen, she suddenly nickered at George, tenderness.
Her head was refined with a jibbah, the slight bulge between the eyes, prized by the Bedouins for withstanding the desert air. It dished faintly to a narrow muzzle. Her ears were small, her throat latch clean. The space at her girth was deep, ready to expand with each breath.
This mare had stamina.
Her forearms, knees, and canons were aligned straight from the front, and as Nicholas moved about the pit, from the side, too. Her pasterns, perfectly angled with her shoulders, would carry the brunt, stretching and springing as her hooves pounded the turf. Her back was short, the withers and croup the same height. At her hind end, the stifle, butt, and hip were spaced symmetrically. If he dropped a line from her hip down her gaskin bone, it would be as the crow flies.
This mare had power.
