Page 23 of Lessons for Marquesses
Her prattle intruded. “…your training methods and I will mine.”
Nicholas nodded without hearing what he had agreed to. Did he leave now, never see her again, or should he stay near? Defeating an enemy at close range, that was harder.
He scanned Georgiana’s manly dress with distaste. He saw them clutching at each other for a surer hold, searching for an opening to strike the death blow.
A closer fight could be rewarding.
Nicholas slipped from the cockpit, covering the incline to the house upon the hill in resolute strides. Entering the home from the servants’ entrance, he avoided the front rooms where his mother entertained one of her lovers. He gathered a hasty assortment of meat and bread from the larder, a bottle of whiskey from the cellar, and cut through the night to the small cottage situated beyond the gardens.
A servant had left a lamp burning in the low, timbered main room. At its entrance, Nicholas bent his head on instinct. The furniture was a mix of austere hard-backed chairs and worn settles with overstuffed cushions.
He chose a chair and gulped down the whiskey.
He hadn’t given in to his urges. Had he wasted his chance? Was he still the meek boy who now allowed Georgiana St. Clair to lead him into another fight?
Fuck all, he thought, climbing the stairs. And then he was alone in his room, stripping off his clothes. Always alone, facinganother night with René Durand, the men, the boys he’d shot. Gutted.
He dropped laudanum in the glass, splashed whiskey atop it, and drank it down.
The Wolf leveled his gaze back in the mirror. His largest scar, laid with careless precision down his torso, shimmered in the gloom. If Georgiana St. Clair saw it, she’d rethink fate’s benevolence.
Prowling the room, he wondered how many times he had cheated death. How many times had the bayonet, blade, or musket ball failed to meet his flesh? Hundreds? Thousands?
Nicholas snapped his head to the knock at his door. “What?”
A manservant’s muffled reply followed. “Lady Tufton’s called, m’lord.”
So Caroline had recognized him. He finished his whiskey, the image of Caroline waiting for him, stirring life into him. At least, thickening his cock.
He covered his chest with a shirt, his lust with breeches, and descended the stairs where Caroline perched on a settle, an array of pillows like courtiers about her loveliness. Ever the lady, she gazed demurely at Nicholas in his half dress and then away.
What did he say to this vision he had had in his mind for so many years?
“I knew it was you,” she whispered. “Mr. Wolf.”
Springing from her seat, she rushed to him in a rustle of silk and rose perfume. Her hand trembled, reaching for his cheek but not touching the scar. It had nicked the corner of his mouth, destroying the smile she had once loved.
With earnest fingers, she threaded through his hair and smoothed the other cheek. “Oh, my love. What did they do to you?”
More than the scar let on. “Carrie, it is good to see you again.” At her sob, he encircled her in his arms. “You have grown intoa beautiful woman. I can hardly believe you are a wife and the mother of four children.”
Nicholas caressed the gold ringlet curved about her shoulder and it felt just as he remembered when he had stroked the same hair, the first time he had kissed her. He had felt his heart then, pounding in his chest.
“My husband despises me,” she said.
He tipped up her chin from his chest. “But how could he not love you, Carrie? You are the fairest wife in all England. That is a fact.”
Her eyes blazed. “Nicholas, I love you. I have always loved you. I saw it in your eyes. I see it now. You love me.”
“It’s too late, isn’t it?” He said it at the same time as he drew her closer, weakened by her softness, the memories of their dreams together brief and fragile, but carved into him like his scars.
“This is our chance, Nicholas. To be happy, to love again.”
They’d had their chance. If Caroline had come forward at Chedworth and told the magistrate where she had been, where Nicholas had been when Edmund had been murdered…
No. He would not say it, wouldn’t think it again.
He kissed her and the bitterness faded. The ghosts didn’t exist because they hadn’t existed then, when they had loved each other. He led her upstairs and sank himself into the sweet curves and honeyed beauty, him, before hate, before war, before the Wolf.
