Page 24 of Lessons for Marquesses
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Next Day
19 April 1763
Smack in frontof the rubbing-down house, a squat stone building at the edge of the round course, Georgiana mounted Minion for her training ride. Already the crowd of riders and owners had gathered in the chilly April air, and she had positioned her mare so they could see what the Marquess of Eastwick had rebuffed.
Georgiana set Minion into a canter where the turf opened wide, flanked by a lush stand of trees in the midst of their spring turn. She marked the course in her mind, the straightaway where Minion would have been held back. The turn north where she would have gained on the pack.
After pressing her heel, Minion took off in a gallop. They coursed beside Devil’s Dyke, her mare’s strides monstrous and Georgiana’s heart aching. But it was just the wind swooping across the heath causing her eyes to water. Not defeat staring her in the face, stretching out in miles of earth to claim and the freedom to conquer it. And no ability to conquer.
Slowing and slipping for cover between the trees, she ground the tears away with her hand, tested her vision on a larkspur, and when it wavered again, waited for the tears to abate on their own. With a ragged breath, she searched under her glove for the scar where her wrist bone had broken through. The first time she had ever ridden Wild Squire, the stallion had hurled her to the turf. The stallion had done it again and again, over weeks that had turned to months.
The thousands of hours spent overcoming her terror, overlooking the snide glances of the stable staff, and earning their respect—all lost to a rotten marquess.
Minion stomped the underbrush, anxious to join the horses thundering past. Spent of her self-pity, Georgiana continued her ride and returned to the rubbing-down house.
Charlie ran to meet her. “'Zounds, miss! I reckon she’d win on the bridle if she were allowed to race!”
Kitty gasped. “They are not allowing you to race?”
Charlotte froze. “What did he say? Are they forbidding you to race?”
“I’m waiting until October,” she lied. “Minny will be much improved by then.”
Charlotte edged closer. “What reason did they provide?”
“No reason.”
Her aunt’s blue eyes snapped. “I will speak to your cousin, Lord Acomb, on this.”
“Do not trouble yourself, I…” Georgiana’s words drifted away. Mr. Wolf led his horse by, his breath forming puffs as he spoke to a groom. His boots fell softly to the dewy grass. His strides were loose, quiet like his hand on the reins.
“Mr. Wolf!” she shouted.
Without stopping, he looked over his shoulder. She waved. He nodded and turned away.
Georgiana started toward him and Charlotte caught her sleeve. “You will not go to him.”
“But we agreed to meet this morning.”
“If he wished to meet, he would have given you more than a nod. These men are playing you for a fool, Georgiana. They cut you for their own amusement. If that man desires to further your acquaintance, he will come to you.”
Mr. Wolf mounted his horse, and the saddle barely shifted. The chestnut stallion, Palliard, was powerful from the hind end, his neck set perfectly for a gallop. He was skittish. He hopped sideways, and Mr. Wolf moved seamlessly with the stallion.
“Aunt, I’m not at a ball,” she said. “I’m not wishing for him to court me. I want to learn from him.”
“Courting and the business of horses are the same. If you appear eager, it will be seen as a weakness. Leave him be. Show no weakness.”
Georgiana rolled her eyes.
“You believe females do not know the art of drawing a man in? We invented it, dear.”
Mr. Wolf rode a horse like a dream. His horse was a dream. All this was a dream. And the longer Georgiana watched him, through his ride, his return, and his departure from the course, the more she saw it as a bad dream.
“Shall we depart?” asked Charlotte. “We must leave for Notfelle to have Kitty returned by nightfall.”
Holding her head high, Georgiana walked Minion back toward town and the drone of an auctioneer.
