Page 25 of Lessons for Marquesses
Kitty made a choking sound. “Oh, Georgiana! I think—I think they are selling Dearg.”
She followed Kitty’s line to the auction. Led in a circle, under the clipped bids of would-be owners, was her chestnut yearling, Dearg. A fever had set upon the crowd for the sweet boy who had garnered twenty pounds from Mr. Farley. The bid was fiftyguineas. Eighty and then ninety, one hundred, one hundred and twenty.
“Sold! One hundred and thirty-five guineas,” the auctioneer announced.
Her mouth was too dry to swallow.
“Lot three four,” the auctioneer called. “Spinner by Wild Squire, out of Rose Rouge, by Progress, bred two by three to the great Spanker. Opening bid set at thirty guineas.”
Georgiana watched, stuck to the earth in a horrific dream where a fiend chased her and not only could she not flee, she hadn’t any desire to save herself.
Someone nudged her shoulder as the bidding rose to one hundred and forty. “Georgie.”
A hand pulled her chin. Her cousin Julian stared into her eyes. His eyes, the blackest brown, creased at their corners, in a face almost too perfect for a man. Next to Julian was his brother, Oliver.
Could a person actually die from embarrassment?
Charlotte spilled every painful second of their Newmarket excursion while Oliver, otherwise known by his courtesy title Viscount Acomb, forded the sitting room in the rented house one block from the coffee house.
Jabbing a finger, Oliver didn’t look like a viscount. He looked like an overworked MP about to dislocate a shoulder before his heart seized. He vowed to put the livery out of business. The butcher who cheated her would be on the street by June. He whipped out a parliamentary colleague’s name who would see to it.
Oliver’s brother, Julian, landed on a settee. His coat of puce-and-peach-striped silk and lavender breeches were breathtaking in theau courantfashion where nothing must match. “Stabling your racing horse in a cockpit, Georgie? Really, where was your pride?”
“I swallowed it, Cousin.”
“Here I thought only men had pride to swallow.” Julian sent a blistering glance at Kitty who sat two chairs down from him. “And women relished their defeat.”
Kitty found a ruffle on her gown requiring extreme attention while Julian marched to the liquor tray and poured two fingers of brandy. Had Kitty and Julian quarreled between the auction yard and the house? They had once been…
Oliver twisted about with the full force of a House of Commons threat. “Who is responsible for you being pulled from the race?”
“No one,” Georgiana said.
“Eastwick,” Julian provided.
Oliver flushed purple. “Eastwick? That son of a bitch!”
“Acomb, please,” Charlotte pleaded. “There are ladies present.”
Oliver said over his shoulder, “My apologies, Kitty.”
“You forgot Georgie,” Julian reminded.
“You too, girl. Damnation, I’ll kill him.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Georgiana said. “His family founded the Stakes and a gentleman owner is required.”
Oliver clutched his waistcoat. “Good God, I’ll not live to be forty.”
“Not if you challenge a man to a duel,” Julian observed.
“I believe poison to be a safer method, my lord,” Kitty said.
Julian jabbed a ringed finger in Kitty’s direction. “Listen to her. She rarely has a rational thought. Take advantage.”
Georgiana stiffened. “Must you be an arse, Cousin?”
“Oh, Julian means nothing by it,” Kitty said, though her smile failed to reach her hazel eyes.
