Page 31 of Lessons for Marquesses
He refused to leave without the bottle, and he refused to pick it up with his right hand. He worked his index finger about the neck, shaking with a determination to meet it with his thumb. For interminable minutes, his thumb fought against him, moving closer and then, went flaccid. He twisted his shoulder until finally his thumb and forefinger pinched the bottle and he was free to leave.
From habit, he tread quietly through the wood, his senses heightened and prepared to strike if required. Halting at the cottage’s back door, he raked his fingers through his hair and sucked in the cool, marsh air. He dropped his head back. What color was Georgiana’s hair? Brown? Or was it blond? Did it curl or was it straight? Did she plait it and pin it under her wig?
Without answers, embarrassed by his thoughts, he pushed through the door.
“Nicholas! I was terrified—” Caroline stopped at the sight of him.
“Terrified? Why?”
She drew back at what was tantamount to a snap. He walked around her, gaining his room, stripping down to his shirt and drawers. Caroline was there, in his arms.
He extracted her hand from beneath his shirt. “Don’t.”
“Tell me what has happened. I will make it better.”
Better.That was amusing. Wasn’t every soul on earth filled with the human folly of hubris, deluding themselves into believing they were special, they had the power tomake it better?
“Carrie, I—”I want you to leave, but if I am alone…“I am sorry.”
“Make it up to me, my lord,” she said, her smile shining up at him. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”
He did as ordered, at first going through the motions until his body responded and rewarded him for his perseverance over what could be his last chance before the ghosts drove him to an unforgivable end.
Caroline was the perfect foil to his madness. Full where he was barren, light where he was dark, assured where he was indeterminate. Not quite a man, not quite a beast.
Why did he torture himself by trying to understand it? Regardless, she was an excellent fuck. Then and now.
He sank his fingers into her hair as she nestled at his side. “Where is your husband?”
“In London. I’ve done my duty by him. He cares not a fig who I sleep with as I do not care of the whores he keeps.”
“Marital bliss.” Like his parents’ marriage, which he had vowed, when young and stupid, to avoid. The freedom to bed anyone, in his naive brain, had seemed a shallow life, devoid of devotion and purpose.
Caroline turned, chin planted to his chest. “Georgiana is to invite Mr. Wolf to Farendon. She’s quite taken with him.”
“She said so?”
“The former. On the latter, she finds you not particularly handsome.”
Georgiana St. Clair was at least true to her image.
“Do you think her awkward?” she asked. “You know, she doesn’t even consider herself female.”
“I don’t think of her.”
“Well, I was pea green with envy when I heard she made you laugh. You know, that is my laugh, not hers.”
Nicholas hadn’t laughed in years. “Noted.”
“Are you going to Farendon?”
Caroline’s confidence was a wonder, the result of a life with few obstacles, wherein she did not suspect, because she could not fathom, that he might nurture a hatred for Georgiana St. Clair. There hadn’t been enough time between Caroline leaving and finding Edmund, but was it possible she believed Edmund’s murder had been a mishap between brothers, that Nicholas had killed him?
His hand was numb from her lying on his shoulder. He dragged it up and rested it uselessly about the soft curve of her waist.
“We could spend the summer together,” she said.
“I haven’t been invited.”
