Page 33 of Lessons for Marquesses
Something Charlotte saw in Georgiana stirred a pitying expression.
Georgiana threw her napkin to the table. “I’m not going to the assembly. I’ll be in my cell, eating biscuits and getting drunk on tea.”
She stomped up the stairs and landed face-first on her bed. Could she smother herself with a pillow? She tried, and her stupid lungs told her pathetic arms to remove the pillow.
She gave up on the day, undressing to her nightgown, tugging a cap upon her head, and slipping under the sheets. She tried to smother herself again and released the pillow to rest on her face. Maybe she could fall asleep and not awaken. A slow death by pillow. Her lashes fought the thing as she stared in the forced gloom.
She’d shown no weakness, hadn’t approached Mr. Wolf as Charlotte had counseled, and he had bequeathed her with another nod as he had led Palliard to the race. As clear as the pillow on her face, Mr. Wolf didn’t wish to be within ten feet of her, much less desire her acquaintance.
Aunt Charlotte approached Oliver in the entry hall while they waited for Kitty to emerge from her two-hour toilette. “You cannot mean to leave Georgiana alone while we attend the assembly.”
“I do mean.”
“But she is a maiden. She cannot be left alone.”
“Then you stay here, and I will escort Kitty.”
“But she is a maiden as well, and you are not her relative. I must go, and you must stay here.”
Why had Oliver ever believed the prim, tight-lipped spinster could assist Georgiana in overcoming her manly upbringing? If he were Georgiana, well, his St. Clair temper would have had him burying the woman in Farendon’s home wood months ago.
Which meant, upon further considering Georgiana’s restraint, there still might be hope for the girl.
“I have a meeting to attend, Miss Philips,” he said with forced calm. “One more important than your fear for my cousin’schastity. Which has been and will remain perfectly safe given her character.”
“And what of this Mr. Wolf?”
Oliver growled at the mention of his friend turned fiend. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.” The fiend would have to crawl out from his drunken lair of vengeance. And Nick had already won. Soon Farendon would be his again, and as much as Oliver loved the fiend, understood the source of his pain, he was through making amends for Edmund’s death.
“But Georgiana might dare,” Charlotte rejoined. “Have you paid no attention to her regard for Mr. Wolf? She is besotted with him.”
Besotted? Georgiana?
Impossible.
“She could have already planned an assignation?—”
“My cousin wouldn’t know an assignation if it slapped her upside her wig and called pistols.”
“I do believe, my lord, in my limited experience with the code of honor, that the challenged party is afforded the privilege of naming the weapon.”
Oliver twitched, staring the spinster down. “I, Miss Philips, will be naming a weapon out of turn if you do not cease your prattle. Georgiana remains home and we are leaving.”
A high-pitched tut erupted from her throat, something akin to a piqued lapdog. “Well.”
Praise God, Kitty Babbington materialized at the stairs swathed in bright pink. That was the end of that.
Tap.
Georgiana opened her eyes at the sound, the pillow having failed to kill her but providing for a miserable headache. Ripping it off, she breathed in the night air, and with it, all the woes she had forgotten in sleep.
Tap.
Scooting to the edge of the bed, she peered through the dark.
