Page 44 of Lessons for Marquesses
“Partners do not cherish. I will teach you what I know, but I do not expect you to laugh at my jests nor do I have the remotest need for you to make me proud.”
“My apologies, sir,” she replied with a bow.
Did this girl bear everything with civility? Where was her backbone, the infamous St. Clair temper which Oliver displayed on a daily basis?
“It was a disservice to you, what Eastwick did,” he conceded. And then needled, “But it was also within his right and not poor sportsmanship. Men are denied entry into the Stakes, many races, for not being gentlemen, and you are neither a man nor a gentleman.”
“I understand.”
“There are rules, George. Rules that exclude, and you were excluded. They don’t care aboutMinny. They’d just as well have her rot than compete with them because you are not one of them.”
Finally, she charged him in long strides, her eyes narrowed in fury. “You think I don’t know I’m not one of them?”
“I think you’ve been sheltered, nurtured to a fault, allowed your manly proclivities without facing the realities of your life until now. I think you are dismayed by it and chose me because you thought I was like you. But I am not like you. I know who I am, and you, you have no idea who you are.”
He brushed his hat with a last look at her Titian hair. “Good day. Until the next time.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Four Days Later
Farendon Estate
Georgiana walkedFarendon’s halls with Charlotte, her aunt with a notebook and pencil, Georgiana with a hammer and tacks. She had chosen fourteen rooms for auction. Eight total would remain until more funds were required to save her from insolvency.
“The Red Room,” Georgiana said pushing through the door. “Red and gold Turkey carpet, Queen Anne bureau and armoire, mahogany tester with bed curtains, mahogany nightstand.”
She ran a finger along a coating of dust at the mantel. She’d cut Farendon’s staff by half, letting go the youngest, who would easily find work with the letters of recommendation she’d provided. Except for Rupert, her old manservant, the butler and footmen had been let go. She could open her own doors and fill her own plate.
“Three paintings,” she said. "Woman in chair. Woman in classical drapery near lake, and Bertie.”
Charlotte paused at her writing, considering the painting of an overfed man in trunk hose with a pointy beard. “Bertie?”
“Yes, short for Cuthbert. I named him. What of this fireback?” Georgiana brushed off the dust, revealing a two-headed griffin, stag, and laurel. “Some wealthy merchant will want the Eastwick coat of arms in their fireplace, hmmm?”
“I do believe so.”
Outside the room, Charlotte offered her a slip of paper with1-Red Room, and Georgiana tacked it to the door.
She pointed to a table. “Parson’s table. China vase. Portrait of horse at dawn near the copper beech.”
In the Yellow Room, Charlotte remarked that a French cabinet of Grenoble wood looked promising, and by five rooms in, Georgiana realized that selling her home to the walls had put a melancholy knot right at her heart.
“Priscilla,” she said to a dark-haired beauty hung betwixt a sitting room’s windows lavished in faded gold silk. Georgiana had a story for all the portraits. Priscilla had eloped to the American colonies with a Puritan but then ran off with an Algonquin Indian chief.
Charlotte offered a rare smile. “What about Priscilla?”
The knot tightened. “Did you list the tea table and sofa?”
“I did.”
“Add this chest of drawers.”
“Done.”
Georgiana hurried through six more rooms, the knot no longer specific in its pain. It encompassed her entire torso. Finally, at the nursery, she felt relief. Children and their trappings were as foreign to her mind as gowns. Charlotte drifted her hands over the cradle and the two narrow half-tester beds. Kneeling at a trunk, her aunt drew out a doll with ratted blond hair.
Georgiana rummaged through a chest and withdrew a silver rattle with the letterE. “This was gummed by three marquesses, we’ll say. The bidding will rise to a thousand to have some common offspring put their mouth where only noblemen have dared to drool.”
