Page 5 of Lessons for Marquesses
Georgiana had quickly wiped her face and tucked away her mother’s long-ago letter she had been crying over. The infamous St. Clair temper had swelled from the heavy depths of her grief. Her fingers had clawed the sofa cushions, ready to heave her aunt through the room’s glass doors leading to the garden. Without them opened.
Instead, she had glared at Oliver, a fresh spate of tears pooling in her eyes. “I am forever in your debt, Cousin.”
Pursing her lips, her aunt had said, “Please close your legs, dear.”
Dear, Georgiana had learned over the next year, was female forbugger. Which Georgiana was fond of saying and had been admonished never to utter again. Her aunt had provided alternatives.My. Well. Indeed.Or better, Georgiana was to bite her cheek and say nothing at all.
Within the first week, Charlotte had amended her task to making her a female. As if she wasn’t certain Georgiana had the biological makings of one. That she hadn’t breasts beneath her bindings or a place from where her course flowed or a man could deposit his seed if a child was the aim.
Charlotte had asked.Asked!“Ana…”
“George,” she had corrected.
Her aunt had ignored that. “Do you have a monthly flow?”
Georgiana had squirmed inside. “Yes. Would you like to see my breasts?”
Charlotte had coughed. “I will take you at your word, dear.”
“My,” Georgiana had replied with a faint smile. “Well.”
And good because Georgiana had no desire to show her breasts to anyone, ever. A great source of consternation they were. Jiggling about, growing like udders until she had beenforced to bind them in order to ride her horses unfettered. Distracting is what they were. And completely unnecessary.
“And from what I see, girl,” Oliver said presently, with a stubborn confidence born of politicking, “your lady lessons are proceeding agreeably.”
Georgiana folded her arms across her olive-green coat. “What do you see?”
Oliver retreated to the liquor tray, splashing brandy in a chipped glass and gulping it to the last drop. “Your aunt informs me you have learned to dance.”
If ever Georgiana were to grace a dance floor, she would stand like a poplar tree among a room of shrubbery. Her cousin Caroline, Lady Tufton, had pegged her as just that.Poppy. There were worse nicknames but she hated it all the same.
“I am not marrying the marquess,” she said. “And I am not selling Farendon to him.”
“He has the right of first refusal.”
The Marquess of Eastwick was a vulture waiting to reclaim Farendon. Her father had paid twice its value. What did the marquess need of her home now? Could he not be satisfied with beingtall, capable, and wealthy?
A show of anger, which she had in spades, would not do. Her father—also once an owner of the St. Clair temper—had counseled,Temper is a weakness. A fool’s indulgence.
“I am not selling Farendon”—Georgiana smiled—“to anyone.”
Oliver flushed red and cursed a string of choice expletives. “For God’s sake, look around you.” He flourished at the ledgers stacked on the shelf behind Georgiana. “Look at your accounts. I have tried, Georgiana. I have thrown thousands away on your debt, but it is too much. Too much, girl. The interest alone assures your defeat. You are in a bloody corner. There is nothing to do butsell.”
Georgiana met Kitty’s sympathetic hazel eyes. Her friend knew much about corners, having been forced into a betrothal to a man thrice her age. But her friend would never marry the old man. Just as Georgiana would never surrender.
Oliver rounded the table and peered up into her face. “Are you so pigheaded, you would dare debtors’ prison?”
“Minion will win the Fordyce Stakes.”
“And then?”
“I will win the Newmarket Plate in October.”
“And then?”
Georgiana stood taller. “I will think of something.”
Oliver threw up his hands and stomped from the study. The marquess’s caricature forgotten, Kitty hurried from her post to embrace Georgiana. Charlotte shook her head slowly.
