Page 58 of Lessons for Marquesses
Oliver met him at the railing, pouring brandy into his own glass and sipping like a smug bastard. “When I met Annie, do you think I wished to fall in love? I was twenty with plans to taste all the feminine delights London offered.”
Nicholas stared toward the knot garden unkempt from a lack of gardeners. “You were a virgin when you married.”
“Exactly. All my plans, destroyed.”
“I am not falling in love.”But like. Maybe in like with her.
“Give it time.”
“Time is of no consequence except the years I spent in exile, without my home.” He added not from true emotion but principle, “Without the woman who was to be my wife.”
“Caroline? Come, she is my sister, true. But she is also a viper.”
“William St. Clair’s perfidy changed us.”
“No, Nick.” Oliver jabbed Nicholas’ biceps. “She has always been a viper. You were just too awestruck to see it. Now, Georgiana, she?—”
“There will not be two victors in this.” Nicholas twisted on his heel and marched into the house to avoid leveling his friend.
Georgiana overslept two hours the following morning, and it was sufficient to assume the world was near its end.Two hours!Soon she’d be sleeping until one in the afternoon like Julian.
She had stayed up past midnight reviewing her training notes and strategies. And as she lived on an average of five hours of sleep, that was not concerning. But after retiring to her room, she had spent two hours scrubbing her wig and two more listening to Mr. Wolf knock about in the adjoining salon.
She had promised Charlotte not to enter the room while Mr. Wolf was in residence on threat of nailing her door shut. It made her itch to open the door more.
Where once she never considered it scandalous to be alone with a man, the pit in her belly, the tingling sensations she felt when he’d touched her, her ridiculous obsession with listening…
Well, it was approaching scandalous in her mind.
Marching down the stairs with her old brown wig atop her head, she entered the morning room with Charlotte, Oliver, and Mr. Wolf present because she was two hours late. She always ate alone because she was always the first to rise.
She stuffed her ruined wig at the breakfast table next to Oliver’s plate. “You owe me a new wig.”
Oliver swirled a mash of herring and eggs with a cursory glance at the wig. “It appears serviceable.”
Georgiana flipped it about to the streak of lime green. “There.”
Mr. Wolf leaned over his plate.
“Goose poop,” she announced.
Oliver tsked. “Bloody shame.”
“Acomb, please,” Charlotte murmured.
“Yes, a bloody shame,” Georgiana seconded. “Which you are going to pay for. This is real hair.”
Oliver jabbed at her head. “Under that is real hair. And free.”
“You can’t expect me to wear my own hair.”
“You’re already wearing it.” Oliver stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth and chewed leisurely.
“It’s Celtic whore hair,” she said.
Oliver spit his food to his plate.
“Is it not?” she asked Charlotte.
