Page 63 of Lessons for Marquesses
“When I knocked your shoulder in the Hazard Room,” he said, “not a peep.”
“I said ‘well’.”
“Hmmm.”
“Then, I said, ‘bugger you’.”
“After I left,” he pointed out.
Georgiana dared to look up. Black tendrils whipped at his scar.
“You underestimate your strength,” he said. “You need to fight.”
“But I do. That is…” She exhaled. “You are right, of course.”
He made an impatient sound as if disagreeing with his own words. “When Eastwick barred you from the race, you should have fought him.”
Georgiana jerked aside at the mention of Eastwick.
And toppled headfirst off the wall.
Without knowing how he did, without falling off with her, Mr. Wolf caught her.
She screamed. Her back slammed hard against the stone wall. “Wolf! Oh my God! Wolf!”
His fingers clutched beneath her right arm. Not his whole hand. Just fingers. He said something. She couldn’t hear it. She heard nothing but her heart roaring in her ears, her breath coming in huge gasps, her screams. Her feet dangled fifty, a hundred feet, miles above the earth. Her left shoulder hung nearly sideways. And her entire life hung on the strength of his left hand, the one that lost its hold unpredictably on coins, papers, forks.
She was going to die.
Mr. Wolf was going to die.
“Don’t move,” he ordered. “Don’t try to scale the wall. Just hang there.”
He balanced on a castle wall without a hold. He was going to die trying to draw her up with a fitful hand.
She moaned between her teeth. Weightlessness surrounded her. What would hit first? Her legs? Her head? What would she feel? Would she know she was dead?
He inched his fingers farther under her arm, each painstaking move heightening her terror, each one surely the last. He leaned far too forward. He lost his balance, his leg kicking out. He cursed and dug his boot sideways against the stone.
She peered down to Minion grazing without concern, the weeds her body would flatten when she fell, the green barleyfield stretching out beyond the old moat, the sun, the lake. She prayed. To live. For forgiveness. For Mr. Wolf not to die with her on account of her stupidity.
And then she knew what she must do.
“Wolf…” She swallowed down her terror. “Let me go.”
His breathing grated the eerie silence.
“Let me go. Save yourself. Just push me aside so I don’t land on Minny.”
“No.”
“Wolf, pl?—”
“Shut up.”
“But—”
“Damn you, no,” he gritted between his teeth. He started to winch her up.
