Page 67 of Lessons for Marquesses
“Target practice. She excels at that as well.”
“And you do not?”
“Oh, I—” Her full mouth pulled at one corner. In the dim light, a flush colored her pretty face. “Not ladylike, I know. Childish, rather.”
His voice dropped further. “Have you met him? Eastwick?”
“I’ve never had the pleasure.” She smiled. "Though he is purportedly a man of capability, good looks, and wealth.” She also said something beneath her breath.Snake?
“Your friend’s rendering captured him perfectly,” Nicholas said.
Ignoring his comment, though her cheek twitched, she settled in an adjacent chair paying no mind to the brush of her knee against his. Hers was a delicate but strong knee with long supple muscles forming her thigh. Above that work of artistry, made by years of riding and usually covered by a coat’s skirt, wasa pert round backside. Georgiana was all sleek muscle, but that part of her, made for a man to clutch eagerly with two hands and hold, pat, and slap, was pure indulgence.
Shaking off his musings, he concentrated on the task at hand. He watched her tuck a wayward tendril behind her ear before she withdrew a document from her coat. “Mr. Wolf, I’ve reviewed my father’s records.”
Finally, all of him came to heel. She had found something. “Your father?”
“Yes, he had invested in a multitude of businesses before he died and using these as a basis, along with the purchase price paid for Farendon…”
Purchase price?Georgiana St. Clair believed her father had purchased Farendon? Nicholas’s mind fired like a cannon with all the ways he could destroy her ignorance.
“Mr. Wolf, I would like to offer you a stake in my racing business.”
Nicholas stared. What a brilliant schemer she was.
“A partnership,” she added. “Half of my racing stock and a minority interest in the estate of thirty percent. You yourself said I had the finest horses in England and the colonies. Together, we could win many races, and most important, have a lasting impact on horse breeding. A legacy, if you will.”
She regarded him with pride, her mouth curved in satisfaction. But there was more. Her gaze was direct with a tenacity he hadn’t seen since William St. Clair.
Here was the enemy he longed to fight.
She held her smile but as the silence ensued, he watched it falter.
“I am willing to negotiate a higher percentage,” she said. “My father once said a wise man negotiates. And a wiser man compromises.”
When had William St. Clair known compromise? What he had meant was his victims compromised. Everything.
Nicholas studied the paper she offered, an outline of their partnership.
She’s a St. Clair, Oliver had said.We’re known for attending to details. They don’t get past us, but if they do, we rectify itimmediately.
Ah, yes, rectify. Like her father knocking the back of his brother’s head with an unknown object and then, Nicholas assumed, St. Clair having found him still alive, beating Edmund’s face with a billiard cue.
He contemplated stringing Georgiana along and decided he could not wait. His need was too great. He craved to hurt her, just as her father had done to him. As she did to him, making him question his methods, lusting after her, actually mentoring her, feeling compassion for her, until he hardly recognized himself.
Nicholas tossed the outline to the table. “I do not want to be your partner.”
She made a small sound, a cry cut short, before the slender line of her throat bobbed. Was she going to cry? God, he wanted her to sob and wail and dissolve into a pitiful heap, and he hated himself for wanting it. Hewasa murderer. A murderer of dreams.
She retrieved the paper with excruciating care, as if it held the last of her dreams. He noticed her hand shaking as she folded it in half and then in fourths.
“But I thank you for the offer,” he added.
She nodded, and kept nodding, until the part of her so adept at eating crow had swallowed down her disappointment. “My pleasure, sir. Most definitely my pleasure.”
She picked up the second whiskey and gulped the liquor down. Tucking her chin, she grimaced, tossed the offer back tothe table, and went to refill her glass. She threw back another finger of liquor while the sweet taste of triumph soured on Nicholas’s tongue.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you might purchase my horses, save Minny. Any man who rescues a fool atop a castle wall surely deserves the right.”
