Page 68 of Lessons for Marquesses
He said nothing.
“Or the other estate I mentioned, Chedworth, is about fifteen miles from here. What say you, Mr. Wolf? Would you like a Jacobean mansion? Two hundred and fifty-seven acres and furnishings included.”
Where Edmund had been murdered. Nicholas checked his emotions. “What is wrong with it?”
“Oh, nothing too terrible,” she answered softly. “The roof needs repairing, the west wing leaks like a spigot, the cellar floods in spring, the floors need refinished, a few walls replastered. All of them repainted.”
“Not terrible at all.”
Her voice broke as she gazed out into the night. “It is haunted.”
“Haunted?” Did she know about Edmund? What had her father told her? He doubted he would ever know.
She shivered. “Incessant creaks and howling. Doors opening and shutting. My mother died there.”
“I should like to see this haunted house of yours.”
Her molars bit the inside of her cheek. She did not like Chedworth, it was plain. “Then we shall make an event of it. But we must stay at least one night so you can fully appreciate the ghoulish delights.”
She came away from pouring another drink, her smile bright. “You know, I do believe the world is far less weighty at present.”
“Three whiskeys will do that to a girl.”
“Girl.” She laughed silently. “No, sir, it’s not the whiskey. You see, when one has nothing, what do they have to lose?”
He forced back a swell of compassion as she thanked him again, bowed, and quit the room.
The bad men always winechoed in his mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Georgiana avoidedany mention of the partnership when Mr. Wolf joined her for breakfast the next morning at half past six. It was bad enough she wasn’t left alone to suffer. Brooding would only reveal how weak she was, how much he had hurt her. So she put her best face on her pain, nodded a good morning, and bit into her toast.
Mr. Wolf, not one for vigorous conversation no matter the time, poured his coffee black and grinned.
A flush of anger swept up her chest. A grin? How could he? A slap in the face of her pain, it was. But then she had previously admired his insensitivity, hadn’t she? And what absolute callousness he had displayed when presented with her plan. Not only had he rebuked her partnership offer, he had rudely ignored her suggestion to buy her horses and had merely said he wished to see Chedworth.
Her eyes heated and her breakfast of toast and sausage swam before her.
Sitting across from her, the retch dug into his full plate of everything the buffet held: kippers, eggs, sausage, three rashersof bacon, beans, four pieces of toast, black pudding, and a bloody scone.
How could he eat?
How could he?
Georgiana stared at her plate. To smother her resentment—hotter than Hades—she forced a bite of sausage.
She had felt so very certain Mr. Wolf would agree to be her partner. True, she had expected a negotiation but for him to have slashed her hopes at the knees so quickly? He hadn’t shown a trace of emotion, but she suspected he had enjoyed it.
Overnight, she had tried to convince herself she was wrong in her suspicions and hadn’t slept a minute. Instead, while Mr. Wolf had rattled around in the adjoining salon, she had made a mental list of what she would sell next and wondered how much coin she would need to secure a private cell in Fleet Prison.
Charlotte had come to her room as she prepared for bed, anxious to hear the news on her proposed partnership. Georgiana’s pride, of course, had compelled her to lie and tell her aunt that Mr. Wolf was thinking on it.
Presently, she picked up her pencil to make training notes in her journal but nothing came. Where was yesterday’s confidence in facing future challenges? Once Kitty returned from London where she shopped for her trousseau, for a wedding surely never to happen, Georgiana would ask her to sketch another portrait of Eastwick. Rather childish but at this point, what was left but petty, ineffectual deeds?
She looked across the table where Mr. Wolf speared a sausage. Half his breakfast was already eaten. How? At least the sick feeling in her belly was gone along with the tingle in her fingers and the swirling in her lower parts.
How could she moon over a man—yes, that was what she’d been doing—when the notorious St. Clair temper was thrashingand gnashing in her chest like a demon and ready to attack this insensitive man with the traitorous appetite?
