Page 69 of Lessons for Marquesses
She threw down her pencil, and it rolled off the table. Inhaling slowly, she plucked the errant writing utensil beneath her chair, knocked her head on the way up, and met Mr. Wolf’s slight smile.
“Sometimes it feels as if the world is against you,” he said.
No, just one person in the world. The Marquess of Eastwick. So why was she blaming the man who had so graciously agreed to mentor her?
Georgiana clutched her coffee, taking a tiny sip lest she burn her tongue. No, it was not Mr. Wolf’s fault he was big and strong and hungry. No, he simply happened to be all those things in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
“I loathe the Marquess of Eastwick,” she announced into her coffee cup.
Mr. Wolf’s fork froze between his lips.
“I have never known a man to be such a disgusting bully and coward. Oliver refers to him as capable, and it is true. He slithers on his belly like the veriestsnake. He plots to smite my existence from this earth and has he once shown his face to me? No. Do you know my cousin suggested I marry him? Well.My. I would ratherdie.”
Mr. Wolf coughed and setting down his fork, turned his full attention to her. His expression was akin to a magistrate—complete objectivity. She hated him just a little for it.
“Does the marquess have reasons?” he asked.
“And what reasons, pray, excuse dishonorable behavior?”
“He clearly wants something you have.”
Georgiana flourished an arm to the wallpaper peeling at the seams. “Farendon. He has the right of first refusal for a property which my father paid twice its worth and yet acts as if it were stolen from him.”
Mr. Wolf hacked into his napkin.
Georgiana poured him a glass of water and thumped it in front of him. She leaned over the table, fists clenched. “In fact, I lied to you. I loathe the entire Clayton family. Rotten through and through. All of them.”
“You know the family?”
Georgiana shoved up to square her shoulders. “It is best you declined my offer, sir. In fact, for your sake, you should leave here today. I will make bitter company and would never forgive myself if you were to fall victim to their ruthlessness by association. Rupert!”
The old man shuffled in from the hall, clutching the door frame. “Miss?”
“Please ensure Mr. Wolf’s trunks are carried down when he is ready to leave.”
Rupert glared at her breakfast companion and shuffled away.
Mr. Wolf stood, his chair scraping against the wood floor where a carpet used to lay. “George, when I advised you to fight?—”
“Oh, I’ve been fighting, sir. But this, this is downright immoderation. If you will excuse me.”
Georgiana marched from the morning room, the fight burning in her belly and Mr. Wolf hurling his napkin across the table.
Steady, Nick. Steady.
What had he just witnessed? A young woman seized by a powerful rage.
Oh, I’ve been fighting, sir. But this, this is downright immoderation.
What in hell had he unleashed? A giant hole had opened up from the ground below him, and this woman who smiled in the face of defeat had materialized. He knew in his gut from years of living with the Wolf, it was only the beginning.
Nicholas skirted the table and hurried out into the hall where the coffin dodger blocked his path. Grabbing the man by his arms, Nicholas picked him up, planted him to his left, and strode across the marble floor toward the closed study door.
He should never have urged Georgiana to fight and never, never should have given in to the foolish need to decline her partnership offer so cruelly.
His brain struggled to piece together a fantastical story as to why she thought the Clayton’s were rotten through and through. A story made up by her father, who had the audacity to lie to his daughter that he had paid twice the asking price for Farendon.
He knocked on the study door, knowing she was in the room and not Oliver, who preferred the civilized hour of eight for rising. No answer came after an additional knock. The world had turned on its ear, so he figured invading Georgiana’s privacy would go unnoticed.
