Page 71 of Lessons for Marquesses
Oliver made a disbelieving sound.
“My departure was her idea, not mine. She wished for me to leave Farendon so I do not become a victim of the marquess by association. Rotten, through and through, she called me. My family.”
Nicholas stared north as Georgiana vanished inside the home wood.
Oliver cleared his throat. “Admittedly, your family is known for… that is, your brother, you know good and well?—”
“Are you to call him a viper too? Attempt to persuade me that his end was justified for his fast living, my fate understandable by association? Georgiana means to fight the marquess. Really fight him.”
Nicholas met his friend’s anxious look with a matter-of-fact study. “I expect my belongings unpacked, pressed, and returned to their drawers while I save your beloved cousin from herself. If I am successful, I expect gratitude. And an apology.”
In the stables, Charlie, the redheaded groom from Newmarket, offered to saddle his horse and then left Nicholas waiting for a quarter hour. The boy returned with two other stable hands, pale-faced and explaining they had misplaced Teague.
“You have,” he said slowly, “misplaced a seventeen-two, black stallion.”
“Aye, sir. We think he might be in the far northwest pasture. Tom’s gone out in search of him. Won’t be more than a?—”
“Saddle Wild Squire. Now.”
With a nod, the boys turned. Was it his impatience that had him suspecting a plot to delay his pursuit of Georgiana? No, the boys walked slower than a March thaw. And he could guess the woman behind it: Georgiana ordering Teague banished to the northwest pasture as she climbed atop Minion and aimed for the goldsmith who managed the post in town because under the righteous grip of anger, she wanted no one to interfere.
Nicholas saddled Wild Squire in mere minutes and galloped for town in a spitting drizzle.
Wild Squire was no match for Minion. Three miles through the home wood path and around acres of green barley and wheat, his old comrade’s gait faltered. Though his big heart and winded lungs tried to match his rider’s obvious haste.
Near the North Road, Nicholas slowed the stallion to a trot, soothing his beloved friend’s neck and murmuring his thanks. He reached for his hat to adjust it in the growing rain, but he had left it in his room. Correction, it was smashed at the bottom of his trunk courtesy of Rupert.
Determined to continue, he threaded through a dense stand of sycamore. The rustle of underbrush and Wild Squire’s steady hoofbeats brought a rush of memories.
Nicholas had run to the Monongahela River in retreat, driven there, where the men in front of him parted like the sea, the natives meeting them with their hatchets and scalping knives. His chest had been soaked with his own blood, his breath full and searing. It had grown ragged as he lay on the ground, blanketed by the humid Ohio Country night.
There had been the earthy scent rising from the moist soil beneath his fingers, metallic blood, sweet grass, and the pungent smell of gunpowder. The cries of the dying and the snapping of underbrush as the living stepped over the dead. His heart slamming against his chest as the surgeon had jabbed the needle, pulled the thread, and tugged his flesh tight.
Nicholas shook his head clear of the memory.
He forded a brook flowing from the River Great Ouse. Beyond a veil of weeping willow branches shedding water in the breeze, Nicholas saw her. Georgiana walked beside Minion through a thick patch of reeds and up an embankment slick with rain.
Minion had lost a shoe.
“George,” he called after her.
Georgiana carried on in what was now a steady rain. She had forgotten her hat, too, her wet hair the color of ripe cherries and curling at her collar.
“George, please stop. I wish to…”What? Save you in order to make it easier for me?“I wish to apologize.”
She straightened. “No need, sir. None of this is your doing.”
“Allow me to help.”
This was very much his fault. He should never have pushed her to fight. Never have pursued her acquaintance past their interaction in Twain’s cockpit. The day he had found her drunk beneath the cooper beech, he was sure she had given up. He should have left Farendon the next morning.
“You cannot walk in the rain to town.” He came abreast of her, looking down as she looked forward. “You’ll catch your death.”
Her lips twisted. “Perhaps I will.”
Nicholas knew the feeling of hoping fate would end one’s struggles even as they fought to survive. How did he explainto her that life was unfair, that heroes—and heroines—suffered, that odds were impossible more often than not?
Dismounting, he blocked her path. She veered right to skirt him and he caught her arm. Soon her sleeve would be soaked through. She was trembling and refused to meet his gaze.
