Page 75 of Lessons for Marquesses
“You have never raced a single horse.” He looked over the yard. “This is a fairy tale, where you breed and raise horses that have never been tested, never bet against, never penned in by the field or knocked unsteady by an underhanded jockey.”
She canted her head. Still she said nothing. It was aggravating enough to want to tear his hair out.
“I want to show you how a jockey wins a race against an exceptional horse and an undisciplined rider who allows the horse to rule. You choose a horse from your racing string for me to ride, and I will show you.”
She pinned her gaze to his boots, making a blatant path up his legs to his hands, avoiding his eyes, and landing somewhere behind him. What was that about?
Damn but he felt like he was losing. To himself.
He added smoothly though he felt like a gangling boy, “On further thought, I’ll make it amusing for the both of?—”
Nicholas was cut short as she dismounted Minny and handed the reins to Charlie lurking in the block’s wide door. Walking away, steadily heel to toe, she went to greet a rider in forest green cantering up the drive, followed by another in a copper suit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Her cousin Julianhad not arrived at Farendon alone.
First and foremost, he had brought along another of her cousins, Anthony Philips, fondler of backsides in a copper suit. And two coaches with a collection of trunks strapped to the top and back of them. One in particular was painted yellow with a perfusion of pink florals. Julian had brought a female and likely an unmarried female. Or worse, married without her husband.
Charlotte would be furious.
Julian frowned at Georgiana’s bare head. “What happened to your wig?”
Georgiana knew this would happen. “Your brother threw it in goose poop.”
“Sounds reasonable.” Julian leapt from his horse, looked about for a groom and finding none, tossed off his reins to Georgiana. He turned to Anthony. “What did I tell you? The perfect hiding place. No one will suspect we’d be caught dead in such rustic surrounds. Fitzwilliam can hide out until the duel’s forgotten and Greville can recuperate from his wound.”
Was she to harbor a fugitive? And what sort of wound?
A man hobbled down from the first coach in a shocking suit of floral brocade and lace. Well, one sleeve had lace. The other arm was in a white silk sling and by the bloodstain at his right shoulder, the wound was there. But still, the man—Greville, it was assumed—dressed like a fop.
From his unsteady step in blue bejeweled shoes, he was also drunk. As was the next man, with a bottle in his hand, slithering his lean, muscled form like a cat from the coach and peering over the drive with equal feline intent in his brown eyes.
The fugitive, Fitzwilliam, Georgiana assumed.
“Perfect,” Fitzwilliam drawled with a jaded study of the house.
Another man alighted from the coach. Strongly built, his tawny hair was tied and unpowdered. His stance, what she might call rugged, reminded her of Mr. Wolf. His right hand was wrapped in a ball of linen. Another wound? How violent was London?
Julian turned back to Georgiana with outstretched arms. She embraced him, chin to his shoulder, without taking her gaze from the Wounded and the Fugitive and the Rugged.
Charlotte would be more than furious.
“Is there a gentleman among you?” A female called from within the coach.
Mr. Wolf did the honors of bringing her forth. Soft, petite, blond, with blue eyes almost the shade of ice, she rivaled Caroline in beauty.
The woman’s floating gait skimmed the drive toward Georgiana. “Miss St. Clair, I am Lady Sybil. Thank you for your hospitality.” She knitted her brow at Julian. “Allow me to introduce you to our troupe.”
"The Stoics were known as,” Julian added.
These people adhered to the stoic philosophy as Georgiana was a diamond of the first water. None of them looked much older than her in age. In experience, decades.
Lady Sybil motioned to the Fugitive. “This is my cousin, Fitzwilliam.”
Fitzwilliam drank deeply from his bottle and wiped his mouth.
“Lord Greville.” She nodded to the Wounded. And then to the Rugged. “Mr. Adrian Blackwell.”
