Page 8 of Lessons for Marquesses
Mr. Farley watched Georgiana put the two to their paces with an air of discontent, then asked to see a horse with like breeding. Georgiana brought Minion out but her four-year-old mare was having none of it.
Minion’s only impressive maneuver: she planted her perfect legs in the dirt, swished her tail, and glared at Mr. Farley.
“Better to make her a broodmare,” he said. “She’ll never win a race with her temperament.”
His gaze roamed the grounds, searching for signs of desperation, but the block and its surrounds had been maintained to the exception of all else. Her beloved string would never feel the bite of hardship. Until the end.
When was the end? It felt near.
“I’ll pay twenty,” Mr. Farley announced. “For both.”
Georgiana lost the ability to speak.
Kitty cast a worried glance her way and sidled near to the man with a flutter of her lashes. “Mr. Farley, I do believe they are worth more.”
Mr. Farley seesawed his head. “Thirty then.”
“One hundred?” Kitty offered.
“Forty.”
Take it. Take whatever you can.
“Done,” Georgiana said.
She led Farley to the house, humiliation pumping through her limbs with each step. Her father had taught her to put a face on her anger, but he’d never taught her to lose. And she was losing, in front of her very own eyes, in front of the world.
After Farley’s departure, Georgiana entered the payment in a ledger, and scribbling the math on a scrap of paper, stopped at two zeros behind the decimal. The percentage of forty pounds to her debt was so small as to be nothing.
Rising from her makeshift desk, Georgiana stood eye to eye with Oliver’s letter, framed and hung to the right of the door. It detailed the Marquess of Eastwick’s offer for Farendon.
What the marquess wanted was nothing short of everything, and if she accepted it, she would still be ten thousand in debt with her clothes and not even a pot to piss in. But soon Minionwould win the Fordyce Stakes and the four-thousand-pound purse—enough to hold off her creditors for at least a year. Yes, Minion would win, and then men would flock to do business with her. All would be on the mend.
Georgiana snapped her finger over the name,Marquess of Eastwick.
The Eastwicks. Rotten through and through.
She would show them.
CHAPTER TWO
Two Weeks Later
En Route to Newmarket
Georgiana rodeMinion the twenty-six miles to Newmarket at a leisurely pace, ensuring that her mare would be fit to win in four days’ time. From the coach, Kitty read a book toCharlotte while Minion clenched at the bit. Her mare hadn’t been allowed her head, and each time trees gave way to open land, Minion stiffened into sixteen hands of irascible muscle.
“We’ll get there, Minny,” Georgiana said. “Save your strength for trouncing the field. Who knows, Mr. Farley might be there, and you can try for his hand again.”
Minion twisted an ear.
As they skirted north of Cambridge, the road filled with riders, coaches, chaises, and carts heading to Newmarket. Georgiana’s excitement grew, not for the money she would win, but for the absolute pleasure of sharing her love of horses with others.
East of Cambridge, two men came alongside her. From the tailoring of their coats and the jeweled pins at their throats, theywere from the city. Because wagering was what most men loved about horses. Not the horses themselves.
“Fine mount you have there, boy,” one of the men remarked.
The other agreed.
