Page 89 of Lessons for Marquesses
In her mind, she combed through the weeks of their acquaintance, the endless hours spent together, trying todiscover the exact time she had started wanting Mr. Wolf and not just wanting to be him.
Nicholas wasn’t a man who intentionally lied to himself. No, the only way to overcome a weakness was to face the truth of its existence. And the truth was he liked Georgiana. Really liked her. He wanted her. And it wasn’t a relief in his loins that he sought, not the physical, emotionless act of taking pleasure. He wantedher.
He lay in the bed, his erection giving no quarter and raging over its loss while he raked himself over hot coals for his crude utterances. He would wager his life she had never kissed a man before tonight, and he had treated her like a camp whore, clutching her hot, innocent cunny and telling her to take it all.
I want to fuck you hard?He smothered his face, his fingers itching to tear out his tongue.
But damn, she fit him perfectly, didn’t she? No crouching or stooping. No fear he might break her. In the heat of this freedom, he had lost his mind.
Georgiana didn’t make her bed for God’s sake. She sprawled her legs, kicked them up on the nearest piece of furniture, and if not available, bent one under her and sat on it. Her hair was shorter than his. What curves she had were fashioned by the angle of bone, muscle, and a minimum of feminine padding. But she was also kind, intelligent, hardworking, nurturing. Brave. Beautiful.
His weakness had stared back at him with wide blue eyes and the full sweet curve of her mouth. He had never attended to how a woman’s lip thinned as he kissed it, swelled when he released it.
He did now.
When had he stopped hating her? Had he ever hated her, the real her?
He had survived five years of war, a French saber at Monongahela, a wound no one had believed he would survive, for this. He had lived past the battle to be carted to a dirt-floor cabin, to listen to men die in the humid Ohio Country air. He could still hear the sound of shovels digging the graves. The smack of rocks being thrown over them to prevent animals from scavenging the bodies.
He had taken stock of his life in the putrid stench of that cabin, and Georgiana St. Clair stood in the way of every resolution he had made there. She rendered every life he had taken as pointless, Edmund’s death unpunished.
He snuffed the candle with his fingers. He could still feel her beneath him, the supplication, the boldness in her kiss, the fluttering hands at his neck, his hair, his back. The rise of her hips.
She had failed to heed his warning. He would have to face her tomorrow and attack his weakness accordingly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Georgiana trotted alongside the coach,returning to Farendon with a far improved disposition than her departure. North of St. Neot’s, along the Great North Road, the world rose up in a symphony of spring. Not yet noon, the white campion’s perfect flowers were still in bloom from the evening before. Wild strawberries carpeted a hedgerow near the road. She counted nine cygnets trailing a mother swan and a mischief of magpies chattering in a meadow.
Mr. Wolf had greeted her with a nod at breakfast and settled in silence over his rye bread and selection of cheeses. He had sipped his tea black, and once she swore he grinned at her over his cup.
“The most powerful men, George, never show their hand,” her father had once said. “Never beg. Never complain. Smile as your mother taught me, and as required,retaliate.”
What was in Mr. Wolf’s hand?
She had no experience on what to expect from a man with whom she had shared intimate congress or, at least the start of it. None of the stories Kitty had read to her provided detailedinsight into the morning after. A man either fell headlong in love with the woman or deserted her.
Certainly, the smile Mr. Wolf shared with her at a toll was not the sign of a man itching to desert. With no wish to hide her feelings, Georgiana smiled back.
Prior to leaving for Chedworth, she had sent four hundred to Coutts Bank and in four days the balance was due. She had nothing to send them. Yet being in Mr. Wolf’s presence made her feel like anything was possible. That she had the power to do anything simply because she knew him. That any obstacle would be overcome. More, that she would laugh at them.
The Marquess of Eastwick would soon be the owner of her debt. As soon as she arrived at Farendon, she would send off a letter and bargain for her home. With Mr. Wolf near, her hope felt replenished and her outlook on the future, wherever it landed her, optimistic.
Presently, Mr. Wolf kept his post at the left front as he had on their journey to Chedworth, slowing at times to let the coach pass and ask her about the land, her tenants, the crops they grew, and her plans for improvement. Did he believe, like she did, that her troubles would be overcome now that they were… together? Was that what they were?
She wanted to ask him:What do you think of me, Mr. Wolf? Does your heart hammer in your chest for me like mine does for you? Do you love me?
A sorry state she was in, but there was no skirting the truth. She had no desire to avoid the weakness that thrilled her like the promise of a spring day with birdsong and green grass and a horse trotting beneath her.
In one person, she had found this.
Mr. Wolf appeared at her left. Georgiana jerked up from her reverie.
“George, I need to talk you.” There was no telling the direction of this talk by his tone.
Georgiana confirmed that Charlotte, sitting against the going, watched her through the coach window. “What would you like to talk about? How beautiful the day is?”
Slowing to a walk, he replied without considering his surroundings. “The day is beautiful.”
