Page 99 of Lessons for Marquesses
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Georgiana walkedthe course with Charlie and Mr. Wolf’s groom, ensuring the flags were set properly. She peered up at the sky where rain threatened. Mr. Wolf might have taught her enough already for Georgiana to dispel her mare’s objections, but she prayed anyway that Minion didn’t dissolve into a fit of angry vapors when raindrops pelted her.
She returned to the starting line where a tent had been raised to protect the spectators. A table groaned with a feast to satisfy a royal match race. A joint of beef, ham, sausages, cheeses had emptied her larder. There were meat pies still piping from the oven and cherries, strawberries, and precious oranges from the greenhouse. Fresh bread with an assortment of preserves, biscuits, and crossed buns with buttered tops. And of course wine from her cellars and other spirits which the stoics had been imbibing since noon.
"Let them eat and drink it all,” she muttered. Less for the Marquess of Eastwick to take.
She had Charlie weigh her with the weighted saddle and was pronounced at just over twelve stone. The minimum for mostraces and the Fordyce Stakes. Mr. Wolf didn’t require a scale. He obviously weighed more.
She brooded under the eaves of the stable block, mentally reviewing the course and knowing she should take this less seriously than she did, yet unable to. Horses were the one thing she was good at, and Caroline lounging under her parasol, lest she catch a freckle, only enforced her determination.
Her cousin had ceased referring to her as Poppy, but if anything she was more cutting than the night before. This secured her belief that Mr. Wolf had told the truth. Nothing had happened, and Caroline was peeved.
She hoped Mr. Wolf had told her cousin he was not attracted to her either.
A figure slipped from the portico door, and at first, she thought it was Charlotte. Then she realized it was a man. And then she saw it was Mr. Wolf in a petticoat and skirts tied about his waist. He wore boots. When he lifted his skirts, she saw he wore hose, garters, and boots. And no breeches.
Georgiana shoved from the stone wall as the spectators caught sight of him and roared with laughter. They offered a glass to Mr. Wolf as he approached. Caroline floated from her chair, twirling her parasol, and complimented Mr. Wolf on his yellow flounced skirt below a black waistcoat and frock coat.
He was a bee stinging Georgiana with his utter disregard for the seriousness of the matter. After a humble nod—at odds with his smirk—he toasted the crowd and downed the libation.
Oh no. Absolutely not.She would not have him turn this into a comedy and have him lose to her in skirts. Georgiana marched to the tent, wanting to kick his naked shins when he curtsied to her and batted his long lashes.
She said to Caroline, “Where is the gown you purchased for me?”
Caroline frowned. “You can’t mean to wear it while riding a horse?”
“I can mean it. Where is it?”
“In my room.” Her lips curved up at their petite corners. “It is easy enough to identify. It is the very large pink one.”
Georgiana marched toherroom, not Caroline’s, and found the gown without having to measure its size. She simply had to find the most hideous.
Charlotte loitered at the door, her hands gripping the frame. “Dear Lord, that is…”
“A pink so ugly not even Kitty would wear it.” The gown was a sickening mash of bright fuchsia with leafy green ruffles. She wouldn’t resemble a poplar tree. She would be a towering, flowering espalier.
Georgiana removed her boots and breeches. Charlotte tied the petticoat.
“I’ll not be able to move in the sleeves.” So she scissored them off, removed her fawn coat, slipped on the gown, and put her coat back over the nauseating garment.
“Fetching, aren’t I? Especially with my red hair.”
Charlotte pressed a crooked finger to her nose and giggled. Who knew her aunt could giggle?
After pulling on her boots, Georgiana draped the train over her left arm and proceeded outside.
“Georgiana.” Charlotte held her back at the bottom of the portico. “I am sorry. I should have listened to you. Your mother and I, we never had such rivalry.”
“Caroline is not my sister.”
“Yes, but there is a definite jealousy on her part and it is not due only to Mr. Wolf.”
Her father hadn’t doted on Caroline. Rather, Caroline had forced her suit, displaying all the femininity Georgiana lacked, plumping his settee pillows, pouring his tea, sliding footrestsbeneath him. Singing and playing pianoforte. Her father had accepted it more than treasure it.
Charlotte squeezed her hand. “Do you forgive me?”
She took a page from Mr. Wolf and was honest. Brutally so. “I doubt this horrid gown is the last of her tricks.”
