How to Impress a Marquess(40)
“Uh, yes, I apologize too,” muttered Fitzgerald. “I daresay, this horse ain’t near as fine as my own, but it’s the rider that matters.”
“Precisely,” said Lord Charles. “Are you coming, Lord Marylewick, or are you staying behind with the ladies?” Derision bled through his words.
“He’s going,” said Lilith.
“And you can’t disappoint a lady, Lord Marylewick,” said Charles. “It’s ungentlemanly.”
“Miss Pomfret shall make the call to start,” Lilith said.
“The things we do to impress the ladies,” Charles said as the men rode to the edge of the field.
They lined up their horses. The rivals’ faces were stony and tight.
George wanted to shake Lilith. Why did she encourage this little race? What did she want to prove? He leaned forward in his saddle, his nerves on a razor’s edge waiting for the call.
“Go!” shouted Miss Pomfret.
Then the only thing George could hear was the pounding of hooves on the grass. He stood in his stirrups, feeling the air stream over him. In his peripheral vision he could see Charles approaching. Rage, as black as the blood in his veins, boiled up from deep inside George. That goddamned cove would not beat him. He lowered his head until he was almost on the horse’s neck. His anger flowed through his muscles into his horse’s, combusting into speed and thunder as they sliced the air. Charles disappeared. All George saw before him now was grass and sky. For those seconds, he was free and powerful. He wanted to seize this sensation and put it into Lilith. Press his hardness deep into her softness until she cried out in ecstasy. Lilith. A mere glance back at her shattered the moment. Charles and Fitzgerald were at least six feet behind him. What would Disraeli say? George was destroying the Stamp Duty Extension Bill to show how big his cock was. He eased up.
“What!” Lilith exclaimed as she watched the others pull ahead of George. But he was going to win. He was ahead for the entire race. How did this happen? Lord Charles sailed across the path first, then Mr. Fitzgerald, followed by George. “No.” Her heart crumpled. George needed this win. He needed to show that he was the best man on all counts.
“Victory!” Lord Charles raised his fist and shouted to the sky. He bounded over to Lilith like a happy puppy expecting a reward. “Marylewick gave me quite a run. I didn’t expect it from him. But alas, I prevailed. It would be quite a blow if I lost to Lord Marylewick. I would be tormented in the clubs for weeks.”
She glanced at George. He wore the sheepish grin of a good loser.
He had lost on purpose!
“Congratulations,” she told Charles. “Your reputation is preserved. How simply horrible it would be to lose to Lord Marylewick.” She struggled to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She wanted to slap the congenial expression off George’s face. Why did you let the arse win? Don’t tell me it was because of your stupid bill?
“A horror, indeed,” agreed Lord Charles, so puffed up with victory he couldn’t conceive that it was handed to him. “What is the prize? I know, a kiss from a fair maiden as in the olden days of chivalry and armor.”
“I don’t think that’s appropriate,” said George.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Lord Charles replied. “What do you say, Miss Dahlgren?”
The other girls giggled. Lilith wanted to suggest that perhaps they should kiss him if it was so amusing.
Charles didn’t wait for her reply but positioned his cheek for the coveted prize.
Yet another frog kiss, Lilith thought with a sigh. But as she leaned closer an odd reaction welled up inside her. He wasn’t George. How could she kiss a man who wasn’t George? Her body rebelled, unable to perform even a casual peck on the cheek. An awkward moment passed; she wasn’t sure what to do. Her savior came from an unlikely source. Maude decided to give Charles’s horse a good bite for getting too close. His horse reared up and then galloped several feet away.
“I’m sorry. It seems my chaperone didn’t approve.” Lilith gave Maude a rub of appreciation.
“Don’t worry, Miss Dahlgren,” said Charles, resuming control of his horse. “I will get my prize.”
All the way back to Tyburn, Lilith had to listen to Charles boast about his victory and Mr. Fitzgerald breaking apart the race second by second. Lilith had to clamp down on her rebellious, vitriolic tongue. By the time she reached the stables, she was a bundle of pent-up rage. She thanked Maude and whispered that she would sneak her some more sugar. One thing she had learned from a shifting life was never to take a friend for granted, even if she were a horse.
In her chamber, she yanked herself out of her hideous riding habit, washed her face and hands, and was struggling with the buttons at the back of her fresh gown before a servant arrived to help her. Then she marched to George’s study and waited for him, pacing about the room.
She assailed George when he entered, wearing a fresh gray coat and trousers and a blue waistcoat.
“You lost on purpose,” she cried.
He jerked his head, surprised to find her there, and quickly shut the door.
“Perhaps you should not have forced me to race.”
“I saw how you flew on that horse. You were magnificent. Why did you let that…that…arrogant, assuming arse of a man win? Why do you always let him win?”
“Because I need that arrogant and assuming arse’s vote.”
“To Hades with that blooming tax. Let some other Tory support it and kiss Lord Charles’s backside. You’ve done enough.”
He rubbed his forehead and strode past her to his desk. “I know you have a difficult time understanding the concepts of duty—”
“Stop being patronizing.” She followed him, talking to his back. “It’s time for grown-up boys like Lord Charles to do their share. He thinks everyone is here for his amusement. Meanwhile, you’ve done your duty over and over. You’ve done it so much, sacrificed so much, that you don’t even know who you are outside of your responsibilities.”
“I disagree.” He shifted a pile of letters, picking up the top one. “I know very much who I am. I’m the Marquess of Marylewick.”
“No, you are George, the gentle, profound, and soulful artist.”
“Please don’t start with that nonsense again. Enough.”
She yanked the missive from his hand. “Do you know what Lord Charles told me? That it’s a joke how the prime minister leads you about like a dog on a leash. It makes great fodder for Punch magazine.”
That caught his attention. The muscles worked at the back of his jaw. “I would seriously question any account you get from Lord Charles. Please hand me the letter. It’s from my solicitor.”
She offered it, but caught his hand when he reached for it. She caressed his knuckles with her thumb. “Did you draw today?” she asked softly. “Let your fancy wander?”
“Lilith, please stop.” Yet he made no move to extract his hand.
She edged closer and pressed his hand to her chest, savoring the sensation of his touch. “Did you think about drawing? Did some image enrapture your imagination?”
“You’re not talking sense,” he muttered. “Now, I have some correspondence to return before luncheon and then we have croquet on the lawn.”
“It’s all so carefully planned. No little cracks in your day. No time to question ourselves. It’s all work, responsibility, and croquet.”
“Yes, every day,” he quipped. “Work, responsibility, and croquet.”
She transferred a stack of letters to the opposite corner of the desk. “Oh, look what I’ve done! It’s out of place now. What shall we do? Our lives may shatter.”
“Please put that back. It’s all sorted.”
She picked up a letter and placed it atop another pile. “I’ve ruined everything. It’s all chaos. How will we ever find anything? It’s all so hopeless…”
“This is not a game.” He replaced the letter in its proper place. “Stop.”
She seized the stack. When he tried to grab it from her hands, the letters scattered onto the floor. “No!” she cried in earnest. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. Truly. I…” She stopped, tilted her head, and stared at a particular letter on the floor—the one with the nude sketch on it.
“Dammit!” He reached for it, but she was faster. She snatched the missive and rushed to the other side of the room by the window. She drew back a curtain, letting a shaft of sunlight penetrate the room.
“Please,” he whispered, his arm extended, reaching for her. “Please, don’t look at that.”
“You have been drawing, after all,” she said slowly, studying the face and eyes of a woman wanting to be seduced, to have her body ravished with pleasure. Lilith knew those eyes. They stared back from her mirror every day. Her head turned dizzy. “Is this…is this me?”
He sank into a chair and slicked his hand down his face.
“Oh God!” She released the letter and fled.
George rubbed his aching temples. He should go to her, but what would he say? I’m sorry but I dream all day about how to capture you in stillness and in motion. I want to know every aspect of you. But I can’t have you. You must marry another.