Liquor stopped doing its job long ago, but it turned out to be an excellent shield against polite society. He plucked up the glass again, relishing the way the last few drops burned his tongue. Perhaps he should try—
The door swung open and he heard a man say, “After you, my lady.”
Jeremy shoved his chair farther into the shadowy corner. No one would find his way to this room to play billiards; chances were good he was about to have a front row seat on a visit to Cock Alley, played out on the duke’s precious billiard table. Who was he to deny them an audience?
His glass empty, Jeremy was reaching for the bottle when the lady in question replied, “My skirts are caught on the hinge, my lord; would you be so kind as to disentangle me?”
Jeremy slammed back in his chair, eyes narrowing.
Lady Boadicea Wilde.
The wildest of the Wildes, the duke’s eldest daughter—who strangely enough demanded that everyone call her Betsy.
A ridiculous name for a woman who could shoot the cork out of a bottle from a galloping horse . . . according to her brothers, at least.
Outside the door, a rustle of silk indicated that her escort was doing his best to free her. She must have forgotten to turn sideways. Betsy’s skirts were wider than most doors, and her wigs were always lofty. Tonight her wig was adorned with a halo, which made her taller than most men.
The last was intentional, to Jeremy’s mind. She liked being taller than her feckless suitors.
Betsy was the only Wilde whom Jeremy couldn’t tolerate. Unfortunately, given that she had an unhealthy obsession with billiards and this room had become his refuge, he had seen all too much of her during his two-month stay at Lindow Castle.
She was damned rash, coming here, a distance from the ballroom, with a man. Just like a Wilde, actually: arrogant to a fault, but in an effortless way that simply expected that lesser mortals would bow to their status.
He’d bet a mountain of ha’pennies that no chaperone had accompanied them.
She didn’t understand the way men thought about women. The “gentleman” she was with could be planning to compromise her reputation.
Or worse.
Blood roared through his body, a flood of pure anger chasing away the guilt that was his usual companion. It wasn’t the first time Betsy had inspired that reaction. Around her, he tended to be too irritated to think about the fate of his platoon.
He might not actually be a Wilde, but her older brother North was his closest friend in the world. He would protect her reputation and person in North’s stead.
He flexed his fingers, looking down at fabric straining over the unfashionable muscle that bulged in his forearm. North’s primitive solution for Jeremy’s malaise—to give a fine-sounding title to his sorry existence—was to force him on horseback every day. No matter how much he drank the night before, North shoved him up on an unruly steed. Consequently, he had twice the muscle that he’d had three years ago, when he’d cut an elegant figure as an officer.
“That’s it,” Betsy exclaimed. “Oh, thank you so much!” She never bothered with such gushing charm around him; they had silently agreed, soon after meeting, that they were oil and water and she would extract no proposal from him, no matter how brilliantly she smiled.
She murmured something else, and it struck him that Betsy might have planned an assignation. Perhaps she had a lover, who had arrived from London in the mass of guests invited to the ball.
His jaw clenched.
Hell, no.
Boadicea Wilde was not going to throw away her virtue on his watch.
“Your skirts are free, Lady Boadicea.”
Whoever he was—and his voice sounded vaguely familiar—the man was not her lover. He didn’t know his proposed bride well enough to realize how much Betsy loathed her given name.
Wait.
He did know that voice. They’d been at school together, a lifetime ago.
Betsy walked into the room. From Jeremy’s shadowy corner, she seemed to glow under the light of the lamp hanging directly over the billiard table.
She was outrageously beautiful, like all the Wildes: wide eyes, white teeth, thick hair. Beautiful girls were everywhere, but Betsy’s unconscious sensuality? That was matchless. She relished life, and it showed.
The other day some fool described her as prim and proper. Jeremy had had trouble not curling his lip.
Did they not see who she really was?
She turned up the lamp that hung over the table until it illuminated a pool of spotless green wool walled by gleaming wood. Then she turned about, leaning against the table.
Jeremy couldn’t see her suitor, who still stood in the doorway.
With an impish smile, Betsy spread her arms. “Here you see my father’s billiard table, newly arrived from Paris. A walnut body and bronze motifs in the shape of the Lindow shield, repeated eight times. My stepmother chided my father for extravagant trimming, but His Grace is fond of decoration.”
The gentleman chuckled and stepped into the light. “The table is exquisite, but not as beautiful as the woman standing beside it.”
Jeremy sighed. His old school friend should be ashamed of that lame compliment.
Likely agreeing with him, Betsy ignored it. “I was very fond of our old billiard table, but this is more fitting for a castle.”
“You play billiards yourself?”
He sounded surprised rather than critical, which boded well for his courtship.
“My whole life,” Betsy said. “My brothers spent a great deal of their time here. I used to stand on a box to see the play; the table looked like a green ocean.”
“I spoke to your father, Lady Boadicea, and he agreed that I might ask you for the honor of your hand in marriage.”
This was fantastic. Jeremy had a front row seat on a proposal, and he could mock Betsy about it for weeks.
Her suitor didn’t kneel.
Thaddeus would never kneel.
The man currently asking Betsy to marry him was Thaddeus Erskine Shaw, Viscount Greywick.
Duke of some damned place, someday.
Something pinched deep in Jeremy’s chest, and he narrowed his eyes. Oh, hell no. Whatever that emotion was, he didn’t like it.
Wouldn’t accept it.
Her Grace, Betsy the Duchess.
Sounded good.
Chapter Three
“Lord Greywick, the honor is mine,” Betsy said, allowing her gloved hand to rest in his.
“That sounds very much like a preface to a refusal,” the viscount replied, which showed him more observant than most of her suitors, who generally looked stunned, as if they’d never considered the possibility that she might refuse them.
After all, they had weighed her mother’s scandalous behavior and her possible illegitimacy against Betsy’s beauty, dowry, and exquisite manners. To a man, they judged themselves prescient, even liberal, to ask for her hand at all. They thought her fortunate to receive a proposal.
They couldn’t believe it when she rejected them.
She paused for a second, questioning this particular decision. Viscount Greywick was tall and very handsome, with hazel eyes and cheekbones that came straight from some ennobled ancestor.
Her father liked him.
Her brothers liked him.
Aunt Knowe trusted him. She’d waved her hand and sent Betsy off with Lord Greywick without the faintest concern. Actually, since she sent them to the billiard room unchaperoned, she probably wanted Betsy to marry him.
Putting her family’s approval to the side, the viscount had no need to marry for her dowry or her status, so presumably he wanted her. He wasn’t lustful, precisely, but his eyes were warm and appreciative.
Betsy tried to make herself feel excited about that and failed.
“It is indeed a refusal,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “I regret to say that we would not suit, my lord. My answer is no.”
“Why not?”
That stumped her. No one had anythin
g bad to say about Viscount Greywick. He was, hands down, the most elusive and sought-after bachelor in London. She hadn’t even tried to lure him, and yet here he was.
What could she say?
You’re a paragon and I have a weakness for rascals?
Or, worse: I’m so bored at this moment.
“We don’t know each other,” she said, realizing the moment the words crossed her lips that her reasoning was weak. She’d given him an opening to tell her about himself, or worse, suggest that they spend time together.
“Is there someone else?” the viscount asked. “Because if not, and with your permission, I would like to attempt to convince you otherwise.”
By now, the wedding guests knew that she had left the ballroom with a future duke. Lord Greywick was the picture of rectitude. He would never spend time with a young lady in private unless he had permission to ask for her hand in marriage.
The ton would be surprised to find that she had refused him, but they wouldn’t doubt it had happened.
The battle was over.
Won. Done.
A low, rough voice answered him before she could. “You should take him.”
Betsy barely stifled a curse that would have shocked her suitor. “For goodness’ sake,” she cried instead. “I should have guessed that you’d be hiding here.” She slid sideways so she could see around Greywick’s shoulders.
Sure enough, the bane of her existence was regarding her lazily from the corner of the room.
“I am not hiding,” Jeremy Roden protested, managing to sound halfway sober and—even more surprisingly—almost convincing. “To return to the important point, Greywick is a good man and was cleverer than the rest of us at Eton. That includes your brothers, by the way. Not me, but then I put myself in a different category.”
The viscount, who had swung about, chuckled at that. “I assure you that we all put you in a different category as well, Lord Jeremy.”
“Ne’er-do-wells?” Betsy suggested. “Or perhaps Lord Jeremy was already cockeyed with drink at that early age.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Jeremy said, regarding her with an expression that never failed to irritate. “Proper young ladies don’t use words like ‘cock.’ I’m pretty sure angels don’t either, and you happen to be wearing a halo at the moment, if you’ll forgive my reminder. Angels probably don’t even know what a ‘cock’ is.”
The infuriating thing was that everything in her prickled into life the moment Jeremy Roden threw down one of his challenges. He was an intoxicated mess of a man and she still—
The viscount intervened before she could come up with an appropriately blistering response. “I thought I saw you across the ballroom, Lord Jeremy. I was glad to hear that you returned from the army safe and sound.”
Perhaps Greywick had no idea what Jeremy had endured in battle, not that she did, precisely. But the viscount was about to say one of those commonplace things that would make darkness roll over Jeremy’s face like a storm moving in over the ocean.
“I’m amazed that you missed the spectacle when Lord Jeremy stalked off and left poor Miss Peters on the edge of the dance floor by herself,” Betsy said quickly.
Jeremy’s dark eyes moved to her face, and to her relief, exasperation smoothed away that other expression, whatever it was.
Well, exasperation or perhaps pure dislike.
She let her smile widen, just to annoy him even more.
She’d decided weeks ago that he was better off irritated than despondent, and fortunately for Jeremy Roden, she had an aptitude for irritating men, thanks to growing up with all those brothers.
Her adopted brother Parth had been the first to put a frog under her covers, probably in league with Alaric. The second time was definitely Alaric, though North had something to do with it.
Aunt Knowe had helped her with slushy tadpole puddles that had mysteriously appeared in their beds.
“My halo failed me,” Jeremy said, without a bit of regret in his voice. “Unless I was going to strike Miss Peters in the face with evidence of my piety, I had to get off the floor. She didn’t complain. I don’t think she liked it when I kept turning the wrong way.”
The viscount had a nice chuckle, Betsy had to admit. “All those hours with a dancing master came to nothing?” he asked. He turned back to Betsy. “In our day, Etonian masters believed dancing was a critical skill, whereas we boys were far more interested in swordplay.”
Jeremy Roden had broad shoulders that ladies giggled about in the ladies’ parlor. They didn’t care which direction he turned in the ballroom, as long as he was paying them attention.
“The lessons didn’t stick,” Jeremy said indifferently.
“He is a disgrace to your tutors,” Betsy told the viscount. “He blunders around like a cow on ice.”
True to form, Jeremy merely shrugged, making his halo, which was resting on one shoulder, twinkle from the shadows. It was infuriating to find that her pulse sped up at the way shadowy light touched his cheekbones. His black hair had a touch of silver, even though he couldn’t be older than North since they had been at Eton together.
Annoyed, she made herself laugh. “Aunt Knowe saw what happened to your headgear, Lord Jeremy, and declared you a fallen angel. ‘Fallen’ might not be the right word. ‘Wilted’? ‘Flabby’?” She paused for a moment and then said it anyway, because . . . why not? “Or is the term I want . . . ‘flaccid’?” She traded the smile for a mock innocent look.
It felt exhilarating to make a joke in front of one of her suitors. As if she were free to be herself for the first time in a year.
Jeremy pulled off his halo and regarded the way it bent over like a flower in need of water. Then he tossed it to the side. “If you want Greywick to marry you—or any gentleman to marry you—you need to do a better job of appearing ladylike.”
If the viscount had been put off by her unladylike pun, it was all to the better. He obviously would want a paragon as his duchess, given how perfect he was.
She was not that woman.
Rather to her surprise, Greywick’s mouth was quirked in a smile. “I find Lady Boadicea a perfect lady.”
Huh.
The man whom she’d only seen looking as solemn as a judge apparently hadn’t taken offense at her play on words.
“I take it back,” Jeremy said, his eyes narrowing. “You shouldn’t marry that worthless Puritan.”
“I’m not a Puritan,” the viscount replied. “You’re supposed to play the part of one of my oldest school friends, and fight my cause for me. Unless you want the lady in question for yourself?”
The question hung in the air just long enough for Betsy’s breath to catch—and then Jeremy Roden snorted.
Yes, snorted.
And upended the bottle of whisky he was holding as if his response wasn’t denigrating enough.
Chapter Four
Jeremy thought fast while he allowed the liquor to burn down into his gut. He had to conjure up a reason not to marry Betsy that wasn’t too insulting.
Tonight she was dressed all in white, which wasn’t unusual for a young lady. Naturally, her halo didn’t tilt to the side: It sprang from the top of her wig, perfectly positioned to advertise her virtue.
Halo or not, Betsy was far from angelic.
A tempestuous, opinionated, seductive little devil, perhaps.
He didn’t want to marry her, or any other woman. He could scarcely manage his own life. In fact, the evidence was pretty clear that he couldn’t manage his own life since he was living in Lindow Castle rather than his own townhouse.
“I would never marry someone called Betsy,” he stated, lowering his bottle. “Everyone knows that a Betsy must be an adorable girl who gathers roses, loves kittens, and scrawls love notes in her diary. Lady Betsy’s sweet and modest disposition would be wasted on a reprobate like myself.”
“Nothing wrong with kittens,” Greywick put in. His tone indicated that not only did he think Betsy charming—the fool—but he would fill his hou
se with felines if she wanted. The man was seduced.
No, that wasn’t the right word.
Dazzled.
Sun-struck. It was a bit surprising, given how intelligent Greywick was. But then Betsy had efficiently bewitched all the single gentlemen who had visited the castle since Jeremy arrived at the beginning of September.
Brains or no brains, they couldn’t seem to help themselves from falling under the spell of her sugary smiles and blue eyes. To Jeremy’s cynical mind, it proved that mankind was endlessly optimistic.
What woman was as simple as she appeared?
Let alone one who appeared to be such a thoroughly proper young lady? Perfection was always a mask.
“To clarify my point,” Jeremy said to Greywick, “kittens or no, you have no competition in me. I’m not one to wed, even given the fact that a mere marquess could never take precedence over a duke.”
“A title does not determine whom a lady marries,” Betsy said tartly. “It may be hard to conceive, but myriad reasons dictate why a lady would choose another man over you.”
A less observant man might have been foolish enough to believe the enchanting portrait Betsy offered at this moment: rosy lips and cheeks, a sweetly peaked chin, wide blue eyes that darkened when she was thoughtful.
She appeared angelic.
Sort of. If you ignored the independent look in her eye, and unbelievably, most men seemed to do that.
“So, have you answered Greywick?” he asked, ignoring her comment. Given the women who had tried either to seduce or to compromise Jeremy in the last week alone, he wouldn’t have trouble marrying a lady—if he had the inclination to do so. “I think you should take him. I’ve been watching you mow down swaths of suitors in the last two months and he’s the best of the lot.”
He could read the answer in her eyes.
Poor Greywick.
Being flatly rejected was undoubtedly a new experience.
“You’ve been staying in Lindow Castle for quite some time?” Greywick asked, looking somewhat displeased. Apparently, he didn’t entirely believe that Jeremy was disinclined to court this duke’s daughter . . . or any duke’s daughter.
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