Betsy intervened. “Lord Jeremy has been helping my brother North enlarge his stables.”
Nice of her not to tell the truth.
Of course, she didn’t know the whole truth.
One evening he’d set off to meet Parth in Vauxhall Gardens, only to discover that idiots were setting off fireworks, which sounded remarkably like cannons. Next thing he knew he woke up in Parth’s house—having lost the memory of an entire week.
He still couldn’t get around that.
Greywick nodded. “You were always excellent with horseflesh. I remember the black mare you brought to university.”
“Dolly,” Jeremy said, his mouth easing into a shadow of a smile.
“Do you still have her?”
“I—no,” he said, pushing away the memory of what happened to Dolly. She had the heart of a lion, but she couldn’t save herself on the battlefield, any more than he could save her.
Greywick wasn’t interested in Dolly’s fate, and why should he be? He had eyes only for Betsy. She certainly looked the part of a docile duchess.
Yet she was as fierce as her brothers—aye, and slightly mad, the way all the Wildes were. God knew, when he and North had been in battle together, North had played the berserker on occasion.
There was that time when North dived off a cliff and swam down the river to the HMS Vulture to warn them—but that train of thought led to darkness, and Jeremy forcibly cut it off, returning his attention to the farce about to unfold before him.
Betsy saw bleak desolation cross Jeremy’s eyes at the mention of his mare, and decided that chatter with an old friend wasn’t helpful. “Now that we’ve clarified Lord Jeremy’s lack of interest in marriage,” she said, “perhaps we should return to the ballroom, Lord Greywick.”
She gave her suitor a merry smile, emphasizing that she didn’t care in the slightest that Jeremy Roden had been so perishingly rude about the possibility of marrying her.
Of course she didn’t want a proposal from Jeremy Roden.
But did he have to make it so obvious what he thought of her?
Kittens? Love notes? She didn’t even own a diary.
From the age of fourteen, she had never allowed herself to have infatuations, the way other girls did. Half her class in the seminary had swooned at the mere mention of her older brother Alaric. They collected prints of him supposedly engaging in heroic exploits.
They were the only prints Betsy bought as well. Attention to any man other than a family member would be interpreted as erotic interest. Her gowns were a tad more demure than fashion demanded: her hands always gloved, her ankles out of sight, her lips untouched by color. No one could accuse her of flaunting her assets, with her breasts tucked away in a bodice, perhaps with a lace fichu for good measure. Haughty matrons looked in vain for a sign of her mother’s weaknesses: Betsy didn’t have them.
“It’s not that I’m uninterested in marriage, precisely,” Jeremy said.
“I stand corrected,” she said. “I neglected to qualify that you are uninterested in a woman with the temerity to call herself Betsy or to keep a kitten.”
“An excellent show of affront,” Jeremy said appreciatively. “Well-phrased. She will make a perfect duchess, Greywick. Polite to a fault. Untempted by a prime physical specimen like myself.”
Betsy narrowed her eyes. Was he subtly referring to her mother? Yvette had famously praised her Prussian’s muscled thighs.
No.
Lord Jeremy Roden was objectionable, but he wasn’t underhanded. If anything, he was too blunt. His insults were aired for all to hear.
“Luckily, I have consolation in this time of sorrow,” Jeremy said, waving his bottle with a madcap grin.
“You can’t imagine how devastated I am to find that you’re married to a bottle of whisky,” Betsy drawled. “I always planned to marry a man with a droopy appendage.”
Then she turned to Greywick. “Shall we return to the ballroom, my lord?”
“Not yet, because you’re supposed to be getting to know each other,” Jeremy said. “I, lucky sod, know you both so I can play the matchmaker. Attest to the fact that you’d make a marvelous pair. Just marvelous.”
He stopped and took another swig of whisky. The smell spilled into the room, fierce and hot, as unlike her rose petal perfume as possible. It suited him: Whisky was gritty, bold, and real.
“Lady Boadicea,” the viscount said, holding out his arm.
“Oh, for God’s sake, call her Betsy,” Jeremy said, before Betsy could respond. “She likes it, even though it makes her sound like a milkmaid. Which she’s not. Just at the moment, I can’t remember her worthy traits, so I’ll start with you, Greywick. Thaddeus, since we were on a first-name basis as lads.”
Jeremy stabbed a finger in their direction and actually straightened in his chair, as if his opinion made an ounce of difference. Betsy barely managed to control her desire to throw a billiard ball at his insufferable head.
Instead she moved closer to Greywick and put a hand on his arm. “Thaddeus? I like that name.” She didn’t purr, because a Wilde is never obvious. But she did give him a glance from under her lashes that the devil in the corner would never see from her.
“My name is indeed Thaddeus,” the viscount replied. “I would be truly honored if you wished to address me as such.” He was a bit of a stick, but on the positive side he had marvelously thick eyelashes.
There was nothing more unattractive than skimpy, sandy eyelashes. That was the problem she kept finding with the blond men who had courted her. The hair on their heads might be marvelous, but their eyes had a naked look.
Not Thaddeus. His eyelashes were thick and dark as blackberries.
“Where’s your halo?” Betsy asked, her face easing into a real smile. “Don’t tell me you threw it away, the way this reprobate did. My aunt much enjoyed the irony of turning guests into angels.”
One corner of his mouth curled up again. That was a rather fetching trait he had—smiling on one side only.
“I was raised to believe that honors shouldn’t be flaunted until earned.”
“Nice,” came a rumbly voice. “He’ll earn it, Betsola, no worries about that. The man’s got a corner of heaven all staked out for him. Reserved. Inherited, in fact.”
“Betsola?” Betsy repeated. “No, don’t bother to explain. Thaddeus, shall we return to the ballroom? I think my aunt will be wondering where I am.”
“I doubt it,” the dark-eyed devil in the corner said. “I expect Lady Knowe is counting the moments, hoping you’re behaving indelicately, if not worse. She’ll have you married off before Easter. Perhaps before Christmas, if she thinks that Thaddeus here is as forward as her nephews. The next generation of Wildes are all going to be born at six or seven months, if she doesn’t look out.”
“My aunt is not counting moments or months,” Betsy retorted, scowling at him. “You are being quite offensive, Lord Jeremy.” Never mind the fact that she agreed with him about the likely arrival of her nieces and nephews.
“Ouch,” Jeremy said, grinning. “Now, I think it’s worth saying again that Thaddeus was by far the most intelligent of the blighters in our year. Course, we didn’t have Alaric. And I heard that Horatius was—”
“Do not mention Horatius,” Betsy snapped. Her elder brother had died the day after she turned eleven. To this day, she kept the little ceramic bird he’d given her on her bedside table.
Jeremy was sprawled in his chair again, but he lowered his bottle and gave her a quick nod. “I’m sorry, Bess.”
“Bess?” Betsy repeated, desperate to talk of anything else. “I suppose that’s better than Betsola.”
“Given that your father named all his children after warriors,” Jeremy said, “he could have chosen Good Queen Bess instead of Boadicea. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth dressed up in a suit of armor and rode a white horse to Tilbury. I could see you on a white horse. Your lady is a good rider,” he added, waving his bottle at the viscount. “There, you see, I manag
ed to think of a worthy reason to marry her.”
She ought to leave. But honestly? This was the most entertaining conversation she’d engaged in all evening. And it was certainly a good idea to hear more details about the viscount.
What’s more, her toes hurt. She was wearing a pair of Joan’s heeled slippers and they didn’t fit. She took her hand from Lord Greywick’s arm and moved backward so she could hop up and sit on the side of the billiard table, which made her side panniers flip up in a flurry of silk, so she had to slap them down.
“It’s like watching someone wrestle a couple of greased piglets to the ground,” Jeremy drawled. “Thaddeus, I hope you’re observant, because your future bride has very nice ankles.”
Lord Greywick stiffened, but Betsy tapped him on the arm. “Ignore him. He can’t see my ankles; the open door blocks his view.”
“I could if I bothered to lean forward,” Jeremy argued. “At any rate, I was merely doing a matchmaker’s duty. I’m sure Queen Elizabeth had slender ankles.”
“I have to point out that Queen Elizabeth didn’t wear a suit of armor,” the viscount said, moving to lean against the table, hip to hip with Betsy. She didn’t mind. He smelled rather good, like some sort of flower.
Not at all like Jeremy, who always smelled of cheroots and whisky.
“Her Majesty wore a silver corselet,” Thaddeus continued. “Though some say it was steel. She did have a helmet with white plumes.”
“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too,” Betsy put in, quoting Queen Elizabeth.
And shrugged when both men looked at her, surprised. “You surely don’t think that my father would name all of us after warriors and leave it there? He had us memorize any number of fiery speeches delivered on battlefields.”
Then she flinched, thinking she shouldn’t have mentioned a battlefield.
Jeremy’s lips compressed. Perhaps it wasn’t the battlefield, but the question of what one should say on it. Too late now.
Next to her, Thaddeus moved slightly, his shoulder brushing hers. “Tell Queen Bess how intelligent I was, Jeremy,” he said, his voice a command. A gentle one, but a command. “I need help or this queen will look for a consort elsewhere.”
For a suspended second, she and Thaddeus watched as Jeremy wrestled with darkness. His chin was square; it seemed even squarer when he ground his teeth.
“Right,” he said, just a pulse too late, his voice strained. “I need to hawk the merchandise since the merchandise is failing to do so himself.”
“Exactly,” Thaddeus said. “The lady says she doesn’t know me; who better to explicate my attributes than the most eloquent man in our year?”
“Are you talking about Lord Jeremy?” Betsy asked, startled.
“Eloquent?” Jeremy snorted. “Hardly.”
Thaddeus turned to Betsy. “Indeed, he was the best orator at Eton, not just our year, but those above us, even in our first year. Able to coax the stars out of the sky.”
“Too bored to stay in their courses once I started babbling,” Jeremy said, his voice back to its usual rough indifference. His hair was disheveled, thanks to the bandage that wound over his ears. His neck cloth was half undone, as if he’d tugged it free of his neck.
Betsy glanced up at the viscount, who was a study in contrasts: his wig snowy white, no halo to be seen, and his clothing both exquisitely tailored and beautifully worn. That was one thing she’d realized lately: It wasn’t really about how well-made a man’s clothing was; it mattered how he wore it.
Thaddeus looked like a king ready to be painted by Holbein.
“You have to imagine all of us blighters sitting around in a schoolroom at Eton, obsessed by women’s breasts and playing with ourselves incessantly—those two things not unconnected,” Jeremy said, taking another swig from his bottle.
“There is a lady present,” Thaddeus said quietly. One knew without hesitation that he would never mention such a topic in the company of women.
He had a nice deep voice. Not as deep as Jeremy’s, but that was a matter of whisky and exhaustion, to Betsy’s mind. Jeremy never seemed to sleep.
“She’s got brothers,” Jeremy said indifferently. “And the myth that women don’t pleasure themselves, Thaddeus? Just that, a myth. We won’t ask Good Queen Bess to confirm, as it might embarrass us.”
Thaddeus looked at her. “Do you wish me to escort you to the ballroom, Betsy?” It was the first time he addressed her by her given name, and a nicely judged moment to use it too.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t the slightest impulse to blush, and she was still interested to hear what the viscount had been like as a schoolboy.
She smiled at him. “I would like to hear what Lord Jeremy has to say of your prowess in the schoolroom.”
“If you’re using Greywick’s first name, you must do the same for me. Particularly since I’ve been calling you Betsy for two months,” the devil in the corner said. “No longer, though. From now on, Queen Bess will do.”
“By addressing you formally, the lady is directing your commentary to a polite level,” Thaddeus said. His voice had changed: He was demanding that Jeremy stop trying to shock her.
She ought to rethink the question of marrying the viscount. She really, really ought to reconsider it. Marriage wasn’t so terrible.
Marriage to a man like Thaddeus would be . . . lovely. Truly.
He would run the country, or whatever it was dukes did if they weren’t her father, who only reluctantly went to Parliament.
She had the feeling that Thaddeus would enjoy speaking in the House of Lords.
She would have beautiful daughters with thick eyelashes. That was important. It would break her heart if her babies were born with scrawny eyelashes. She could teach them how to dance and shoot, but no daughter of hers would glue rabbit fur to her eyelids in lieu of eyelashes.
“To return to my theme,” Jeremy said, with only the faintest hint of mockery in his voice, “the schoolrooms were bursting with boys thinking of nothing but unmentionable topics. Except for Thaddeus.”
Betsy almost said “Excellent,” and then saw the trap he’d laid, the one where she would affirm Thaddeus’s disinclination to do that. Her brother Alaric had explained it to her by means of a flood of synonyms for “gild the lily.”
“Churn the butter” confused her at first, but then Alaric handed her an illustrated broadside of an erotic ballad and said that he didn’t hold with any of his sisters being surprised by male anatomy.
There were times when she missed the mother she didn’t remember. But her siblings, her father, her stepmother, Ophelia, and particularly Aunt Knowe had made up for a mother’s loss ten times over.
“You should marry him, Bess. The first Bess made a mistake not marrying, you know.”
“I ought to return to the ballroom,” Betsy said deciding not to defend Queen Elizabeth’s unmarried state. She was uneasily aware that if she stayed away too long, gossipers like Lady Tallow might start a rumor that she’d disgraced herself in order to force the viscount into offering marriage.
“Wait! Was I successful?” Jeremy asked, squinting at her. “Are you overcome with the wonders of the winsome lad beside you?”
Thaddeus crooked an eyebrow. “Lad?”
“North and I are old before our time, and you still have the glow of youth,” Jeremy said flatly.
Betsy took it for granted that Thaddeus would be able to translate that as “aging due to time lost in the American colonies in a fruitless war.” Hopefully, he wouldn’t be insulted. She’d often heard Jeremy divide mankind into those who had seen a battlefield and those who hadn’t.
“Right,” she said, sliding down to stand on her aching feet again. “Time to go. I don’t want to miss supper.”
“May I escort you to the meal?” Thaddeus asked.
She hesitated. If she dined with him, society would assume she had agreed to his proposal.
&
nbsp; “Lady Knowe will be disappointed in you, Bess,” Jeremy said. “Yet another suitor tossed away.”
“I am not yet tossed away,” Thaddeus said, smiling down at Betsy. It was a statement . . . and a question.
Betsy was suddenly vividly aware of Jeremy watching them. “Perhaps you are not,” she said, pulling in her skirts so she could edge sideways into the corridor. The doors of Lindow Castle were hopelessly narrow, given the current fashion for skirts the width of three women.
Behind her, the viscount bid Jeremy goodbye. Affection deepened his voice and made him far more appealing than did his title or estate. A man who remained friends with a reprobate like Jeremy might not have very good sense, but he had loyalty.
The Wildes valued loyalty above all else. Loyalty to the family, obviously, but also to friends.
“Thank you for showing me the billiard table,” Thaddeus said to her, once he had emerged from the room.
“Wouldn’t gratitude be in order if I had accepted your proposal?” Betsy said, starting to walk down the corridor. “I am still unconvinced we would suit.”
“I never expected you to accept my hand tonight,” Thaddeus said, laughter gleaming in his eyes. “A lady of your stature must be won by a lengthy campaign.”
Betsy blinked at him, rather surprised. Apparently, Thaddeus had no plans to retreat, the way her other suitors had. Occasionally a man watched her mournfully from the side of the ballroom after she refused a proposal, but generally they accepted her word on the matter and never broached the subject again.
“I’m not very good at accepting no for an answer,” the viscount added. His smile was not wide, not overly confident, not arrogant. “Jeremy and I were well-matched in that. He could never bear to lose, and neither could I. We pitted ourselves against each other throughout our boyhoods.”
“I am not the prize in some schoolboy contest,” she said.
“Certainly not,” the viscount said. “I am merely saying that I refined the art of never giving up while arguing with Jeremy.” They had walked quite a ways before he said, “Though I think obstinacy is giving my old friend great pain these days. Stubborn people are particularly likely to curse fate rather than accept it.”
Say No to the Duke Page 3