Say No to the Duke

by James, Eloisa

  “I believe his . . . his discomfort stems from unfortunate experiences during the war. I know that my brother North finds himself unable to sleep on occasion.”

  She was privately convinced that even before today’s marriage, North’s fiancée, Diana, had learned the trick of exhausting him.

  So to speak.

  North didn’t look nearly as tired in the last few months, whereas Jeremy had black smudges under his eyes.

  “As a schoolboy, Lord Jeremy was the most blindly loyal man of us all. Such a man would find it hard to tolerate losses amongst his fellow men, let alone those who served under him.”

  Betsy nodded.

  “I would include his horse in the number,” Thaddeus said. “He loved that mare. He boarded her at school, obviously, but most boys left care of their horseflesh to the grooms. Lord Jeremy visited Dolly every day. We were fed horrible slop, but he spent his pocket money on carrots and occasionally a lump of sugar.”

  “Oh, dear,” Betsy said.

  “He was rather unkind to you,” Thaddeus said. “This may seem absurd, but if you are able, you might take it as a sign of his esteem.”

  “I don’t return that esteem,” she said tartly.

  It wasn’t precisely true. But it was safer to claim not to like Jeremy. More comfortable.

  She couldn’t imagine a worse fate than having an evil-tongued aristocrat with a dark soul and a penchant for drink jumping to the conclusion that she was infatuated with him.

  She’d never hear the end of it.

  “I entirely understand. Any young lady would be affronted by his appalling manners. I apologize for not taking you away immediately.”

  Betsy looked at him, raised an eyebrow. “I did not wish to go.”

  Thaddeus blinked and visibly absorbed the fact that she was not a woman who needed to be rescued from discomfort that society had decreed she must be experiencing. “I gather from Lord Jeremy’s praise that you are a superb horsewoman?” he asked, making a quick recovery.

  “I am,” Betsy admitted. “We were raised partly in the nursery and partly in the stables. North was always fascinated by horses, and we younger children used to follow the older boys about like ducklings. Do you enjoy riding?”

  “I do. The happiest hours of my childhood were spent with our stable master, Barnes. He taught me a great deal about life. Eton was all very well in its way, but the most important lessons are learned at home.”

  “I and my sisters had governesses, but then we were sent to a seminary for girls,” Betsy said. “It was an unusual choice for a duke’s progeny, but I loved it there, after a few growing pains. As you say, the lessons I learned were invaluable.”

  Witness whereof: If she’d stayed at home, she would have debuted in blissful ignorance of the ton’s opinion. She would have tried to be herself and promptly been relegated to the side of the ballroom, if not thrown out of society altogether.

  Her father’s rank could do nothing to prevent the judgments of the matrons who ruled polite society.

  “Will you send your own daughters to school?”

  “It would depend on their wishes,” Betsy said. “My sister Viola is extremely shy. She would have been much happier at home. But my smallest sister, Artemisia, will relish a classroom full of other girls.”

  Thaddeus looked down at her, his eyes glowing. “The more I learn about you, the more perfect you seem.”

  Betsy cleared her throat. “I assure you that I am far from perfect.”

  “I necessarily strive for perfection due to my rank and responsibilities,” Thaddeus said. “Yet when I fail to achieve my own standards, as any man must, I am reassured by the fact that an excellent reputation can defeat gossip. Your reputation is impeccable.”

  Betsy nodded her thanks, conscious of a gloomy feeling.

  “Small moral faults are allowable under a guise of rectitude,” Thaddeus added, digging himself deeper.

  It could be that thick eyelashes were not enough to counterbalance such deeply-felt righteousness.

  Chapter Five

  In the first hours after midnight, revelers began to leave. The newly wedded couple had long since vanished. The duke and duchess had bid farewell directly after a light supper was served, retreating to the North Tower, where the family was housed. Guests who lived nearby took to their carriages; those from afar returned to their beds, alone or in pairs.

  Still, the ball continued, the music playing on for those who loved to dance or loved to gossip, and wouldn’t retire until after Prism served another light meal.

  Those guests who had worn masks had removed them at midnight; those with halos had thrown them away long before. The ballroom floor was littered with crushed spangles fallen from angelic headdresses. The expanse of polished floor glittered under the candelabras like a lake shining in the moonlight, the skirts of dancing ladies sweeping spangles into ripples that followed in their wake.

  Betsy sighed.

  She felt lonely.

  She had danced with Thaddeus twice.

  Unsurprisingly, the viscount danced with perfect control, maintaining his elbow at just the right level as they wheeled toward and away from each other. One of those dances, late in the evening, had been a new dance called a cotillion. His every move was perfection itself.

  As was hers, of course.

  People drew back to watch them, a rustle of whispers going through the assembled guests like wind in the trees. Thaddeus’s face didn’t betray any recognition of the attention they were receiving.

  He was used to it.

  So was she, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

  This would be her life if she married him; for a duke and duchess, privacy was a luxury, scrutiny a given. London stationers churned out prints of the Wildes, no matter how spurious the depictions: her brother Alaric wrestling the kraken, North as a Shakespearean villain.

  Without a doubt, someone at this ball would report their two dances, not to mention the fact she and Thaddeus had left the ballroom for a time together. By next week, the two of them would be in the front window of every stationer’s shop, likely with a wedding ring encircling their heads for good measure.

  At this point, the only Wildes remaining in the ballroom were Betsy and Aunt Knowe. Betsy danced on, ignoring her sore feet, relentlessly cheerful.

  People asked her cunning questions about the viscount, which she deftly deflected. Yes, he is most attractive. Yes, he dances extraordinarily well.

  Just when she decided that she ought to entertain another suitor, if only to quiet the gossips, a candidate presented himself.

  He bowed before her, slender and elegant. His wig was ambitious, if not quite the height of hers. She’d met him, of course . . . but who was he?

  She fell into a deep curtsy, and managed to make the connection on her way back up. Grégoire Bisset-Caron, who was—oddly enough—Jeremy’s first cousin. They certainly didn’t appear to have fallen from the same family tree.

  “I trust you are having an agreeable evening?” Mr. Bisset-Caron inquired. “I wasn’t lucky enough to claim a dance with you, but I thought that we should at least stand together, under the circumstances.”

  Betsy raised an eyebrow.

  Mr. Bisset-Caron indicated his black costume with a sweep of his hand. He was wearing a black coat with a flaring velvet collar stitched in red. “Mephistopheles, at your service. Your heavenly beauty might, if you forgive my presumption, be enough to transform the darkest of devils.”

  “Didn’t Mephistopheles sell his soul to the devil, rather than being one himself?” Betsy asked.

  “I’m not much of a reader,” Mr. Bisset-Caron said. “Black velvet suits me.”

  Perhaps he referred to the way he had powdered his face to an unnaturally pale color; certainly all that gleaming velvet enhanced his pallor.

  “Lady Boadicea, might I recite a p’hoem that I wrote in your honor this morning?”

  Betsy jumped, startled. The Honorable Adrian Parswallow had crept up besi
de them. Or P’harswallow, her siblings called him, with reference to his lisp. His family’s country house was only a few miles away and they’d played together as children—which meant the Wildes had taken notice when the lisp appeared around his eighteenth birthday.

  Adrian had a very high forehead, accented by a wig that had been powdered an unfortunate shade of orange. Perhaps he was a good poet; he definitely showed originality by appearing at a wedding ball in a coat and breeches of bright orange.

  Masquerading as a carrot, perhaps.

  “Good evening,” she said, curtsying. “What an unusual costume.”

  Adrian bowed to a depth that threatened to split his extremely tight orange pantaloons. “I aim to be unexp’hected in all respects. Dressing in black is for old men.”

  “How frightfully rude of you,” Mr. Bisset-Caron said with frosty emphasis.

  “Mr. Bisset-Caron,” Adrian cried, catching sight of Mephistopheles. “I would never include you in my rep’hroof.” He had an extraordinary way of speaking; his intonation was so superior that it sounded as if he was yawning between words, adding random H’s here and there.

  Betsy managed to summon a smile.

  “I shall recite my p’hoem,” Adrian prompted.

  Poetry was like sketching, embroidering, flower arranging, and counting linens.

  Boring.

  When she debuted eight months ago, Betsy had professed high delight in the first poem written about her. Consequently, more and more verses had been composed in her honor.

  If only she’d been honest when the first p’hoem was thrown at her feet.

  “We devils have no interest in literature,” Mr. Bisset-Caron said. “I prefer the art of the pencil.” And then, in response to Betsy’s confusion, “I have a gift for sketching from life. I would be happy to show you my book, Lady Boadicea.” He gave her a naughty smirk. “I brought it with me into the chapel this morning and I fancy I created a lovely profile of you.”

  Betsy managed a smile. Like poems, she found portraits of herself remarkably uninteresting.

  Mr. Bisset-Caron’s smile widened. “My sketches are not like the rest,” he said silkily. “They rival any of those you might have seen in stationers’ windows.”

  “A sketch could never render its subject as well as a p’hoem,” Parswallow said.

  “I beg to differ,” Mr. Bisset-Caron said. “My images of the royal family are recognizable by anyone in London, whereas the poem I heard you recite earlier today, on your mother’s voice, could apply to virtually any woman who has chosen to be fruitful and multiply. ”

  Adrian greeted this insult with the furious gaze with which he might have greeted Mephistopheles himself. “My p’hoem, Lady Boadicea,” he prompted, turning his shoulder to Bisset-Caron.

  The artist smirked. “We devils have no time for versification.” He slid away.

  “I’m afraid that I cannot accompany you to a quiet corner,” Betsy told Adrian.

  “While silence and p’hrivacy are p’hoetry’s greatest companions,” Adrian pronounced, “I am happy to recite the verse to you in p’hublic view and earshot. I wouldn’t wish anyone to cast asp’hersions on your honor.”

  No one would wish to be dishonored by a carrot with a lisp.

  “An Ode to the Name Betsy,” Adrian began. “The soft and comp’hassionate tone in her voice could heal a grieving heart . . . Ahhh, Betsy!” He paused.

  “An interesting first line,” she observed.

  “There is more,” said the poet, unsurprisingly.

  Luckily, before he got more than eight or nine lines in, Aunt Knowe appeared. Betsy clutched at her hand. “Darling Aunt, do listen to this marvelous poem.”

  “I thought the poem you recited this morning, the ode to a mother’s soft and compassionate voice, was very interesting,” Aunt Knowe said to Parswallow, “though not being a parent myself, I couldn’t entirely sympathize.”

  “But we have all been mothered,” the poet said. Then he stopped in confusion, turning beet red. “Forgive me, Lady Boadicea, if I—”

  Betsy shot him her signature blithe smile and nestled closer to her aunt. “I consider myself deeply lucky to have been mothered by Aunt Knowe in the absence of my own mother.” She threw her aunt a mischievous glance. “Though I can’t recall hearing your soft and compassionate voice very often.” She turned back to Adrian. “There were so many Wildes in the nursery, you know. She had to bellow at us daily.”

  Aunt Knowe burst into laughter, snapped her fan shut, and rapped Betsy on the shoulder. “Wicked girl, I always present the image of a soft and tender lady.” Nodding briskly to Adrian, she drew Betsy away. “Do you realize that you are the only angel to have endured the entire ball with a perfectly erect halo? I can always count on you to outdo your rivals.”

  “Millinery is not a blood sport, Aunt Knowe,” Betsy observed. “It’s absurd to congratulate me for such a foolish reason.”

  “Oh, fudge,” her aunt said. “I gather you are not in a good mood. I recognize that look from your childhood. Create all the scandals you wish, once you have a husband to protect you from the world’s opinion.”

  “I don’t need a husband,” Betsy protested. “I have Father, and a million brothers, and you. That’s enough.”

  Aunt Knowe ignored her comment. “Your father thinks Greywick would be a good husband for you. I agree, as you could tell, since I sent the two of you off together. Needless to say, the ballroom was transfixed by your absence. Did you play a round of billiards? Perhaps more to the point, did you win?”

  “We did not play billiards,” Betsy said, rather surprised. “I thought you sent me off to receive his proposal.”

  “Naturally, I knew Greywick would blurt that out, but the more important question was whether he could beat you at billiards, no? I rather thought you might be there all night if he had to try more than once. I was merely hoping that the boy had a way with a cue. And,” she added, “that was not meant to be a double entendre.”

  “I did not play billiards with the viscount,” Betsy said. “When did that become a good standard for choosing a spouse, Aunt Knowe? If that was customary, I’d have married Parth, even though Lavinia would have murdered me. He’s the only man outside the family to have soundly beaten me.”

  “The standard would pertain only to your marriage,” her aunt said. “Billiards is so important to you, my dear, though Parth would have been a terrible husband for you. First of all, he’s your brother by family ties, if not blood. And second, he’s too cheerful.”

  Prism, the castle butler, was ushering the musicians from the ballroom. It truly was time to leave; for a young lady to remain to the end of a party implied desperation.

  “I like cheerful people,” Betsy said flatly, turning toward the ballroom door. “I don’t want to face a morose man over the dinner table every night for the rest of my life.”

  She didn’t voice it, but an image of grumpy eyes went through her head, followed directly by Jeremy’s taut stomach. One day she’d walked up to the stable yard just as he caught a fresh shirt tossed by a groom.

  Not that it was relevant in any way, but his stomach had chiseled muscles all down his front, his chest roughened by a light sprinkling of hair.

  Aunt Knowe patted her on the shoulder. “Of course you do, darling. All the same, one could make an argument that you bounce enough for one household.”

  Betsy narrowed her eyes at her beloved aunt. “I do not bounce.”

  “Wrong word,” her aunt said. “Fell off my tongue, when I meant to say that you bubble with joy.”

  Betsy shook her head. There was nothing wrong with being cheerful. It was a perfect defense against the world’s indignities.

  Aunt Knowe didn’t say anything, but just enfolded Betsy in her arms. After Yvette, Betsy’s mother, left the country, Aunt Knowe had happily mothered Her Grace’s children.

  She was as sturdy as an ancient oak tree. She smelled of chamomile and sweet ginger and felt like home.

 
; “I don’t want to marry any of them,” Betsy whispered.

  “You needn’t, dearest,” her aunt said, rocking her back and forth. “You can stay with me. I’ll teach you how to dry herbs, and we need never leave Cheshire.”

  Then she roared with laughter as Betsy pulled back, horrified by the idea of growing old at Lindow Castle.

  “I always thought you were more like Alaric than the other children,” Aunt Knowe observed. “Longing for adventure, I gather?”

  “Yes.” It was true. Betsy had mastered the rules of polite society because she had to. But she wanted . . . more.

  More than billiard games late at night, usually played by herself.

  More of the things that men were able to do, and women weren’t.

  She liked being a woman. But it didn’t seem too much to ask to be able to ride astride, to be able to bid at an auction or to buy a horse. To go to clubs and play billiards.

  To go to places where men congregated and talked and did business. To do something risky, the way men did: They bet fortunes on the flip of a dime. They swept around corners, leaving a hairsbreadth between the carriage wheel and the curb.

  She was so tired of sitting in throngs of women and listening to them gossip about who would marry whom, and who would die soon, and who was being unfaithful. When it came to the last, she couldn’t even offer an opinion—young ladies weren’t supposed to conceive of adultery, even when the act was discussed in their presence.

  She seemed to be the only person who realized how damaging those conversations could be. It took everything she had not to bite out a reprimand. Casual gossip about a woman’s infidelity could ruin her children’s future. Could destroy lives.

  And yet who could blame ladies for chatter? Every woman she knew would categorically deny that she’d ever brewed up a scandal. Yet they spent their days doing little else, because there wasn’t anything else to do.