Say No to the Duke

by James, Eloisa

  “What I am trying to say is that I don’t care if the likes of Lady Tallow says unkind things about your mother. I am absolutely certain that you are your father’s daughter.”

  Betsy walked along, trying to pick the best words. The kindest words. “What you are saying is that you are brave enough to confront society as regards your wife’s illegitimacy only if you were convinced of her legitimacy. You wouldn’t do it if you suspected she was illegitimate.”

  “You make me sound like a coward,” Thaddeus said after a moment. “My lineage is important to me, Betsy. Not as important as it was to my father—who fell in love with a local tradesman’s daughter but gave her up for the sake of the family. I was raised to think that my Norman blood is all-important.”

  Betsy would have argued . . . but how different was his view from her own? She knew that she had inherited undesirable traits from her mother. She should just be grateful that Thaddeus was willing to overlook them, and not wish that he didn’t care about her ancestors.

  “I was raised to think that people are all-important,” she said. “Kind hearts are more than coronets, etcetera.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood,” she said, changing the phrase to suit her purpose.

  “Family may be more important than coronets,” Thaddeus said. “The Wildes are all-important to each other; anyone can see that.”

  Betsy was silenced.

  “It’s part of the family charm,” he added, after waiting a few seconds. “You take such pleasure in each other.”

  “Did you mean that to sound distasteful?” Betsy asked.

  He looked down at her, obviously surprised. “Not in the least. Envious, if anything. My father did his duty in marrying my mother, but the union is not a happy one. We were not a happy family.”

  “Do you suppose that your father regrets not marrying the tradesman’s daughter?”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “He—” But he cut off his words.

  They were nearing the stairs leading up to the next floor. Betsy came to a halt. “Yes?”

  “It’s not a story for a young lady,” Thaddeus said, apology in his voice.

  “I can guess,” Betsy said. “Your father had fallen in love. I expect that he turned his beloved into his mistress, and he has a great many children with her, and only two with the unwanted but nobly-born wife. The second family grew up like a happy pile of puppies, which must have made you feel lonely. Did I get it right?”

  “Not entirely accurate but disturbingly close.”

  Betsy began to respond, but she was cut off by a bellow from above stairs. “Louisa, you are a rat!”

  “My mother,” Thaddeus said.

  “She just called Aunt Knowe a rat,” Betsy said, astounded.

  Thaddeus smiled, his eyes glinting in a very attractive way.

  “If I am a rodent, you are a dormouse.” Aunt Knowe’s voice drifted down the stairs. “The older you get, the more your nose quivers, Emily.”

  “A cruel rat,” the duchess declared.

  “I must change into a walking costume,” Betsy said.

  She nearly dropped a curtsy, thinking it would be good to create distance between her noble suitor and herself, but she caught Thaddeus’s eye and changed her mind.

  “A pink dormouse,” Aunt Knowe said, laughing.

  “May I escort you upstairs?” Thaddeus asked.

  “No,” Betsy said. She cleared her throat.

  “May I escort you to town?”

  “You may escort your mother,” Betsy said.

  His eyes darkened. “So Jeremy will escort you?”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Betsy said, and took her leave without further conversation. She ran up one of the many back staircases that laced Lindow Castle together like a pair of stays.

  By all rights, she should like Thaddeus madly. Love him, even.

  “One of the mysteries of life,” she said aloud, starting down the corridor to her bedchamber just as Aunt Knowe rounded the corridor.

  “Oh, dearest, there you are! Her Grace is frightfully pleased that you invited her to Wilmslow.” She lowered her voice. “As mothers-in-law go, the Duchess of Eversley will be a good one.”

  “It’s too late to refer to her so politely,” Betsy said, walking briskly toward her bedchamber. “I heard you call her Emily, and a dormouse, and so did her son.”

  “She is a dormouse; her nose is the most delicious pink. I’ve called her a dormouse on and off since we were children. Not that we were schooled together, of course, but our mothers enjoyed each other’s company.”

  “I believe I shall wear my striped walking dress,” Betsy said, dismissing talk of duchesses.

  “Excellent,” Aunt Knowe said amiably. They paused outside Betsy’s door.

  Then Aunt Knowe swooped down as she often did—she was precisely the same height as her twin, which made her remarkably tall for a woman—and enclosed Betsy in a warm embrace. “You don’t have to marry him, dearest.”

  “Is that a new scent?” Betsy was nothing if not cunning when it came to changing the subject of conversation.

  “From Paris!” her aunt exclaimed, instantly distracted. “Après Something or Other.”

  Betsy came up on her toes and kissed her aunt’s cheek. “I must change.”

  Aunt Knowe widened her eyes. “I’ve just had a frightful thought, Betsy. Your daughters might look like dormice. Characteristics from noses to teeth are hereditary.”

  As if Betsy could forget that salient fact.

  Her mother’s sinful blood was racketing about her body, because she had no sooner caught sight of Jeremy’s shoulders in the billiard room than her heart started racing, and she felt bewilderingly weak at the knees.

  Whereas the dormouse’s son had a noble nose that didn’t quiver like his mother’s, and thick hair that appeared to be always in order, and a deep voice that by rights should make a maiden’s heart go tippity-tap.

  He was The One, obviously. She would never horrify him in the bedchamber. Their headmistress had been very straightforward about wedding nights, over a special tea Miss Stevenson had held with girls about to debut.

  “Welcome in the bedchamber is expected,” Miss Stevenson had said. “Enthusiasm would be a grave mistake; vulgarities, even in secret, destroy a man’s love for his wife.”

  Betsy had felt her face burning with shame, but she hadn’t said a word. And no one had spoken to her.

  But she hadn’t forgotten.

  Inside her room, Betsy leaned against the door and tried to shore up her resolve. Her weakness for Jeremy posed a challenge, by which she could prove to herself that a golden-haired Prussian would never cause her to desert her husband and children.

  She had the bloodlines that Thaddeus required.

  But if she wanted a happy marriage, she could never, ever let him know that she had inherited her mother’s passionate nature.

  Chapter Twelve

  An hour later, Jeremy strolled down to the entry feeling extremely irritated with himself. Betsy was a perfect mate for Thaddeus. He should be celebrating the fact, but instead he was combating an ever-growing feeling of possession, as if somehow the snappish billiard-playing girl who wanted to wear breeches was his.

  Ridiculous thought.

  He hardly knew her.

  The feeling he had was as awkward and conflicted as the shame and guilt he felt for surviving the war. He was thinking about how useful it would be if one could simply excise uncomfortable emotions out of one’s mind, when he realized that Betsy’s future mother-in-law had reached the entry before him.

  She was shaped like a small barrel, the kind that holds beer. Barrels weren’t painted pink, nor embellished with a great many feathers, but the duchess was patently uninterested in such dictates. She had likely been told she was charming in pink as a girl, and had seized on the color as a rule, never interested enough to try green or blue.

  Jeremy like
d her. He’d found that eccentrics didn’t bother to make unkind or pitying remarks; as a whole, they weren’t interested in him.

  “I saw you leaving the ballroom last night,” Her Grace said, without preamble. “Your halo was a mess, but now I see you’re bandaged about the head. Wounded in an affair of honor, were you?”

  “No,” Jeremy said. “Shot by a madwoman, if you must know.”

  “It’s a bleak world when a person can simply shoot whomever they wish,” the duchess proclaimed.

  “Yes,” Jeremy agreed, shoving images of pistols and cannon smoke into the corner of his mind.

  “I don’t agree with war,” the duchess stated.

  “Neither do I,” Lady Knowe said. They both jerked about to discover she had emerged from the study, drawing on a pair of long lilac-colored gloves. “Where is Prism, for goodness’ sake? Or a footman? What is this, a castle or a dairy?”

  “Why a dairy?” the duchess asked.

  “Because the two of you look somber enough to milk a cow. It’s a very serious business, milking. I tried it as a girl.”

  “There she is,” the duchess said with satisfaction, looking past Jeremy.

  Betsy was descending the stairs wearing blue stripes, which was an agreeable color with all her dark hair. Jeremy wasn’t good at that sort of thing, but her costume had a little collar that stood up around the back of her neck and flirted with her hair.

  She’d be a frightfully expensive wife.

  He pushed away the small voice in the back of his head that reminded him just how much money he had. Never mind his future inheritance as a marquess; his mother had left him a fortune. He could afford striped gowns and anything else a wife might wish for.

  Not that he wanted one, of course.

  Thaddeus arrived next, very properly attired, looking every inch the future duke. Lady Knowe sidled up to him, and his mother took his other arm, which left Jeremy with Betsy. He held out his elbow without speaking.

  She slipped a hand around his arm and they walked together through the great door of the castle into chilly, bright sunshine. Jeremy squinted at the sun.

  “The light is green today,” Betsy said suddenly.

  “What are you talking about?” He glanced down at her and then thought he’d better not do that too often, because her face was unnervingly dear.

  “Squint again,” she prompted.

  Obedience led to the realization that there was indeed a faintly green shade to the sunshine.

  “By evening, the light will be purple,” Betsy said.

  “Come along, you two,” Lady Knowe bellowed from the door of the carriage. “Spit spot! There’s an excellent teahouse in Wilmslow.”

  “Coming!” Betsy called.

  In the carriage, Jeremy seated himself beside Betsy, who had Thaddeus on her other side. Across from them, the older ladies took up the entire seat with their voluminous skirts.

  “There’s a vehicle coming down the lane,” Lady Knowe said, as he pulled the door shut. She gave the roof a hard knock. “I ought to remain and greet whomever it is, but I am tired of guests.”

  Jeremy looked out the window and bit back a curse.

  “You should be very proud of the wedding,” the duchess said, patting Lady Knowe on the knee. “It went off without a hitch.”

  Jeremy felt Betsy’s eyes on his face.

  The carriage started.

  “As for the person who just arrived, I am a firm believer that guests should send a card the day previous, or not be received at all,” the duchess said with the air of someone accustomed to being begged for an audience.

  Jeremy took a deep breath.

  “Who was in that carriage?” Betsy asked in a low voice, when they were well on the way to Wilmslow. Lady Knowe was busy interrogating Thaddeus about the proper height of hedgerows, while the duchess put in a word now and then. “You recognized it, didn’t you?”

  “My father’s,” he said.

  “You are estranged?”

  “That is a strong word.” But inside he knew it wasn’t strong enough. “We rarely speak.”

  “You won’t be able to avoid him now,” Betsy pointed out.

  “Unless I leave for London,” Jeremy said, which was true enough. But he wasn’t a man who fled like a coward. If so, he would have run away from the increasingly irritating emotions that tugged at him when he was around Betsy.

  Even more so when he was seated beside her, as he was now. She smelled like a beautiful woman, which was a foolish observation but true. She smelled delectable and English, like all the good, clean things in the world that he’d turned his back on when he went to war.

  “You cannot leave the castle yet,” Betsy said, with a distinct tone of satisfaction in her voice. The two seated on the other side of the carriage paused, and she said, “Aunt Knowe, you’ll be so pleased to know that Lord Jeremy recognized the carriage as his father’s.”

  The duchess clapped her hands. “The marquess is one of my husband’s close friends.”

  “I’ve met him once,” Lady Knowe said, knitting her brow. “Years ago.”

  Jeremy held his tongue. He and his father hadn’t spoken since he came back from war a shuddering mess of a man, knowing he wasn’t worthy to become a marquess. Luckily, his cousin Grégoire would relish the title. He had told his father as much, left for London, and not seen the marquess since.

  “Would you like to return to the castle?” Lady Knowe inquired.

  “My father and I are estranged,” he said, using Betsy’s word.

  His father’s response to his weakness had sent him into a trembling fury. He had slammed out of the house.

  “I suspect the marquess has not come to see the Wildes, but you, my dear,” Lady Knowe said to Jeremy.

  When had he become her “dear”? Sometime over the last months of dandelion tea and sleeping draughts made from comfrey and peppermint?

  “I made a gentleman’s wager with Lady Boadicea regarding Wilmslow, so there’s no going back now,” he said. “My father will undoubtedly need to rest from his journey, and he will enjoy spending time with my cousin, Mr. Bisset-Caron.”

  That wasn’t true, as his father disliked Grégoire, the offspring of his younger brother’s lamentable marriage to a Frenchwoman. He also loathed the way his brother had adapted his wife’s family name as the requirement for inheriting a considerable estate.

  “It’s true that you gave me your word of honor,” Betsy said.

  The duchess wrinkled her nose. “I do not care for wagering.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Emily,” Lady Knowe said, “don’t be a prude. I still have that bunch of dried violets from when you dared me to approach the pastor and ask for his thoughts on dance.”

  “We were children,” the duchess said dismissively, waving a pink-clad hand.

  “So are these three,” Lady Knowe said. “A cheerful wager is a pleasure. Now, what did you wager, Betsy?”

  “Lord Jeremy has promised to accompany me on a tour of Wilmslow. I shall be in disguise,” Betsy said, adding, “I had the idea in the middle of the fancy dress ball. He agreed to do so only if you accompany us, Aunt Knowe.”

  “Why on earth—” the duchess began.

  Thaddeus spoke at the same moment. “What disguise?”

  Jeremy realized, not for the first time, he must be a very shallow person, because he was enjoying the shock in Thaddeus’s face.

  “The disguise was chosen by the lady,” he said, giving Betsy time to change her mind about the breeches. “As for the ‘why,’ Your Grace, Lady Boadicea expressed the wish to visit an auction.”

  “An auction?” the duchess asked wonderingly. “Do you mean the sort of thing where disgraceful men sell their wives?”

  “Sell their wives? You surprise me, Mama,” Thaddeus said.

  Jeremy thought about whether he would call his mother Mama if she were still alive. That was a firm no. Never. Not even if she had been a duchess rather than a marchioness.

  “The auc
tion in Wilmslow is an important affair,” Lady Knowe put in. “Works of art and the like. I sent the estate manager to secure that lovely Rembrandt that hangs in the back parlor.”

  Jeremy thought that Betsy had better speak up soon if she wanted to preserve her illustrious future as a duchess. She was running the risk of setting Thaddeus’s mother against her.

  “Lady Boadicea collects miniatures,” he said, making that up on the spot. “She would like to bid on a piece herself.”

  Lady Knowe blinked at Betsy. “My dear, I thought I was the only person in the family interested in miniatures. If there is one for sale you fancy, Prism will send a factotum to bid for you.”

  “I wish to bid in the auction myself,” Betsy stated. She straightened in the seat. Surely, she wouldn’t inform Thaddeus, let alone his mother—

  Yes, she would.

  “I plan to go to the auction disguised as a boy and bid on a work of art,” Betsy said, looking directly at the duchess. “I would have liked to play billiards, in an establishment where ladies were not allowed to pick up a cue, but Lord Jeremy does not think that advisable.”

  There was dead silence in the carriage.

  “Billiards while dressed in boy’s clothing,” Betsy clarified.

  Because why put in just one coffin nail when two will do better?

  More silence.

  Just as Jeremy was trying to decide whether he wished to exacerbate the situation by inquiring whether Betsy planned to wear breeches or pantaloons, the duchess began laughing. Thaddeus’s brow had knit, likely thinking deeply about propriety, but he lifted his chin and stared at his mother.

  “One of my friends told me to go to Lindow because Lady Boadicea would be a perfect duchess,” Her Grace said, fairly gasping with laughter. “Here you are. A perfect duchess indeed.”

  She leaned forward and patted Betsy’s knee. “We don’t follow fashion or standards, my dear. We make them. If you decide to dress as a boy, you’ll be doing nothing that my relatives—my female relatives—haven’t done before.”

  “I am surprised to hear that,” Thaddeus said.

  To Jeremy’s mind, if Thaddeus wanted the “perfect duchess” he’d chosen, he’d better start defending Betsy’s ideas, no matter how unusual.