“Your father appears perfectly cheerful,” she said, taking another sip of brandy. “Particularly when he told the story of your adoration for that shaggy little pony. He glowed with cheerful pride.”
“What a blow was there given,” Jeremy recited.
“Are you being clever?” she asked. “Thanks to your father, I know about your brilliance at Latin declension. While my education was excellent for a young lady, it didn’t extend to memorizing the classics.”
“A quote from The Tempest,” Jeremy said. “I was being a conceited, if well-educated, fool.” The firelight caught his hair and made it shine like burnished dark bronze.
“Your cousin was pettish at dinner as well,” she said thoughtfully. “It could be that your temper is inherited.”
“My mother had an optimistic frame of mind,” he offered.
“But you’re prone to allowing your temper to get the better of you?”
“I find myself in the grip of strong emotion.” Their eyes met. “I’m considering taking a wife.”
Betsy’s throat closed, and she spluttered, coughing as brandy went down the wrong way.
“If I appear to be glaring into the fire, it’s the effect of deep thought,” he added.
It seemed impossible. He had tolerated her. He regularly made fun of her.
Although they had kissed.
“There’s no need to propose simply because of a kiss,” she hissed, taking advantage of another burst of irritation among the players.
He raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
Betsy felt color crawling up her neck. “Good,” she said, taking another sip of brandy. She wanted to touch him. Put a hand on his arm and see if she could make him shiver. Trail a finger over the back of his hand and see if it made her shiver, deep in her core.
It would. She knew it would.
“I was actually considering the attributes one should look for in a wife,” Jeremy said. “One can hardly avoid the thought, given the deluge of information emanating from Her Grace about the attributes that commend Thaddeus as a prospective husband.”
“Your father rose to the challenge as well,” Betsy pointed out.
“A failed endeavor,” Jeremy said. “I was such a boring child. Mumps are nothing compared to the hairless horrors of ringworm.”
Betsy giggled. Brandy was spreading through her stomach in a pleasant way, making her feel as if the world was a kindly, glowing place.
“Don’t get drunk,” Jeremy said, giving her a sharp glance.
“Why not?” Betsy asked. She lowered her voice. “It’s frightfully déclassé to go bald at an early age.”
“The opposite,” Jeremy said, pouring himself more tea. “Only a duchess boasts of something as distasteful as ringworm. It displays utter disregard for the cautious mores of the socially anxious. I shouldn’t say this to you, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re so anxious yourself,” he said, glancing at her. “Charming, snobbish, anxious.”
Betsy’s first instinct was to fling the dregs of her brandy at him, but she drank them instead. He was right. Why should she take umbrage? She lived in the grip of a profound fear instilled in her by Clementine and her fellow scholars.
“No answer?” Jeremy asked.
“You are correct,” she said, holding out her glass. “More brandy, please.”
He rose, strolled over to the decanters arranged on a sideboard, and poured her a healthy slug of liquor.
“You told me that you wouldn’t drink after the midday meal,” Aunt Knowe said, her voice displeased. “You’ll never sleep at this rate, Jeremy.”
“It’s for Betsy,” he replied.
“Oh, all right then.” She returned to her cards.
Betsy looked over to find Thaddeus looking at her, so she raised the glass that Jeremy had just handed her. “Luckily, I have no trouble sleeping,” she informed him.
“I’ve taught all my girls to hold their liquor,” Aunt Knowe said. “You needn’t worry about your future wife becoming tiddly and flirting with the vicar.” Then she put down some cards with a shout of triumph. “I fancy that’s cooked your goose!”
“You’re anxious because of your mother, aren’t you?” Jeremy asked in a low voice.
Betsy looked at him. Despite Aunt Knowe’s pride, she was definitely feeling on the tiddly side of sober. “Wouldn’t you be, were you I?”
He pondered that, staring narrow-eyed into the fire.
“Well?”
“I’m trying to imagine my mother running away with a footman rather than dying while I was in the colonies. I’d prefer she was alive and in the world, even if she lived in a different country with the footman. Is that unkind to tell you as much?”
Betsy took a healthy swallow. “It is, rather. Your mother’s death did not shape you as an adult, and others feel nothing but sympathy for you. You’ve made me feel shallow, although my mother’s adultery has had a significant effect on me.”
“Only because you allow it,” he said, without hesitation.
“You know nothing,” Betsy stated. “Nothing at all. Of all the contemptuous things you’ve said to me, that is probably the worst.”
She could tell from his expression that he was surprised and, rather sweetly, taken aback.
“I didn’t mean it contemptuously.”
“That excuse only works once or twice.”
Yet when she met his dark eyes, desire flared up between them. She bit her lip, fighting back against instincts that suggested—madness!—that she transfer herself from her chair to his lap. That she tilt back her head and invite a kiss. That he would kiss her, and her hands would clutch his shoulders.
She jerked her gaze away and put a hand to her burning cheek.
“You just watched two peers parade their respective sons’ virtues before you, and still you think that you have a damaged reputation?” Jeremy asked. “You’re a duke’s daughter. Your mother’s blood is as noble as mine, albeit her morals were a trifle elastic. Morals are not inherited.”
“All characteristics are inherited,” Betsy said. “Have you ignored North’s diatribes on the subject of a horse’s stride?”
“You may have inherited your mother’s legs, but morals are taught,” Jeremy retorted. “You learned your morals from Lady Knowe. I would be extremely surprised if any child in a nursery she oversaw would behave in a less than resolutely English fashion—and by that I mean the behavior befitting an English nobleman.”
“Horatius raced his horse over the bog while inebriated,” Betsy said. Her older brother had perished in that bog.
“Did he ever cheat at cards?”
“Of course not!” she flashed.
“Being reckless with one’s life is practically a British pastime,” Jeremy said. He reached over and picked up her glass of brandy, which she had placed on the floor beside her chair.
“Not good for your sleep,” Aunt Knowe barked from the table.
Jeremy sighed and put the glass back down. “Your mother has had no real effect on your morals, Bess. Lady Knowe shaped you, through and through.”
“I can’t think of anyone better,” Betsy said stoutly, aware that her aunt was apparently listening.
Just then the duchess launched into a diatribe that implied Aunt Knowe had cards up her sleeve. Which made the other three players break into laughter and led to the dissolution of the games.
“If I had the ability to hide cards up my sleeve, we wouldn’t be playing for walnuts,” Aunt Knowe declared. “I would wager you for your diamond set, Emily, see if I wouldn’t.”
Thaddeus eased his long body into the empty chair beside Betsy and then nodded at her half-full glass. “May I?” he asked.
Thaddeus’s clear eyes made no demands. Marriage to him would be peaceful.
Betsy gave him a genuine smile, and handed him the glass. “You would do me a kindness; I am not used to copious amounts of brandy.”
“I like a woman who
can hold her liquor,” Jeremy’s father said, dropping into a seat beside his son. Betsy felt as if a gray heron had suddenly folded its knees in ways unknown in the avian kingdom and perched on the edge of a seat.
“Drink can lead to indiscretions,” Her Grace put in. “Remember the French ambassador’s wife? I put that scandal down to her passion for brandy. She told me herself that she brought over three cases, disguised as household goods.”
Thaddeus’s coat pulled across broad shoulders as he drank. Jeremy’s beauty was of a brutal kind that slapped you in the face with a wave of desire. Thaddeus’s was quieter, accompanied by a nobleman’s confidence that he was welcome in any company. Betsy let her eyes wander over his chest, wondering if he too had a muscled stomach. Likely he did. His legs stretched black silk pantaloons—
This was terrible.
She was losing hold of convictions she’d held for most of her life. The good thing was that she didn’t feel a raging wish to crawl into Thaddeus’s lap, which boded well for their future married life, should it come about.
He smiled, eyes warm, and fleetingly touched her cheek. “If there was a billiard table in the inn, I would love to have a match with you.”
On her other side, Jeremy growled something, too low for Thaddeus to have heard, thank goodness.
The evening was growing all too confusing. “Your Grace, Aunt Knowe, I believe I shall retire to bed, if you will excuse me.”
After bidding everyone good night, Betsy headed toward the door.
“I plan to have a debate with the marquess about his mistaken approach to grain policy,” her aunt declared behind her, which roused a groan from Jeremy’s father. “Thaddeus will surely support my point of view. I’m certain that you’re more liberal than your hidebound father.”
As Betsy neared the door, Jeremy reached over her to open it.
“You mustn’t accompany me. This isn’t proper,” she whispered.
“I don’t care to have you walking about the inn at night by yourself,” Jeremy said. “Thaddeus’s eyes are drilling into my back; what a dog in the manger.”
“Just what do you mean by that?” Betsy glared at him. “He doesn’t want me, but he doesn’t want you to have me either? In your conception, I am no more than a feeding trough?”
“Exactly,” he said, holding the door for her.
“If I were a manger,” she said haughtily, “I believe that Thaddeus would—” Too late she realized the error in going anywhere near “lie.”
Jeremy chuckled.
She swept past him and started toward the stairs.
“A manger by any other name,” he said behind her. “A refuge from the storm, a calm center in a whirling world, a funny, passionate woman who is lethal in a billiard game.”
Despite herself, she walked slower.
“Beloved and loving, of course.”
She turned around. The paneled hallway had very high ceilings, and lamps had been affixed to the walls just above her head. The shadows thrown by light falling down made Jeremy’s face look like a judge’s.
“That’s why Thaddeus wants to marry you,” he finished.
“You have been making a list of pros and cons,” she said. “As part of your thoughts regarding marriage?”
He nodded.
“Might I know the cons?”
“Eccentric. Often likely to triumph at billiards, which might lead to ulcers.”
His eyes were glinting at her with that special look he seemed to reserve for her: mischief, wickedness, a hint of desire . . . No, a lot of desire. Mixed with self-reproach, as if he found it beneath him to desire her.
“Prone to falsehood,” he added.
“I am not!”
“You are. You create a face and a smile and put it on like a suit of armor. Who wants to marry a suit of armor? Your entire life is like a bal masqué.”
“It isn’t,” Betsy protested.
He just kept going, relentless. “Will you teach your children to plaster fake smiles on their faces and pipe inanities in a twittering voice? Will they be driven to collect proposals as if gentlemen were daisies in an invisible, wilting chain of flowers?”
Betsy stood in that corridor feeling sick. What could she possibly say to that? “You are unkind,” she managed.
“I like the real you: witty, charming, and intelligent. Sensual and deeply lovable. You are a delight, Bess. A true delight. If I were the marrying kind, I’d be lining up in the queue, bumping Thaddeus out of the way in a rush to win your hand.”
“Charming,” Betsy said. Her mind was rushing this way and that. Fury burned up her spine, and angry words trembled on her lips about his behavior.
“Have you anything further to add?” she asked. “I don’t want to cut you short.” She managed her voice perfectly: It was as calm as if he were remarking on the weather.
His eyes searched hers. “Bess—”
She could accept his opinion of her. She refused to argue with it, because he was right, though he didn’t understand her motives. She made a sudden jerky motion. “Don’t.”
“You could have laughed at me, the way you always do.”
“I laugh when you squabble with me or make fun of my halo. You aren’t making fun.” Hurt, angry words were bubbling up in her chest. What good would it do to say, I thought we were friends.
Or particularly, I thought you were courting me.
Because she had. In some small part of her heart she had begun to nurture affection for a foul-tempered wreck of a man.
“Good night,” she said, turning on her heel and walking away. What a fool she was. There could be nothing worse than being tied to a cruel man. She didn’t deserve his rebuke. She hadn’t been unkind. She had merely tried to befriend him.
She walked faster, knowing he was following. The corridor widened into a flight of stairs that curved to the right and around an indoor balcony. She went up those steps as quickly as she could without running.
She made it halfway around the balcony, the door to her bedchamber in view, when Jeremy caught her arm.
“No,” she spat, her voice nearly cracking despite herself.
“Talk to me. Please.”
Betsy took a deep breath and faced him. “I gather that you are troubled by my response to your summary of my character. You needn’t be. My behavior in polite society has been crafted since the age of fourteen; I am as aware as you are that I create a ‘face’ when I’m in public.”
“My room is just here. Please talk to me for a moment.”
“In your room?” That question destroyed any claim she had to control. “I think not. In fact, I think that you have lost your mind. Everything you said to me was true. You are a guest in my father’s house, and yet you ask me to visit your bedchamber? I do you the courtesy of believing that you are not trying to destroy my reputation or compromise me. After all, you are not a marrying man.”
“I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
As far as Betsy was concerned, no explanations were necessary. An apology would do little, and in any case, his voice was not particularly apologetic. There was a note of command there, as if the Jeremy who had ruled the battlefield was making an appearance.
“I accept your apology.” With a tug she freed her arm and walked to her chamber, opened the door, and escaped without looking back.
Chapter Fourteen
Jeremy stood in the corridor feeling gutted. He had grown accustomed to trading barbed comments with Betsy. With Bess. They had squabbled and disagreed, and her fire kept him tied to the room and not back on a smoke-filled battleground.
Then he had turned sparring into an unkind assault, from pure jealousy.
She had been his friend and he’d watched her turn white. Unkind? He was more than unkind.
He had been cruel.
For one reason. For one damned reason. Because she gave Thaddeus a smile, and because Thaddeus touched her on the cheek.
For that, Jeremy excoriated her behavior, even though he was beginning to
understand her pretend smile and the way she collected proposals the way strangers collected Wilde prints.
He entered his room but couldn’t settle. It was one thing to be a failure on the battlefield. Betsy was right: Any man who went to war was a failure, if he lost even one man, one companion. It made him feel better, somehow, to acknowledge it.
She’d made him feel better, and to repay her, he’d made her feel horrible. He was an unforgivable lout.
The raging hypocrisy of his chiding anyone—for anything—wasn’t lost on him either. Betsy hurt no one with her masquerade. Thaddeus looked at her with genuine affection and admiration. Damn it. And he was a good man. The best.
Better by far than Jeremy with his blackened soul.
He walked restlessly from one end of the room to the other. Snow was still coming down outside, so he stood at the window watching the way drifts bunched up in the corners of the courtyard, looking deceptively soft and warm.
His eyes fell on a bundle he’d found earlier. Lady Knowe must have ordered it brought from Lindow. Seeing it held male clothing, a groom had delivered it to his room, but in fact the clothes inside were too small: boy’s clothing for a girl with too much exuberance to be confined to skirts, no matter how wide. He could go along the corridor and knock on Betsy’s door. It was only two down from his; he’d noted her chamber, of course.
No.
Likely Betsy’s maid was in her room, helping her disrobe.
He wrenched his mind away from that vision because it wasn’t his to think about.
His room faced the front of the inn, as did Betsy’s. Perhaps she was staring out the window as well. His hands curled into fists at the idea she might be crying.
Her pointed comment about his being a guest at the castle was a signal. He could leave in the morning in grand style, in his father’s carriage. No one would guess that he was fleeing the scene of a crime.
He discovered that he was grinding his teeth when his jaw started aching.
Snow was drifting higher against the stone walls in the courtyard. The iron-wrought railings outside his window were decorated with ornate metal spears, each of which held its own snowy nightcap, like a line of thin, old men.
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