Say No to the Duke

by James, Eloisa

  “I am aching, and not because I’m sore,” Betsy said firmly.

  Still he hesitated. “We have time—”

  She arched against him, an involuntary gasp coming from her lungs. “You feel so good.”

  “It will be easier like this,” Jeremy said, rolling over so she was on top. He hissed with pleasure as she slowly sank down, rippling around him. They kissed, and her tangled silk cloud of hair fell about them like a curtain once again, keeping the world out.

  Or reshaping a new world, just the two of them, trembling, kissing, moving lazily, steadily, as if they were climbing a mountain.

  Falling off the mountain together in a flurry of sparks. At the end, Betsy collapsed on his chest and he caught his breath, stroking her hair.

  Blinking away a watery shimmer in his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Aunt Knowe looked up sharply when Betsy put her head around the door, and said, “Well?”

  Betsy grinned. “We’re getting married—that is, if Father agrees. And even if he doesn’t,” she added.

  Her aunt bounded to her feet and caught Betsy in a tight hug. “Your father will be so pleased, my dear.”

  “Will he?” Betsy asked. After all, Jeremy had spent most of the autumn in the billiard room, supposedly insensible from liquor, dropping sardonic comments when he bothered to talk at all.

  “Yes,” Aunt Knowe said. “Your father has great respect for Jeremy. Remember, North fought side by side with Jeremy in several battles.”

  “I forgot that,” Betsy said.

  “I can tell you who won’t be happy,” Aunt Knowe said, with a note of satisfaction in her voice. “That intolerable young man Grégoire. It’s rare that I take a dislike to a person—”

  “That’s not exactly true,” Betsy said, giving her aunt a kiss on the cheek. “You have high standards.”

  “I often disapprove,” Aunt Knowe said. “But I rarely dislike. I cannot like Grégoire, for all his manners are ingratiating. His eyes are set close together.”

  “I know something about him that could be considered immoral,” Betsy said. “I haven’t mentioned it to Jeremy, but perhaps I shall, once we’re married.”

  Aunt Knowe sat back down and picked up her knitting. “I declare, this piece of yarn gets more tangled every time I look at it.”

  “I think Grégoire accepts money from a stationer for his sketches,” Betsy said. “Remember those prints that showed up virtually overnight, making a fuss about Diana and North’s betrothal? That was only a few days after Grégoire visited Jeremy at Lindow for the first time.”

  “That’s hardly evidence,” her aunt objected.

  “He boasted that everyone can recognize his sketches of the royal family,” Betsy said.

  “There’s nothing illegal about selling sketches to stationers. Believe me, my brother has tried to smother more distasteful prints with no success. Has your maid packed your things yet? I am eager to return to Lindow, and apparently the roads are clear this morning.”

  “Did the auction house deliver your miniatures?”

  “They certainly did.” Aunt Knowe beamed.

  “May I see the one that looked like a young Wilde?”

  “Not just now, darling. They’re all packed away. We’ll have a light luncheon and then leave for home.” She brightened. “If Jeremy informs Grégoire immediately, perhaps the man will take off in a huff and won’t accompany us to Lindow.”

  Betsy shook her head. “It’s a sad day when I am more cynical than you, dear Aunt, but if he is feeding images to a stationer, he’ll stay close to the Wildes as long as he is able.”

  “If your father returns from Scotland and suspects, he will geld him,” Aunt Knowe said, as if she were talking about making a cup of tea.

  Betsy choked.

  “We know how seriously you take your reputation,” her aunt said firmly. “Another child would laugh it off; North didn’t even care about being compared to a rapist. A Shakespearean rapist, but still a rapist. You are very different from the rest of your family and we respect that.”

  Betsy was silent for a moment, watching as her aunt poked at her knitting with a free knitting needle. “I don’t care any longer,” she said finally.

  Her aunt’s head jerked up.

  “I’m serious.” Betsy nodded. “Let him make a scandal out of me. He can sell prints of me across all England, if he wishes.”

  Aunt Knowe cocked her head. “What if he shows you sneaking into a man’s bedchamber?”

  “How did you know that?” Betsy asked, only mildly surprised.

  “I know my chickens,” her aunt said. “What if the prints compare you to your mother, Betsy?”

  “I am not my mother,” Betsy said stoutly. “In time, everyone will forget, because, as you told me, dear Aunt, I’m a Wilde. There might be an enormous fuss at first, but once we’re married? And when we’ve been married a decade? I think not.”

  Her aunt’s smile widened. “I’m so happy for you, Betsy.”

  “He says he loves me.”

  “Everyone has known that for months. The man can’t take his eyes off you.”

  “I thought he didn’t really notice me until North’s wedding,” Betsy said, and then she gasped. “You didn’t!”

  “Didn’t what?” her aunt asked innocently.

  “You deliberately sent Thaddeus down to the billiard room to propose to me because you knew Jeremy was there!”

  Aunt Knowe dropped her knitting on the table and rose. “Am I not your favorite aunt?”

  “You’re my only aunt,” Betsy replied.

  “Well, you are my favorite eldest niece,” Aunt Knowe said, swooping down and kissing Betsy on the cheek. “I couldn’t bear to see you listlessly turning down yet another proposal. I was becoming somewhat worried that one of those gentlemen would coax you into making a mistake.”

  “Did you send Jeremy there first?”

  “Of course I did,” her aunt said with aplomb. “He was desperate to escape from the ballroom. It was the act of a good host to direct him to retire.”

  Betsy began to laugh. “You are evil, Aunt Knowe. Evil!”

  “I try,” her aunt said, slinging her arm around Betsy’s shoulder. “Now come along, you nearly-married woman. I am starving.”

  “How did you know that I joined Jeremy last night? He very properly escorted me to my door.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” her aunt said. “I will have you know, my dear, that there’s nothing proper about a gentleman escorting a young lady to her bedchamber in the dark of night, especially given a long pause at the door.”

  “True,” Betsy said. But she grinned anyway. “I was the one who decided it was too lonely in bed and returned to his room.”

  “I found myself very grateful that these walls are so thick. Now that you children aren’t children any longer,” she clarified.

  Betsy was grateful too, given that she seemed unable to stay silent when Jeremy’s hands, let alone his mouth, ranged over her body.

  They were stowed in the carriage, ready to return to Lindow, before she saw him again. He put his head into the carriage and nodded, his eyes on Betsy’s face. “I’ll be traveling to the castle with my family.”

  “That answers the question about whether Bisset-Caron is returning to Lindow,” Aunt Knowe said with a sigh, as the Wilde carriage began moving.

  “Jeremy means to tell his father and cousin that we are marrying,” Betsy said. “A blow for Grégoire, who apparently had ambitions to inherit Jeremy’s title.”

  “A fool is a fool is a fool,” Aunt Knowe said. “I suppose he expected Jeremy would fall in battle, and it grew into a habit of mind. I suspect he knows of Jeremy’s reaction to fireworks, given an irritable comment he dropped at some point.”

  “He made an unpleasant comment about it yesterday. He couldn’t use that incident to take away Jeremy’s title, could he?”

  “Oh, no,” Aunt Knowe said comfortably. “That only works in melodramas. For on
e thing, Jeremy’s father is still alive. And for another, Jeremy is patently sane and we could attest to it. A mere word from your father would squash any foolish petition Grégoire might try.”

  “I expect Grégoire is not dangerous, just disappointed,” Betsy said.

  “Exactly. Don’t forget tiresome.”

  Jeremy would have echoed Lady Knowe, if he knew her judgment. The journey to Lindow took two hours, given snow and ice on the roads. The entire time was taken up by a monologue on the subject of Jeremy’s unfitness for marriage, delivered, naturally, by his cousin. His father rolled his eyes and then fell asleep in a corner.

  Jeremy had never given Grégoire much thought. His cousin had been at Eton, but two years behind him. Jeremy had met the younger boy when Grégoire tracked him down on the first day of term and declared himself to be Jeremy’s closest relative.

  The fact didn’t interest him then, and it didn’t interest him now.

  Grégoire had grown into a man who paid far too much attention to the color of his stockings.

  “I don’t say this for my own benefit, but due to concern for our ancient name,” he said now, a patent falsehood. “A man who’s spent time in Bedlam ought not to assume the title.”

  “How did you know that I spent time in Bedlam?” Jeremy asked.

  Grégoire shrugged. “Someone must have told me.”

  “Not good enough,” Jeremy said. He leaned forward slightly and let his expression say the rest.

  Grégoire was a pampered only son, not a man who would ever conceive of taking up a place in the artillery or any other branch of the military. He shied away. “Your valet, if you must know. When you disappeared, he sent about to your club and I happened to be there. We were worried that you’d come to harm.”

  “I see,” Jeremy said, controlling his irritation. “It must have been disappointing when I turned up, hearty and well, at Lindow Castle. Did you hope that I had slipped into the Thames?”

  “Of course not!” Grégoire said, looking as indignant as was possible for such a slippery fellow. “I have my own fortune and no need for yours.” He fondly caressed the large sapphire he wore on his left hand, supposedly in honor of his French mother.

  “As I told you, dear cousin, my concern is for the blood we share, and the antiquity of our illustrious name.”

  “Your mother was French, in case you’ve forgotten,” Jeremy pointed out. “And you changed your name to hers, so we no longer share a name.”

  Grégoire’s eyes hardened. “I am English to the core.”

  “So my valet told you I was missing, and then later shared my experience in Bedlam as well?” Apparently it was time to pension off his valet; the man was too old to be merely shown the door.

  “That is irrelevant,” Grégoire retorted. “Prints circulating through London depict you wrapped in a white jacket, raving and wigless.” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t want to mention them before the marquess; I know the shame would cause him tremendous pain.”

  Jeremy’s jaw tightened.

  “Prints are also circulating that depict you hiding behind a tree while the men of your platoon gasp their final breaths,” Grégoire said. “As a member of the family, I find those the most objectionable.”

  “Do you?” Jeremy asked.

  “It is axiomatic that the heir to the marquessate should not be reviled for cowardice, nor pitied for madness,” Grégoire announced.

  Jeremy sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “Grégoire, I am going to marry the oldest daughter of the Duke of Lindow. It will do you no good to try to have me committed for madness.”

  His cousin gasped. Overdoing it, to Jeremy’s mind.

  “What a loathsome suggestion! It is up to you, not I, to ensure the future of the family name, but if you do not care, then you do not.”

  “I do not,” Jeremy confirmed.

  “What if you become insane again? You were violent and had to be restrained.”

  A flare of true anger lit in Jeremy’s belly. “You bothered to find out all the details.”

  “You are my only cousin,” Grégoire said.

  “Perhaps we would both be more comfortable if we eschewed the relationship,” Jeremy suggested.

  He received another appalled look. “Family cannot be ‘eschewed,’” his cousin said flatly. “I will pray to the Blessed Virgin that you have no more violent episodes.”

  It probably would not lead to harmony if Jeremy pointed out that the Blessed Virgin played quite a small role in English prayers, as opposed to French ones, so he propped himself in the corner and closed his eyes, imitating his father.

  Somehow feigned sleep became real sleep, and he woke only when the carriage began rattling over the cobblestones of Lindow Castle.

  Opposite him, Grégoire was plucking the curls of his wig to shining ringlets.

  Jeremy stretched. An unusual feeling of bodily satisfaction spread through him.

  “Why must you wear that wig without powder?” Grégoire said, peevishness leaking into his voice. “It doesn’t reflect well on us.”

  “There is no ‘us,’” Jeremy stated.

  The carriage drew to a stop. Jeremy pushed open the door and jumped down without waiting for a groom. He needed Betsy, and more Betsy.

  Last night her untidy hair, her slumberous eyes, her happy gleam made his chest hurt with an emotion he scarcely knew. He craved her, the way he had once craved whisky.

  For him, there was only Bess, or Betsy, or Boadicea.

  The private woman, the polite society damsel, the warrior queen.

  She wasn’t in her bedchamber. Or the billiard room. The damned castle was so large that he searched for her for an hour, enduring sixty minutes of blazing and thwarted desire.

  When he found Lady Knowe, she shook her head at him and said, “I sent her to the brewery to judge the October ale.”

  Jeremy blinked.

  “You are stealing a future duchess,” Lady Knowe told him. “Betsy is trained to be the Lady of the Castle and oversee every room.”

  “She will make a magnificent future marchioness,” he countered. “Shall I write to her father in Scotland and ask for her hand in marriage? Or request that he return to Lindow?”

  “I sent off a messenger this morning. Not that they’ll be surprised.”

  “I’m surprised,” Jeremy told her.

  Her laughter followed him down the corridor. Following Prism’s directions, Jeremy walked out the west entrance of the castle. Someone had shoveled a path through the snow covering the archery field, so he followed it. The sun was shining, but a yellow cast to the air suggested that more snow might come.

  The archery targets had acquired hats of snow that all tilted to the same side, presumably away from storm wind. He followed footprints through the archery field to a low, ancient building. The lintel was so low that Jeremy had to bend his head to push open the door and enter.

  The smell of beer inside the brewery gave the air a thick quality. The odor came to him in a rush of grassy, citrusy hops, with an undernote of malt and a yeasty splash on top.

  Betsy was seated at the far side of the room, sitting back from a rough wooden table so that skirts of pale blue brocade could flow out to either side. Her hair was powdered and caught up with butterflies whose wings trembled as she moved. A white fur cloak was thrown over a hogshead to the side.

  She was speaking to an old man with an enormous mustache.

  “Good afternoon,” Jeremy said, walking toward them.

  To his sharp delight, she glowed with pleasure to see him. “Lord Jeremy,” she cried. “Do come meet our marvelous brewmaster, Herr Horn. We are about to try the October ale.”

  Jeremy shook hands with Mr. Horn and then sat down opposite Betsy. Mr. Horn went to fetch some ale and a glass for Jeremy.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Betsy said.

  Jeremy grinned. “You’ll get used to seeing me follow you about. So this is a brewhouse? I don’t believe I’ve ever
been in the one on my father’s estate.”

  “We’re very lucky to have Herr Horn,” she told him. “Someone in the family meets with him to discuss the ales three times a year. The October ale waits for two years, plus there’s dark ale, and blond beer. My sisters and I take turns with Aunt Knowe. My older brothers used to do their duty, and the younger children will come along as well.”

  “The better to shape future duchesses?”

  “How will we respect our food and drink if we don’t respect the making of it?”

  “You just quoted Lady Knowe, did you not?”

  Betsy laughed. “She’s my mother, for all purposes.”

  Mr. Horn returned with three glasses and a pitcher. He poured the pale ale slowly, with reverence, into Betsy’s glass, allowing for just the right amount of bitter, snowy foam. “The ale is well-hopped, as Her Ladyship prefers,” he noted.

  “Aunt Knowe thinks that hops have medicinal properties,” Betsy added, as Mr. Horn poured more beer.

  “That is as may be,” the brewmaster said. “Hops make an excellent bitter beer, light-bodied and blond, as we call it.”

  “Herr Horn, thank you for sharing your creation with us,” Betsy said. She picked up her glass and swirled it, holding it so that light from the lamp struck golden notes through the beer.

  “It’s a fair color,” Mr. Horn acknowledged.

  Betsy took a delicate sniff from the glass and then a swallow, so Jeremy followed suit. The three of them sat for a moment in silence, letting the bittersweet taste fill their mouths. Betsy licked the foam from her upper lip, and Jeremy had to take a gulp of ale to stop himself from licking it for her.

  “You’ve outdone yourself, Herr Horn,” she said, sipping once more.

  “We dried the malt with coke,” Mr. Horn said, putting down his mug and looking expectantly at Betsy.

  “Is that what gives it a fruity taste, something like black cherries?”

  The old man grinned at her. “Ach, but you would have made a rare brewmaster, Lady Boadicea! What you’re tasting there is the effect of using a peck of peas against half a peck of wheat. What do you think of it, Lord Jeremy?”

  “It tastes like summer malt,” Jeremy said. He lifted his mug. “You’re a magician and an undoubted master, Herr Horn.”