Say No to the Duke

by James, Eloisa

Betsy’s mother’s flight to Prussia had burned away any interest she might have had in other people’s intimacies. In her perfect world, a man and woman would stay together as long as they cared to, and then part, if they must. No one would pay notice to their private lives.

  Aunt Knowe groaned. “I know that expression.”

  “What expression?”

  “You’re the precise image of your brother Alaric at this moment, and that look on his face signaled flat rebellion. You know, your father forbade him to go to China as a young man, and he not only went, but he took Parth with him.”

  “Yes,” Betsy answered. “Though as I remember it, Father welcomed the idea.”

  “My point is that if I had suggested Alaric stay home and learn how to sort herbs, he would have looked just as tragic as you.”

  “Alaric is so lucky,” Betsy said, wistfully. “I would love to turn my back on society and sail away.”

  “Marry, then travel,” her aunt advised.

  She didn’t want to be a wife. She wanted to be herself, but without a notorious mother and a famous father. Just a person among strangers. Not a wife.

  Aunt Knowe clucked her tongue and wrapped her arm around Betsy’s shoulder. “It seems my twin brother spawned not one but two adventurers. You behave with such perfection that I didn’t realize, Betsy. I feel a terrible aunt not to have known what was in your heart.”

  “You are the best of all aunts,” Betsy said, leaning her head against Lady Knowe’s shoulder. “I am merely tired of being perfect.”

  “You have been the belle of this ball and every other this Season as well,” her aunt said, giving her a squeeze. “The news has spread that you turned down the viscount, and all the young ladies are green with jealousy.”

  “They guessed?”

  “He readily told his mother, the duchess, that you had refused him. Are you certain that you don’t want Thaddeus, my dear? I’ve known him since he was a child, and what a darling boy he was. I don’t believe he’ll give up easily. If anything, I would say that he is twice as interested now that you turned him down.”

  “He told me as much,” Betsy said, trying to find some part of her that cared.

  No, she didn’t care.

  “It would be pleasant to be a duchess,” her aunt said, beginning to stroll toward the door and drawing Betsy with her. “Let’s go, my dear. It’s time to retire.”

  “I’ve watched my stepmother play the role,” Betsy pointed out. “I would like to live a more private life. What’s more, my brand-new sister-in-law strongly believes that being a duchess would be more dreary than working as a governess. Or a barmaid.”

  “Hopefully, you won’t have a chance to test that theory as regards the pub,” Aunt Knowe said tartly. “I am still appalled by the fact that my eldest surviving nephew married a woman who had frequented the servants’ hall.”

  Betsy kissed her on the cheek. “It’s too late to pretend that you don’t adore Diana, my darling aunt.”

  “I do adore her. But I trust that you would never contemplate entering domestic service, Betsy. You are not suited to taking orders.”

  “I could take orders!” Betsy said indignantly.

  Aunt Knowe shook her head. “You are practically a duchess already, which is one of the reasons why every bachelor peer in London wants to marry you. They know their households will be perfectly ordered.”

  Betsy scowled at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “In the nicest possible way, you expect the world to dance to your tune—and it does.”

  “You don’t understand,” Betsy said, nodding politely to Lady Tallow, who was lurking by the door. “It hasn’t been easy to cultivate a perfect Lady Betsy that they all see and believe in.”

  Her aunt smiled at her. “I do see your armor and admire it—and you. But, my dear, people respond to other people instinctively, like animals in a pack. You take after your father: You are a leader in the pack, whether you wish it or no.”

  Betsy burst into laughter. “You are mad, Aunt Knowe. In the best of all fashions, of course.”

  The castle butler, Prism, was waiting in the entry with a bevy of footmen at his shoulder, ready to escort people to their bedchambers. The family had learned from sad experience that the castle was so large that gentlemen often lost their way and managed to blunder into ladies’ chambers at the wrong moment.

  “I suppose you will retreat to the billiard room before bed, since you didn’t offer Thaddeus a game,” Aunt Knowe said.

  Betsy opened her mouth to say that she would be going to bed. “I would like to play one game,” she found herself saying instead.

  “You might see Jeremy down there,” her aunt replied. “He disappeared some time ago.”

  “He couldn’t dance with a halo bobbing on his shoulder,” Betsy said, surprising herself by defending Jeremy.

  “That wasn’t the reason,” Aunt Knowe said, pausing. “He was gamely circling the floor and doing a decent job—for North’s sake—of acting as if he didn’t mind being in society. But Erskine Gedding, that despicable creature, came over and commiserated about the loss of Jeremy’s entire platoon.”

  “Every single soldier was lost?” Betsy asked. She swallowed hard. “I didn’t know . . . I wondered what had happened.”

  “Not my story to tell,” her aunt muttered. “But let me just say that it was a despicable thing to say, especially from one who clearly knew the details. Gedding shan’t be invited to Lindow again, not if he marries a royal princess. Never.”

  “Aunt Knowe,” Betsy said, grinning at her. “You suddenly resemble the big bad wolf in a fairy tale.”

  “I’d bite off Gedding’s head with pleasure,” Aunt Knowe said. “Jeremy is healing. He’s much better than he was two months ago. But it’s rank cruelty to go after a man on the mend and try to provoke him.”

  “Is he mending?” Betsy asked dubiously. “He was in the billiard room nursing a bottle of whisky when I arrived with Greywick.”

  Aunt Knowe gave a bark of laughter. “So he played the Greek chorus in your proposal?”

  “He urged me to accept the viscount,” Betsy said, feeling a sting of irritation again. “Apparently, Greywick was the smartest lad at Eton, for what that’s worth.”

  “Quite a lot,” her aunt said. “I am not in the least surprised.”

  “My point is that Lord Jeremy was swigging whisky straight out of a bottle. An empty glass sat on the floor beside his chair, but he must have decided that upending the bottle was a faster way to imbibe. To become drunk, in other words.”

  Lady Knowe had one hand on the polished knob at the bottom of the grand staircase leading to the castle bedchambers, but she turned back. “You surprise me, Betsy. I think of you as quite observant. You think that Jeremy gets drunk?”

  “Of course I do. Were you in the room the night when he slid under the billiard table and had to be dragged upright by Parth?”

  Her aunt smiled. “He must have been very bored.”

  “Nonsense,” Betsy said tartly. “The man consistently looks as if he’s lost his rudder. Three sheets to the wind.”

  “Not a bad description,” Aunt Knowe said. “But you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Have you ever heard him slur his words?”

  “I’m sure I have.”

  “I’m fairly sure you haven’t.”

  “He passed out on the floor, Aunt Knowe. On. The. Floor.”

  “Boredom is a powerful enervator,” her aunt said. “Darling, do take one of the footmen as an escort to the billiard room, won’t you? He can wait outside while you play a game or two and then escort you to bed.”

  Betsy opened her mouth to protest, but her aunt cut her off. “There are too many strangers in the castle. That dreadful man Gedding, for example. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

  Betsy rolled her eyes. “He’s sixty if he’s a day, Aunt.”

  “Cruelty is not bounded by age. By the way, I want to see you at breakfast tomorrow mor
ning, no matter how long you fool around in the billiard room.”

  “I’ll be there,” Betsy said, sighing. “Lady Betsy” was always among the first at breakfast, face shining, ribbons in her hair, a cheerful smile on her lips.

  She rarely saw Jeremy at that hour.

  Not that the fact was relevant. Whatever Aunt Knowe thought about it, he probably spent his mornings sleeping off a heavy head after drinking all that whisky.

  Likely she would find him in the billiard room, passed out under the table again.

  She dropped into a curtsy and bid her aunt good night. If Jeremy was lying on the floor she would prod him with her toe and prove that he was inert with drink.

  At a nod from Betsy, the family butler hastened to her side. “Could you spare a footman to accompany me to the billiard room, Prism?” Betsy asked. “My aunt feels I should be escorted, given the number of guests in the castle.”

  “She is quite right,” he replied. “Carper.” A tall footman appeared at his shoulder. “Wait for Her Ladyship to finish a game of billiards and accompany her to the door of her bedchamber.”

  He turned back to Betsy. “I shall inform your lady’s maid that you will not return for an hour or so.”

  “Please give her my apologies,” Betsy said, uncomfortably aware that Winnie wouldn’t go to her own chamber until she returned.

  “Very kind of you, Lady Betsy,” Prism said. “Winnie will be happy to rest on the truckle bed until you return.”

  Betsy nodded and took off down the corridor, trailed by a silent young man with a thatch of yellow hair. As a girl, she thought she liked blond men better than dark-haired ones. But there was something wrong about men with yellow hair. It took away from their . . .

  Their manhood.

  She pushed the thought away.

  Chapter Six

  On the way, Betsy decided that if Jeremy Roden was still in the billiard room, she would retire to her chamber.

  Of course, she could order him to leave instead.

  She was a daughter of the house and if she wanted to play a game of billiards alone—as she often did, late at night—she had a right to the room.

  The sad fact was that wicked men were interesting and good ones were boring. Thaddeus, with his kindly eyes and generous mouth, with his title and excellent estate, was so boring.

  And Jeremy . . . wasn’t.

  God knew why he was often found in the billiard room, since he refused to play her or anyone else. She suspected it was because the room was so quiet. Her older brother North used to haunt the room, but now he was in love, and that drew him to other games.

  Ha.

  Betsy walked into the room, leaving Carper in the passageway outside. The lamp was burning brightly over the table, just as she’d left it. She glanced immediately at the corner where Jeremy had been lurking.

  The chair was unoccupied, the bottle on the floor beside his empty glass.

  She was glad, of course. He was outrageously rude and what’s more, he refused to play her at billiards.

  Sometimes she felt as if billiards was the only thing that gave her any interest in life. Unlike the balls that made up the Season, each new game offered a challenge. She walked over to the rack and picked up her favorite cue.

  She would play one game and then retire to bed. A smile involuntarily formed on her lips as she took up the cue. It was made of rosewood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl butterflies. More importantly, it had a perfect weight and slid like silk through her fingers. And best of all, her brother Alaric had brought it home from China for her, even though she had been a very young girl at that point, and girls were not supposed to play.

  Yet Alaric and North had never excluded her from the room. For a moment, loneliness flashed through her, but she pushed it away. It was absurd to feel alone when the castle was filled to the brim with guests, not to mention her own relatives. If flesh and blood didn’t suit, North and Parth had both managed to snare funny, charming women who would be happy to chat.

  Except, given as it was well past midnight, those women were likely cuddled up with her brothers. North and Diana were now married, but Parth and Lavinia merely betrothed.

  All the same, Betsy had no illusions about the levels of morality in the castle; copulating couples abounded.

  That was rather clever, not that she had anyone to share it with.

  The door opened, and Jeremy slipped in.

  Absurdly, her heart thumped, and she instantly felt happier. Before she thought better of it, she blurted out, “Why aren’t you in bed? Where were you?”

  “Is that a question to ask a red-blooded man?” he countered, going to his corner and throwing himself into his chair. “I could have been tupping Lady Tallow, because I don’t mind telling you that she made me a very indiscreet proposal in earshot of any number of people, luckily not including her husband.”

  Betsy stopped herself from narrowing her eyes, but it was a close thing. She didn’t care about his tupping or lack thereof. She was irritated only because Jeremy had become something of a friend.

  She cleared her throat and set the red ball down with precision. “Were you tempted?”

  “Would you want to rip off Lady Tallow’s nightdress with your teeth?” Jeremy countered. He reached for his bottle of whisky.

  Something eased in the general area of Betsy’s chest. “No.” She couldn’t think what else to say and Jeremy was paying her no attention, pouring whisky into his glass as if it were melted gold. “It might be adventuresome,” she added, on second thought.

  “No, it wouldn’t,” Jeremy said, plunking the bottle back down onto the floor. “I’ll bet you anything that she wears sturdy flannel at night. It would ruin a man’s jaw to rip that fabric.”

  “There are other ways to remove a nightdress,” Betsy said, bending down to take her first shot. She decided to start with an easy angle. “Lord Tallow has apparently mastered the art of disrobing a woman in flannel.”

  “They do have a full nursery,” Jeremy conceded. “At any rate, being as I’m an old-fashioned type and prefer not to sleep with women with spouses, I was taking a piss, if you must know. I had to go a damned long way down the passageway to find a room with a chamber pot.”

  “Rude,” Betsy remarked. “Profane, and indecent. It’s a wonder you aren’t drummed out of society.”

  “Nonsense. See how well-mannered I’m being? Using a glass, just for you.” He took a deep draught of whisky, throwing it back as easily as if it were tea. “And by the way, you’d find me unbearably tedious if I reformed.”

  That was so close to what Betsy had just been thinking that she was silenced and took the shot without proper preparation. The ball ricocheted off the side rail in the wrong place and missed its target.

  “Anything interesting happen after you returned to the ballroom?” Jeremy asked, slouching down in his chair.

  “No.”

  “Surely you rejected at least two more proposals before midnight?”

  Betsy had to counter Lady Tallow with something. But no one ever offered an illicit proposition to the perfect Lady Betsy. To be fair, any man so inclined likely guessed that her father would rip him limb from limb.

  In fact, it was a good thing that His Grace rarely entered the billiard room these days. This rude, not to mention profane, exchange she was having with Jeremy?

  Her father would not approve.

  Suddenly she realized that she had received something of an illicit proposition. “Did you know that your cousin, Mr. Bisset-Caron, is an artist?”

  “That does not surprise me,” Jeremy said. “He was an intolerable boy.”

  “Apparently he surreptitiously brought a sketchbook with him into the chapel during the wedding—which Aunt Knowe would undoubtedly consider a grievous breach of manners—and he offered to show me his sketches, which, you must admit, is a mere step from offering to show me his etchings.”

  Jeremy snorted.

  “Are you implying that I shouldn’t accompany yo
ur cousin to his chamber to view his sketchbook?” Betsy asked, putting on an innocent air.

  He just rolled his eyes.

  “In lieu of private art,” Betsy said, “I listened to a public recitation of a poem a neighbor had written about me.”

  “Do share,” Jeremy drawled.

  “It was about my name. Not my real name, but Betsy.” She looked up and their eyes met, a smile flashing between them. Yes, they squabbled, but they had similar senses of humor.

  “Of course it was,” Jeremy agreed. “Did he manage to rhyme it? Let’s see, Bet-sy. That’s not bad.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Surely you jest. My name is a liquid melody that suits a gentle life like mine. Plus there was something about the tears of my tender girlhood. Then Aunt Knowe came along, and that was the end of the artistic part of my evening.”

  They laughed at the same moment.

  “My cousin is lucky that Lady Knowe didn’t hear of his sketches,” Jeremy said.

  Betsy picked up the red billiard ball and replaced it in the center of the table. “I have a question. Do you actually get drunk, or are you just fooling?”

  “Who could drink the better part of a bottle of whisky without becoming bosky at the least, and completely foxed at the worst?”

  “So are you foxed? Because I don’t think you are. Your speech is very clear.”

  “I was sent to Eton and Cambridge,” he told her. “The accent disguises any amount of folly.”

  “Untrue,” Betsy said. “On his fifteenth birthday, Alaric drank two bowls of punch all by himself. He could barely speak. We lured him up to the nursery so Aunt Knowe couldn’t sober him up, and then fell about in fits of laughter.”

  “From what I know of your brother Alaric,” Jeremy said, “I’d wager a guinea that he was bent on amusing the youngsters and enjoyed playing the part of a drunkard as much as you enjoyed seeing it.”

  Betsy took another shot and botched the angle again. “I can’t remember well enough.” She met his eyes. “I don’t remember whether he slid under the table and went to sleep, for example, but I definitely remember you being fished off the floor like a sleepy toddler.”