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“Aunt Knowe was right!” she cried, straightening and planting her cue on the floor. “You didn’t pass out. You were merely bored!”
“Which time?” he asked genially. “Do you suppose if I ring the bell, Prism will send a footman? I could use another bottle of whisky.”
“Carper is outside the door, waiting to escort me to my chamber,” Betsy said. “You can send him if you like. Why do you bother drinking whisky if it does nothing for you? It leads to dropsy and tremors, and will turn your nose red.”
Jeremy’s eyebrow flew up. “That seems oddly specific.”
“Aunt Knowe made all of us read An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Human Mind and Body. Or perhaps it was Human Body and Mind. Are you hoping that liquor will send you to sleep if you drink enough of it?”
“I wouldn’t be so lucky.”
She sighed. There was nothing worse than a person who nagged about a friend’s bad habits. For example, her stepsister Viola kept urging Betsy to “be herself,” now that Betsy had proved so popular on the marriage market.
Won the war of the debutantes.
Whatever you wanted to call it.
“You should stop drinking,” she said, because Jeremy Roden was so ferocious that people likely felt they couldn’t tell him the truth. “If not for the sake of your liver, then because Shakespeare said it takes away the ‘performance.’ You don’t want to find yourself in proximity to a nightdress, flannel or otherwise, and be unable to play your part.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m losing my teeth at this young age? I assure you I can rip silk with one incisor.”
“You did tell Thaddeus that you had aged.” She rearranged the table, banking a right-angle shot off the left side.
“You are uncannily like your aunt,” Jeremy observed.
“I can’t imagine a better compliment,” Betsy replied. “Tell me again why you won’t give me a game?”
Silence.
Then a low voice drawled, “I’d be bored.”
“You’re a brute,” Betsy tossed over her shoulder.
Jeremy didn’t see any reason to answer that because, of course, she was right. “Why do you like billiards so much?” he asked instead.
That made Betsy actually turn around, her precious cue—he’d noticed how much she adored it—cradled in her arms. “It takes a great deal of concentration to stand on the back of a moving horse,” she announced.
“North boasted about your ability to do that. Just think: If all the gentlemen at your feet disappoint, you could join the circus.”
“It takes even more concentration to play billiards.”
“The tricky shots,” Jeremy said, nodding. “I have a friend who likes to send the ball backward.” He’d taught Jeremy the trick, though Jeremy didn’t add that.
Betsy made a scornful sound. “Billiards isn’t about flamboyance; those players lose to anyone who can make six or seven simple shots without making a mistake. I could beat your friend.”
He had no doubt of that, so in lieu of reply, he stood up and stuck his head out the door. A footman leaned against the wall, eyes half closed. “A pot of tea, if you please,” he said. “You might as well get yourself a cup before you return, as Lady Boadicea will be an hour or two at least. You’re no use to her if you’re asleep on your feet.”
“Of course, my lord,” the footman said, trotting away.
It was astonishing to realize that everyone in the castle—from Lady Knowe to a lowly footman—appeared to have concluded that he posed no danger to Betsy. That footman left without a second thought.
Jeremy could ravish her. Didn’t they think of that? They were putting a lot of weight on loyalty to the Wilde family, if that was their reasoning.
Maybe the household considered him akin to a Wilde, but that was absurd.
He’d only met Betsy two months ago. He wasn’t Parth, for God’s sake, who wasn’t related to the Wildes by blood, but a member of the family in every way that mattered.
He was just a friend of North’s and no more.
