“We did not play billiards,” Betsy said, rather surprised. “I thought you sent me off to receive his proposal.”
“Naturally, I knew Greywick would blurt that out, but the more important question was whether he could beat you at billiards, no? I rather thought you might be there all night if he had to try more than once. I was merely hoping that the boy had a way with a cue. And,” she added, “that was not meant to be a double entendre.”
“I did not play billiards with the viscount,” Betsy said. “When did that become a good standard for choosing a spouse, Aunt Knowe? If that was customary, I’d have married Parth, even though Lavinia would have murdered me. He’s the only man outside the family to have soundly beaten me.”
“The standard would pertain only to your marriage,” her aunt said. “Billiards is so important to you, my dear, though Parth would have been a terrible husband for you. First of all, he’s your brother by family ties, if not blood. And second, he’s too cheerful.”
Prism, the castle butler, was ushering the musicians from the ballroom. It truly was time to leave; for a young lady to remain to the end of a party implied desperation.
“I like cheerful people,” Betsy said flatly, turning toward the ballroom door. “I don’t want to face a morose man over the dinner table every night for the rest of my life.”
She didn’t voice it, but an image of grumpy eyes went through her head, followed directly by Jeremy’s taut stomach. One day she’d walked up to the stable yard just as he caught a fresh shirt tossed by a groom.
Not that it was relevant in any way, but his stomach had chiseled muscles all down his front, his chest roughened by a light sprinkling of hair.
Aunt Knowe patted her on the shoulder. “Of course you do, darling. All the same, one could make an argument that you bounce enough for one household.”
Betsy narrowed her eyes at her beloved aunt. “I do not bounce.”
“Wrong word,” her aunt said. “Fell off my tongue, when I meant to say that you bubble with joy.”
Betsy shook her head. There was nothing wrong with being cheerful. It was a perfect defense against the world’s indignities.
Aunt Knowe didn’t say anything, but just enfolded Betsy in her arms. After Yvette, Betsy’s mother, left the country, Aunt Knowe had happily mothered Her Grace’s children.
She was as sturdy as an ancient oak tree. She smelled of chamomile and sweet ginger and felt like home.
“I don’t want to marry any of them,” Betsy whispered.
“You needn’t, dearest,” her aunt said, rocking her back and forth. “You can stay with me. I’ll teach you how to dry herbs, and we need never leave Cheshire.”
Then she roared with laughter as Betsy pulled back, horrified by the idea of growing old at Lindow Castle.
“I always thought you were more like Alaric than the other children,” Aunt Knowe observed. “Longing for adventure, I gather?”
“Yes.” It was true. Betsy had mastered the rules of polite society because she had to. But she wanted . . . more.
More than billiard games late at night, usually played by herself.
More of the things that men were able to do, and women weren’t.
She liked being a woman. But it didn’t seem too much to ask to be able to ride astride, to be able to bid at an auction or to buy a horse. To go to clubs and play billiards.
To go to places where men congregated and talked and did business. To do something risky, the way men did: They bet fortunes on the flip of a dime. They swept around corners, leaving a hairsbreadth between the carriage wheel and the curb.
She was so tired of sitting in throngs of women and listening to them gossip about who would marry whom, and who would die soon, and who was being unfaithful. When it came to the last, she couldn’t even offer an opinion—young ladies weren’t supposed to conceive of adultery, even when the act was discussed in their presence.
She seemed to be the only person who realized how damaging those conversations could be. It took everything she had not to bite out a reprimand. Casual gossip about a woman’s infidelity could ruin her children’s future. Could destroy lives.
And yet who could blame ladies for chatter? Every woman she knew would categorically deny that she’d ever brewed up a scandal. Yet they spent their days doing little else, because there wasn’t anything else to do.
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.”