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 morning, 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.