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 your 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?”