“Three syllables shouldn’t be too hard for a drunkard like yourself to understand.”
Jeremy dismissed that taunt. She had caught on to the fact that he couldn’t get drunk. Perhaps Lady Knowe had told her. The duke’s sister was one of the most observant people he’d ever met. She would have made a hell of a general.
“What sort of adventure?” he asked.
Betsy gave him a fierce look, nothing like the gentle, sweet gaze with which she mowed down her suitors. “The sort men can have,” she stated. “I want to put on breeches and be a boy for a day.”
Jeremy’s mouth fell open. “What?”
His mind immediately presented him with an image of Betsy wearing a snug pair of breeches. What had been desire became a forest fire. He took a deep breath.
It was very uncomfortable to discover that he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman before.
She was not the right woman.
Not the right moment.
“I want you to take me to London and show me things that only men can see,” Betsy added.
He scowled at her.
“Not a brothel,” she said, obviously disgusted. “A gentlemen’s club like White’s or Brook’s, where I can play billiards.”
“Just billiards?” he clarified.
She nodded.
Actually, that made sense. She was obsessed by billiards.
“That’s it? That’s your adventure? Going to London and playing billiards? You’ll likely beat almost anyone,” Jeremy pointed out.
“You’re not as drunk as I thought, if you realize that,” Betsy said.
“Much to my dismay, I never am.”
“I’d like to go to an auction at Christie’s too, and bid on something. I loathe the fact that women aren’t allowed to place bids.”
“Why so much passion?”
She stared at him. “As a woman, I’m not allowed to have my own money. I am required to buy fripperies, but nothing of any import, reflected in the fact that I am not allowed to place a bid at auction. And you ask me why it matters?”
Jeremy winced. “I apologize for my sex.”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “So, are you ready to take me on an adventure?”
“Impossible.” He brought out the one weapon he knew would horrify her. “You might be compromised. Forced to marry me.”
“Nonsense. A woman can’t be compromised unless a man wants to sleep with her.”
Jeremy narrowed his eyes. It was almost as if she knew that he hadn’t had a cockstand in months, not until this evening. She was treating him like a toothless old dog.
He rose to his feet and stepped toward her. The fact she brought a footman with her to protect her from male attention went through his brain, along with the fact that she hadn’t blinked an eye when he sent her chaperone away. In fact, she suggested the man leave.
Damn it, she thought he was neutered.
“What is it?” she demanded. “My father wouldn’t let the two of us spend so much time together if you were a man who felt—” She broke off.
Jeremy stared at her, incredulous. “Desire?” The duke himself had declared him castrated?
Betsy frowned at him. “Are you going to be missish with me? Yes, desire.”
“I feel desire.” The words growled from deep in his chest.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Betsy cried. “For me, you philistine! I don’t mean you leering at my bottom. I mean proper desire, the sort that makes people behave like fools.”
“I could be that sort of fool.”
He was still hard, and exhilaration filled him. He felt alive again, as if his body and mind had clicked back together like a huge puzzle piece.
Betsy narrowed her eyes, her instincts finally driving her to see him as a man. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, thinking.
“Of course,” she said, her voice careful. Not tentative, but careful.
“If I win, I want a night with you,” Jeremy said, staring down at her. “One night and no ring to follow.”
Betsy’s mouth fell open. “What in the bloody hell—”
Joy rose within him. He wouldn’t take it, but damn, it felt wonderful to desire it.
“You don’t want me, and even if you did, you’re a gentleman,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
Betsy gave a theatrical sigh, but he could see that she wasn’t entirely certain of her statement. From now on, she’d never see him as a toothless old dog again. She’d keep her damned footman within earshot in the future. “If you won, you could never claim your wager,” she pointed out.
“War burns the gentleman out of a man.” It was true.
Betsy scowled. “I don’t believe that.”
Oh, sweetheart.
That was why men went to fight on battlefields far from home, if they possibly could. No one wanted a woman to see what happened there. What it cost a man to survive, let alone what happened to those who didn’t.
He would never take a woman’s virtue, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t enjoying himself. “Believe it,” he said, dropping his voice to a growl. Desire burned in his gut and down his legs. He hadn’t wanted anything since he left the service. But now?
He wanted her.
He wanted this complicated, mad girl who had managed to fool most of polite society into thinking she was docile and demure.
Betsy didn’t show the faintest sign of being unnerved; indeed, her mouth curled into a genuine smile. “You’ve had most of a bottle of whisky this evening, and you’ve never beaten me, even once.”
He had never tried to beat her. He didn’t say a word, just looked down at her and waited, letting his eyes do the speaking.
“Ladies play first,” Betsy pointed out.
She was planning to shut him out of the game entirely. This wager came down to whether he had a chance to play at all.
She’d been missing shots in the last hour, probably tired from the long day, so he had a chance.
He nodded.
Betsy cracked a smile, a naughty smile even for a Wilde. “Would you truly bring me to the city? You’d have to show me how to walk like a man.”
Jesus.
Would he?
He’d have to speak to her father. Or her brothers. But look at her: She was like a bomb on the verge of exploding. If he refused, she might do something mad that would truly ruin her reputation. Or get her married to the wrong man.
No lady he knew would dream of traveling to London in boy’s clothing. But he got it. Betsy’s older brothers went out into the world, and she stayed at home and arranged flowers. Listened to poetry. Ladies weren’t allowed to have adventures. Or own property. It wasn’t fair.
He nodded.
“All right,” Betsy said, turning away.
Jeremy reached out, and his fingers slid down the silky skin of her arm. “Is the wager on?”
“You’re going to lose,” she told him. The faint melancholy that had cloaked her all night was gone. She looked cheerful.
“You cannot travel alone with me,” he pointed out, just to be fair. She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “Put it down to fear of my lost reputation, if not yours. Your aunt must come along. Or one of your brothers.”
“I suppose,” she agreed reluctantly.