“You make me sound like a paragon,” she said weakly. “I assure you that I am all too human.”
“That’s just what I’m saying,” Thaddeus said, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it.
“Eyebrows are not indicative of parentage,” Betsy told him.
“You are a Wilde, through and through.”
“Would you court me if I didn’t have my father’s eyebrows?” Betsy asked, thinking of her sister Joan’s straight, golden eyebrows.
“I would have to think carefully,” Thaddeus said. “I hold the honor of my family line in my hand. My younger brother passed away, and I have no first cousins. So whomever I marry will be the mother of the sons that will carry dukedom into the future.”
“I don’t believe that ancestry matters,” Betsy said, not entirely truthfully. “Were I actually the daughter of that Prussian who lured my mother away, I would still be myself.”
Thaddeus looked embarrassed. “I was raised to believe that my land and my title are sacred. As sacred as England itself.”
“You will only marry a woman whose parentage you revere?” Betsy asked. She was starting to dislike him, just a little.
“What I am trying to say is that I don’t care if the likes of Lady Tallow says unkind things about your mother. I am absolutely certain that you are your father’s daughter.”
Betsy walked along, trying to pick the best words. The kindest words. “What you are saying is that you are brave enough to confront society as regards your wife’s illegitimacy only if you were convinced of her legitimacy. You wouldn’t do it if you suspected she was illegitimate.”
“You make me sound like a coward,” Thaddeus said after a moment. “My lineage is important to me, Betsy. Not as important as it was to my father—who fell in love with a local tradesman’s daughter but gave her up for the sake of the family. I was raised to think that my Norman blood is all-important.”
Betsy would have argued . . . but how different was his view from her own? She knew that she had inherited undesirable traits from her mother. She should just be grateful that Thaddeus was willing to overlook them, and not wish that he didn’t care about her ancestors.
“I was raised to think that people are all-important,” she said. “Kind hearts are more than coronets, etcetera.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood,” she said, changing the phrase to suit her purpose.
“Family may be more important than coronets,” Thaddeus said. “The Wildes are all-important to each other; anyone can see that.”
Betsy was silenced.
“It’s part of the family charm,” he added, after waiting a few seconds. “You take such pleasure in each other.”
“Did you mean that to sound distasteful?” Betsy asked.
He looked down at her, obviously surprised. “Not in the least. Envious, if anything. My father did his duty in marrying my mother, but the union is not a happy one. We were not a happy family.”
“Do you suppose that your father regrets not marrying the tradesman’s daughter?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “He—” But he cut off his words.
They were nearing the stairs leading up to the next floor. Betsy came to a halt. “Yes?”
“It’s not a story for a young lady,” Thaddeus said, apology in his voice.
“I can guess,” Betsy said. “Your father had fallen in love. I expect that he turned his beloved into his mistress, and he has a great many children with her, and only two with the unwanted but nobly-born wife. The second family grew up like a happy pile of puppies, which must have made you feel lonely. Did I get it right?”
“Not entirely accurate but disturbingly close.”
Betsy began to respond, but she was cut off by a bellow from above stairs. “Louisa, you are a rat!”
“My mother,” Thaddeus said.
“She just called Aunt Knowe a rat,” Betsy said, astounded.
Thaddeus smiled, his eyes glinting in a very attractive way.
“If I am a rodent, you are a dormouse.” Aunt Knowe’s voice drifted down the stairs. “The older you get, the more your nose quivers, Emily.”
“A cruel rat,” the duchess declared.
“I must change into a walking costume,” Betsy said.
She nearly dropped a curtsy, thinking it would be good to create distance between her noble suitor and herself, but she caught Thaddeus’s eye and changed her mind.
“A pink dormouse,” Aunt Knowe said, laughing.
“May I escort you upstairs?” Thaddeus asked.
“No,” Betsy said. She cleared her throat.
“May I escort you to town?”
“You may escort your mother,” Betsy said.
His eyes darkened. “So Jeremy will escort you?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Betsy said, and took her leave without further conversation. She ran up one of the many back staircases that laced Lindow Castle together like a pair of stays.
By all rights, she should like Thaddeus madly. Love him, even.
“One of the mysteries of life,” she said aloud, starting down the corridor to her bedchamber just as Aunt Knowe rounded the corridor.
“Oh, dearest, there you are! Her Grace is frightfully pleased that you invited her to Wilmslow.” She lowered her voice. “As mothers-in-law go, the Duchess of Eversley will be a good one.”
“It’s too late to refer to her so politely,” Betsy said, walking briskly toward her bedchamber. “I heard you call her Emily, and a dormouse, and so did her son.”
“She is a dormouse; her nose is the most delicious pink. I’ve called her a dormouse on and off since we were children. Not that we were schooled together, of course, but our mothers enjoyed each other’s company.”
“I believe I shall wear my striped walking dress,” Betsy said, dismissing talk of duchesses.
“Excellent,” Aunt Knowe said amiably. They paused outside Betsy’s door.
Then Aunt Knowe swooped down as she often did—she was precisely the same height as her twin, which made her remarkably tall for a woman—and enclosed Betsy in a warm embrace. “You don’t have to marry him, dearest.”
“Is that a new scent?” Betsy was nothing if not cunning when it came to changing the subject of conversation.
“From Paris!” her aunt exclaimed, instantly distracted. “Après Something or Other.”
Betsy came up on her toes and kissed her aunt’s cheek. “I must change.”
Aunt Knowe widened her eyes. “I’ve just had a frightful thought, Betsy. Your daughters might look like dormice. Characteristics from noses to teeth are hereditary.”
As if Betsy could forget that salient fact.
Her mother’s sinful blood was racketing about her body, because she had no sooner caught sight of Jeremy’s shoulders in the billiard room than her heart started racing, and she felt bewilderingly weak at the knees.
Whereas the dormouse’s son had a noble nose that didn’t quiver like his mother’s, and thick hair that appeared to be always in order, and a deep voice that by rights should make a maiden’s heart go tippity-tap.