Which left the other free to irritably prod his halo back in place.
It was composed of stiffened wire supposedly holding up a circlet covered with spangles and brilliants. In his case, the wire wasn’t doing its job, and the damned thing listed to the side like a sailor whose pecker wasn’t up to shore leave.
Lady Knowe had decreed that all uncostumed guests, which included most of her own nephews, would accept a halo or suffer the consequences. In the resulting plethora of noisy angels thronging the ballroom, no one’s curious eyes had noticed that his halo was attached to a bandage wound around his head.
If he were the grateful type, he’d be grateful.
Hell, he was grateful.
He hadn’t been looking forward to explaining that the bandage hid a nearly healed bullet wound—fired by a lady, as a matter of fact. The poor woman had been dispatched to a sanitarium, and the wound was almost healed.
Unfortunately, the bandage was doing a rotten job of hoisting his halo over his head: Dancing turned from tiresome to mortifying with a limp circlet bobbing next to his ear.
What’s more, merely being in a ballroom thronged with angels made a man think hard about war and its damned inconveniences. If he’d died in the American colonies, would an angel have swooped low over the battlefield and caught up his sorry soul?
Not bloody likely.
He took another swig of whisky, telling himself that he wasn’t the only man in that ballroom who didn’t deserve his sanctified millinery.
The Wilde men had been blessed with beauty, wits, and brilliance—but angelic they were not.
Any more than he was.
Guilt echoed in the void where his soul used to be, and he upended the glass, pushing away the stab of remorse that had become his hourly companion. The whisky scorched down his throat, though (alas) his mind was clear, and his fingers didn’t have the slightest tremble.
Liquor stopped doing its job long ago, but it turned out to be an excellent shield against polite society. He plucked up the glass again, relishing the way the last few drops burned his tongue. Perhaps he should try—
The door swung open and he heard a man say, “After you, my lady.”
Jeremy shoved his chair farther into the shadowy corner. No one would find his way to this room to play billiards; chances were good he was about to have a front row seat on a visit to Cock Alley, played out on the duke’s precious billiard table. Who was he to deny them an audience?
His glass empty, Jeremy was reaching for the bottle when the lady in question replied, “My skirts are caught on the hinge, my lord; would you be so kind as to disentangle me?”
Jeremy slammed back in his chair, eyes narrowing.
Lady Boadicea Wilde.
The wildest of the Wildes, the duke’s eldest daughter—who strangely enough demanded that everyone call her Betsy.
A ridiculous name for a woman who could shoot the cork out of a bottle from a galloping horse . . . according to her brothers, at least.
Outside the door, a rustle of silk indicated that her escort was doing his best to free her. She must have forgotten to turn sideways. Betsy’s skirts were wider than most doors, and her wigs were always lofty. Tonight her wig was adorned with a halo, which made her taller than most men.
The last was intentional, to Jeremy’s mind. She liked being taller than her feckless suitors.
Betsy was the only Wilde whom Jeremy couldn’t tolerate. Unfortunately, given that she had an unhealthy obsession with billiards and this room had become his refuge, he had seen all too much of her during his two-month stay at Lindow Castle.
She was damned rash, coming here, a distance from the ballroom, with a man. Just like a Wilde, actually: arrogant to a fault, but in an effortless way that simply expected that lesser mortals would bow to their status.
He’d bet a mountain of ha’pennies that no chaperone had accompanied them.
She didn’t understand the way men thought about women. The “gentleman” she was with could be planning to compromise her reputation.
Or worse.
Blood roared through his body, a flood of pure anger chasing away the guilt that was his usual companion. It wasn’t the first time Betsy had inspired that reaction. Around her, he tended to be too irritated to think about the fate of his platoon.
He might not actually be a Wilde, but her older brother North was his closest friend in the world. He would protect her reputation and person in North’s stead.
He flexed his fingers, looking down at fabric straining over the unfashionable muscle that bulged in his forearm. North’s primitive solution for Jeremy’s malaise—to give a fine-sounding title to his sorry existence—was to force him on horseback every day. No matter how much he drank the night before, North shoved him up on an unruly steed. Consequently, he had twice the muscle that he’d had three years ago, when he’d cut an elegant figure as an officer.
“That’s it,” Betsy exclaimed. “Oh, thank you so much!” She never bothered with such gushing charm around him; they had silently agreed, soon after meeting, that they were oil and water and she would extract no proposal from him, no matter how brilliantly she smiled.
She murmured something else, and it struck him that Betsy might have planned an assignation. Perhaps she had a lover, who had arrived from London in the mass of guests invited to the ball.
His jaw clenched.
Hell, no.
Boadicea Wilde was not going to throw away her virtue on his watch.
“Your skirts are free, Lady Boadicea.”
Whoever he was—and his voice sounded vaguely familiar—the man was not her lover. He didn’t know his proposed bride well enough to realize how much Betsy loathed her given name.
Wait.
He did know that voice. They’d been at school together, a lifetime ago.
Betsy walked into the room. From Jeremy’s shadowy corner, she seemed to glow under the light of the lamp hanging directly over the billiard table.
She was outrageously beautiful, like all the Wildes: wide eyes, white teeth, thick hair. Beautiful girls were everywhere, but Betsy’s unconscious sensuality? That was matchless. She relished life, and it showed.
The other day some fool described her as prim and proper. Jeremy had had trouble not curling his lip.
Did they not see who she really was?
She turned up the lamp that hung over the table until it illuminated a pool of spotless green wool walled by gleaming wood. Then she turned about, leaning against the table.
Jeremy couldn’t see her suitor, who still stood in the doorway.
With an impish smile, Betsy spread her arms. “Here you see my father’s billiard table, newly arrived from Paris. A walnut body and bronze motifs in the shape of the Lindow shield, repeated eight times. My stepmother chided my father for extravagant trimming, but His Grace is fond of decoration.”
The gentleman chuckled and stepped into the light. “The table is exquisite, but not as beautiful as the woman standing beside it.”
Jeremy sighed. His old school friend should be ashamed of that lame compliment.
Likely agreeing with him, Betsy ignored it. “I was very fond of our old billiard table, but this is more fitting for a castle.”
“You play billiards yourself?”
He sounded surprised rather than critical, which boded well for his courtship.
“My whole life,” Betsy said. “My brothers spent a great deal of their time here. I used to stand on a box to see the play; the table looked like a green ocean.”