“Would you like to return to the castle?” Lady Knowe inquired.
“My father and I are estranged,” he said, using Betsy’s word.
His father’s response to his weakness had sent him into a trembling fury. He had slammed out of the house.
“I suspect the marquess has not come to see the Wildes, but you, my dear,” Lady Knowe said to Jeremy.
When had he become her “dear”? Sometime over the last months of dandelion tea and sleeping draughts made from comfrey and peppermint?
“I made a gentleman’s wager with Lady Boadicea regarding Wilmslow, so there’s no going back now,” he said. “My father will undoubtedly need to rest from his journey, and he will enjoy spending time with my cousin, Mr. Bisset-Caron.”
That wasn’t true, as his father disliked Grégoire, the offspring of his younger brother’s lamentable marriage to a Frenchwoman. He also loathed the way his brother had adapted his wife’s family name as the requirement for inheriting a considerable estate.
“It’s true that you gave me your word of honor,” Betsy said.
The duchess wrinkled her nose. “I do not care for wagering.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Emily,” Lady Knowe said, “don’t be a prude. I still have that bunch of dried violets from when you dared me to approach the pastor and ask for his thoughts on dance.”
“We were children,” the duchess said dismissively, waving a pink-clad hand.
“So are these three,” Lady Knowe said. “A cheerful wager is a pleasure. Now, what did you wager, Betsy?”
“Lord Jeremy has promised to accompany me on a tour of Wilmslow. I shall be in disguise,” Betsy said, adding, “I had the idea in the middle of the fancy dress ball. He agreed to do so only if you accompany us, Aunt Knowe.”
“Why on earth—” the duchess began.
Thaddeus spoke at the same moment. “What disguise?”
Jeremy realized, not for the first time, he must be a very shallow person, because he was enjoying the shock in Thaddeus’s face.
“The disguise was chosen by the lady,” he said, giving Betsy time to change her mind about the breeches. “As for the ‘why,’ Your Grace, Lady Boadicea expressed the wish to visit an auction.”
“An auction?” the duchess asked wonderingly. “Do you mean the sort of thing where disgraceful men sell their wives?”
“Sell their wives? You surprise me, Mama,” Thaddeus said.
Jeremy thought about whether he would call his mother Mama if she were still alive. That was a firm no. Never. Not even if she had been a duchess rather than a marchioness.
“The auction in Wilmslow is an important affair,” Lady Knowe put in. “Works of art and the like. I sent the estate manager to secure that lovely Rembrandt that hangs in the back parlor.”
Jeremy thought that Betsy had better speak up soon if she wanted to preserve her illustrious future as a duchess. She was running the risk of setting Thaddeus’s mother against her.
“Lady Boadicea collects miniatures,” he said, making that up on the spot. “She would like to bid on a piece herself.”
Lady Knowe blinked at Betsy. “My dear, I thought I was the only person in the family interested in miniatures. If there is one for sale you fancy, Prism will send a factotum to bid for you.”
“I wish to bid in the auction myself,” Betsy stated. She straightened in the seat. Surely, she wouldn’t inform Thaddeus, let alone his mother—
Yes, she would.
“I plan to go to the auction disguised as a boy and bid on a work of art,” Betsy said, looking directly at the duchess. “I would have liked to play billiards, in an establishment where ladies were not allowed to pick up a cue, but Lord Jeremy does not think that advisable.”
There was dead silence in the carriage.
“Billiards while dressed in boy’s clothing,” Betsy clarified.
Because why put in just one coffin nail when two will do better?
More silence.
Just as Jeremy was trying to decide whether he wished to exacerbate the situation by inquiring whether Betsy planned to wear breeches or pantaloons, the duchess began laughing. Thaddeus’s brow had knit, likely thinking deeply about propriety, but he lifted his chin and stared at his mother.
“One of my friends told me to go to Lindow because Lady Boadicea would be a perfect duchess,” Her Grace said, fairly gasping with laughter. “Here you are. A perfect duchess indeed.”
She leaned forward and patted Betsy’s knee. “We don’t follow fashion or standards, my dear. We make them. If you decide to dress as a boy, you’ll be doing nothing that my relatives—my female relatives—haven’t done before.”
“I am surprised to hear that,” Thaddeus said.
To Jeremy’s mind, if Thaddeus wanted the “perfect duchess” he’d chosen, he’d better start defending Betsy’s ideas, no matter how unusual.
“My great-aunt was a plucky gal,” the duchess said. “Rumor has it that her father tried to marry her to an older man, and she didn’t agree. So she put on breeches and snuck out of the house, meaning to make her way to Italy or some such.”
“How romantic,” Lady Knowe said. “I gather she didn’t make it to a boat, or did she?”
“Caught at the pier,” Her Grace said. “Hauled back and married off the next morning. Rumor has it she was tied to a bedpost all night to make certain that she didn’t escape, but my mother said that was apocryphal. She never liked my great-great-uncle, though, and we children considered him an ogre who might well have imprisoned his daughter, albeit temporarily.”
“I don’t expect that their marriage was very happy,” Betsy said, which showed that she hadn’t been around le monde very long.
“Oh, no, it was very happy,” the duchess said, sounding as surprised as Betsy was sorry. “Now if my great-aunt had scampered off to Italy with some black-haired conte, she likely would have been miserable. Not a good draught of ale in the whole country.”
Betsy grinned at that, and Jeremy could practically see the duchess’s happiness blossom as she smiled back.
They liked each other; Thaddeus and Betsy was a marriage made in heaven.
“Beer is what saves a marriage,” the duchess said, spilling all her secrets before her son even had a ring on Betsy’s finger. “A good ale has often saved this country from rack and ruin at the hands of the idiots in Lords. The husbands go home at night, and their wives explain what they should do after they’re mellowed by a tankard of excellent beer.”
“I could drink some ale,” Jeremy said, mostly to cover up the fact that Thaddeus still hadn’t said a word.
Just then the coach began bouncing as the duke’s springs encountered the knobbly stones lining Wilmslow’s main street.
“I wish I had more to contribute to a discussion of successful marriage,” Lady Knowe said, “but given my ignorance, and our impending arrival at the teahouse, I think we’ll have to postpone the conversation.”
“We shall all go,” the duchess announced.
“To tea? I should hope so,” Lady Knowe responded. She had clearly noticed Thaddeus’s silence. In fact, Jeremy had the sense that not much ever got past Lady Knowe. “I like ale, but it has its time and place.”