“I haven’t invited anyone to my room,” Betsy said truthfully.
“Because you don’t have a fiancé,” her aunt continued, “and until you have chosen one, no invitations. Marriage is not like a stable, where you might try riding two or three stallions before buying one, so don’t you dream of comparing those two men on alternate nights.”
“The Empress Catherine does not have to navigate a London ballroom,” Betsy said.
Her aunt grinned. “I’ll echo Viola: Just be yourself, Betsy. You have nothing to worry about.” She rose to her feet. “Come along now; I’m starving.”
Betsy came to her feet, thinking hard.
“I can’t wait until you are in charge of your own nursery,” her aunt said with relish. “I shall visit frequently, once fate gives you the children you deserve.”
“Judging by the Duchess of Eversley’s stories of Thaddeus, her ducal progeny are far better behaved than those whom you raised,” Betsy noted, as they descended the creaking wooden stair.
“Thaddeus’s calm might balance out the Wilde blood,” her aunt acknowledged. “Or you could choose Jeremy, and end up with mop-headed devils with no manners. Climbing on the furniture. Peeing on it.”
“That seems unnecessarily judgmental,” Betsy said.
“Based on harsh experience,” Aunt Knowe said. “Speak of the devil . . .”
Jeremy appeared in the door of the dining room. He bowed and bid them good morning. “The innkeeper has a question about salmon delivered from Lindow, Lady Knowe.”
She rolled her eyes. “I should have brought our chef, but Frederic has such a loathing for strange kitchens.” With that, she marched off toward the back of the inn.
Jeremy’s hand closed around Betsy’s wrist and then she was enveloped in clean starched linen and a rough, open-mouthed kiss.
It was like being hit by a gale-force wind: She melted against him, one hand gripping his lapel to hold him close.
A shuffling step from the passageway leading to the kitchens broke them apart like the sides of a clam shell. Betsy’s heart was pounding in her chest. Down the corridor to their right, Carper bore a tea tray through a swinging door to the kitchen.
“Bloody hell,” Jeremy breathed.
Betsy raised a trembling finger to her lips and took a deep breath. “Was that your morning greeting?”
“I don’t offer it to all and sundry,” Jeremy said.
Clatter from the kitchen suggested that the footman would emerge again at any moment.
“I was waiting for herring or at least a strong cup of tea, and then you appeared. You’re very kissable.”
“More appealing than herring?”
“Infinitely. Enthralling, actually, as fish never seems to be.”
She drew in a deep breath and met his eyes.
“I don’t use the word lightly,” he added.
Carper reappeared and came down the corridor, a tray held high on one shoulder. Betsy remained on her side of the corridor and Jeremy on his. With a muttered apology, Carper walked between them into the dining room, his eyes resolutely fixed on the air.
“I smell sausages,” Jeremy muttered.
“And Pekoe tea,” Betsy countered. “Aunt Knowe must have had it brought from the castle.” Neither of them moved until Carper reemerged and walked back down the corridor.
The kitchen door hadn’t swung shut before Betsy tumbled into Jeremy’s arms. Their mouths met as if they’d kissed every morning for twenty years.
She feverishly absorbed each sensation. He smelled like fresh apples, rather than horse and leather. His shoulders flexed under her fingers and need rose in her like a windstorm. She lost her train of thought, but then roused to the caress of a hand on her back that transformed her skin from mere covering to something sensitive and longing.
Another sound down the corridor, and Jeremy put her from him, tweaked the small ruffle on her bodice, adjusted the lace around her left wrist, smiled.
“You’ll do,” he said. “Gorgeous as you are.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Even more gorgeous with a Wildean eyebrow in the air,” he muttered. “Time for sausages. I don’t fancy your aunt catching us dallying in the corridor.”
His eyes had that burning look she’d never seen him direct to anyone else. Usually he viewed the world with a sardonic air.
Betsy walked into the dining room feeling dizzily happy. Jeremy put herring on her plate. She hated fish in the morning, but she ate a bite of one. He poured tea and she nodded when he asked about milk, although she never had milk, especially with Pekoe tea.
They talked and didn’t kiss, although his eyes kept catching on her lips and she kept shifting in her chair, small frustrated movements, because her body felt as wound up as a top.
After a while, Aunt Knowe marched in the door and checked her step when she saw the two of them sitting there alone, then launched into the innkeeper’s appalling ignorance of baked salmon.
Betsy felt keenly aware of her heartbeat galloping along. She looked down at her plate, thinking about all the moments and hours when one’s heart beats without notice, and then after a few kisses, it felt like an unbroken horse that couldn’t be ignored.
Aunt Knowe wound down her discourse on the proper care and cooking of salmon—wasted on two people who didn’t say a word in response. “The innkeeper tells me that the auction will happen today, snow or no snow.”
“What time will it take place?” Jeremy asked.
“It begins in a couple of hours,” Aunt Knowe replied. “Betsy, was your costume delivered to you?”
“Yes, it was,” Betsy said, not daring to look at Jeremy.
“I sent for a costume of my brother’s,” her aunt said. “I expect it will fit very well. Thankfully, neither of us has fattened with age.”
“Three ladies in breeches will attend this auction?” Jeremy asked.
“That’s the size of it,” Aunt Knowe said, finishing off a piece of buttered toast. “I have no fear for myself. I look uncannily like my brother and I could impersonate the duke in a pinch. I might even introduce myself as him. I haven’t been sufficiently groveled to in my life. This is the chance to make up for lost time.”
“I feel the same!” Betsy exclaimed. “I plan to make up for lost time wearing a corset.”
Jeremy choked back a laugh.
Aunt Knowe patted his hand. “No jesting, my dear. Until you’ve experienced whalebones, you must bite your tongue. That’s true of you as well, Betsy, when we enter the auction house. Your voice is too high, even for a boy. You can bid with a wave of your catalogue.”
“Certainly,” Betsy said, excitement bubbling in her stomach.
“Emily’s voice is even higher than yours,” Aunt Knowe continued. “What’s more, you’ve spent an entire Season practicing maidenly tranquility, but she was married out of the schoolroom, so silence will be a trial for her.”
“Maidenly tranquility,” Jeremy said, his eyes glinting with laughter. “I gather I should have spent more time in the ballroom this last Season. You didn’t bother with that trait in the billiard room.”
“You were silent enough for both of us,” Betsy retorted. “Sitting in the corner, brooding over your whisky, pretending to be inebriated.”