Somehow feigned sleep became real sleep, and he woke only when the carriage began rattling over the cobblestones of Lindow Castle.
Opposite him, Grégoire was plucking the curls of his wig to shining ringlets.
Jeremy stretched. An unusual feeling of bodily satisfaction spread through him.
“Why must you wear that wig without powder?” Grégoire said, peevishness leaking into his voice. “It doesn’t reflect well on us.”
“There is no ‘us,’” Jeremy stated.
The carriage drew to a stop. Jeremy pushed open the door and jumped down without waiting for a groom. He needed Betsy, and more Betsy.
Last night her untidy hair, her slumberous eyes, her happy gleam made his chest hurt with an emotion he scarcely knew. He craved her, the way he had once craved whisky.
For him, there was only Bess, or Betsy, or Boadicea.
The private woman, the polite society damsel, the warrior queen.
She wasn’t in her bedchamber. Or the billiard room. The damned castle was so large that he searched for her for an hour, enduring sixty minutes of blazing and thwarted desire.
When he found Lady Knowe, she shook her head at him and said, “I sent her to the brewery to judge the October ale.”
Jeremy blinked.
“You are stealing a future duchess,” Lady Knowe told him. “Betsy is trained to be the Lady of the Castle and oversee every room.”
“She will make a magnificent future marchioness,” he countered. “Shall I write to her father in Scotland and ask for her hand in marriage? Or request that he return to Lindow?”
“I sent off a messenger this morning. Not that they’ll be surprised.”
“I’m surprised,” Jeremy told her.
Her laughter followed him down the corridor. Following Prism’s directions, Jeremy walked out the west entrance of the castle. Someone had shoveled a path through the snow covering the archery field, so he followed it. The sun was shining, but a yellow cast to the air suggested that more snow might come.
The archery targets had acquired hats of snow that all tilted to the same side, presumably away from storm wind. He followed footprints through the archery field to a low, ancient building. The lintel was so low that Jeremy had to bend his head to push open the door and enter.
The smell of beer inside the brewery gave the air a thick quality. The odor came to him in a rush of grassy, citrusy hops, with an undernote of malt and a yeasty splash on top.
Betsy was seated at the far side of the room, sitting back from a rough wooden table so that skirts of pale blue brocade could flow out to either side. Her hair was powdered and caught up with butterflies whose wings trembled as she moved. A white fur cloak was thrown over a hogshead to the side.
She was speaking to an old man with an enormous mustache.
“Good afternoon,” Jeremy said, walking toward them.
To his sharp delight, she glowed with pleasure to see him. “Lord Jeremy,” she cried. “Do come meet our marvelous brewmaster, Herr Horn. We are about to try the October ale.”
Jeremy shook hands with Mr. Horn and then sat down opposite Betsy. Mr. Horn went to fetch some ale and a glass for Jeremy.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Betsy said.
Jeremy grinned. “You’ll get used to seeing me follow you about. So this is a brewhouse? I don’t believe I’ve ever been in the one on my father’s estate.”
“We’re very lucky to have Herr Horn,” she told him. “Someone in the family meets with him to discuss the ales three times a year. The October ale waits for two years, plus there’s dark ale, and blond beer. My sisters and I take turns with Aunt Knowe. My older brothers used to do their duty, and the younger children will come along as well.”
“The better to shape future duchesses?”
“How will we respect our food and drink if we don’t respect the making of it?”
“You just quoted Lady Knowe, did you not?”
Betsy laughed. “She’s my mother, for all purposes.”
Mr. Horn returned with three glasses and a pitcher. He poured the pale ale slowly, with reverence, into Betsy’s glass, allowing for just the right amount of bitter, snowy foam. “The ale is well-hopped, as Her Ladyship prefers,” he noted.
“Aunt Knowe thinks that hops have medicinal properties,” Betsy added, as Mr. Horn poured more beer.
“That is as may be,” the brewmaster said. “Hops make an excellent bitter beer, light-bodied and blond, as we call it.”
“Herr Horn, thank you for sharing your creation with us,” Betsy said. She picked up her glass and swirled it, holding it so that light from the lamp struck golden notes through the beer.
“It’s a fair color,” Mr. Horn acknowledged.
Betsy took a delicate sniff from the glass and then a swallow, so Jeremy followed suit. The three of them sat for a moment in silence, letting the bittersweet taste fill their mouths. Betsy licked the foam from her upper lip, and Jeremy had to take a gulp of ale to stop himself from licking it for her.
“You’ve outdone yourself, Herr Horn,” she said, sipping once more.
“We dried the malt with coke,” Mr. Horn said, putting down his mug and looking expectantly at Betsy.
“Is that what gives it a fruity taste, something like black cherries?”
The old man grinned at her. “Ach, but you would have made a rare brewmaster, Lady Boadicea! What you’re tasting there is the effect of using a peck of peas against half a peck of wheat. What do you think of it, Lord Jeremy?”
“It tastes like summer malt,” Jeremy said. He lifted his mug. “You’re a magician and an undoubted master, Herr Horn.”
The brewmaster’s mustache flared up almost to the top of his ruddy cheeks. “I had fine hops to work with.”
“Lady Knowe asked if you would be kind enough to share the first taste with her,” Betsy said. “She would have joined me, but she’s not quite herself today. Perhaps hoppy ale will be healing.”
Lady Knowe seemed perfectly hearty when Jeremy saw her a half hour ago, but mischief hung in the air about Betsy, the reckless pleasure with which she donned boy’s breeches.
“We’re none of us getting any younger,” Mr. Horn acknowledged, hustling over to refill his pitcher from a hogshead to the side. “I’ll bring it to her myself. Will you accompany me, Lady Boadicea?”
“I’ll finish this marvelous brew,” she said. And then, with a private twinkle, “Lord Jeremy will escort me to the castle.”
As the door shut behind Mr. Horn, they leaned forward at the same moment, as if choreographed. Jeremy groaned as Betsy’s tongue met his. She tasted like sweet beer and Bess, a potent combination that made his head swim.
He stood up so fast that his stool fell over. Betsy laughed as he placed their glasses to the side.
“I want you.” His voice was raw and deep. He rounded the table and crouched before her, taking in the way her breasts swelled above her bodice, the flush in her cheeks, the bright gleam in her eyes. Her collarbones were as exquisite as the rest of her, edging her breasts like the delicate framework of a cathedral window. “You’re so damned beautiful,” he breathed.
Her eyes searched his face. “As are you.”
Raw lust bit at him, and he grabbed her fur cape, throwing it down on the table. “A bed fit for a lady.”