Say No to the Duke (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #4) - Eloisa James Page 0,4

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.”

“I spoke to your father, Lady Boadicea, and he agreed that I might ask you for the honor of your hand in marriage.”

This was fantastic. Jeremy had a front row seat on a proposal, and he could mock Betsy about it for weeks.

Her suitor didn’t kneel.

Thaddeus would never kneel.

The man currently asking Betsy to marry him was Thaddeus Erskine Shaw, Viscount Greywick.

Duke of some damned place, someday.

Something pinched deep in Jeremy’s chest, and he narrowed his eyes. Oh, hell no. Whatever that emotion was, he didn’t like it.

Wouldn’t accept it.

Her Grace, Betsy the Duchess.

Sounded good.

Chapter Three

“Lord Greywick, the honor is mine,” Betsy said, allowing her gloved hand to rest in his.

“That sounds very much like a preface to a refusal,” the viscount replied, which showed him more observant than most of her suitors, who generally looked stunned, as if they’d never considered the possibility that she might refuse them.

After all, they had weighed her mother’s scandalous behavior and her possible illegitimacy against Betsy’s beauty, dowry, and exquisite manners. To a man, they judged themselves prescient, even liberal, to ask for her hand at all. They thought her fortunate to receive a proposal.

They couldn’t believe it when she rejected them.

She paused for a second, questioning this particular decision. Viscount Greywick was tall and very handsome,