Say No to the Duke (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #4) - Eloisa James Page 0,45

color with all her dark hair. Jeremy wasn’t good at that sort of thing, but her costume had a little collar that stood up around the back of her neck and flirted with her hair.

She’d be a frightfully expensive wife.

He pushed away the small voice in the back of his head that reminded him just how much money he had. Never mind his future inheritance as a marquess; his mother had left him a fortune. He could afford striped gowns and anything else a wife might wish for.

Not that he wanted one, of course.

Thaddeus arrived next, very properly attired, looking every inch the future duke. Lady Knowe sidled up to him, and his mother took his other arm, which left Jeremy with Betsy. He held out his elbow without speaking.

She slipped a hand around his arm and they walked together through the great door of the castle into chilly, bright sunshine. Jeremy squinted at the sun.

“The light is green today,” Betsy said suddenly.

“What are you talking about?” He glanced down at her and then thought he’d better not do that too often, because her face was unnervingly dear.

“Squint again,” she prompted.

Obedience led to the realization that there was indeed a faintly green shade to the sunshine.

“By evening, the light will be purple,” Betsy said.

“Come along, you two,” Lady Knowe bellowed from the door of the carriage. “Spit spot! There’s an excellent teahouse in Wilmslow.”

“Coming!” Betsy called.

In the carriage, Jeremy seated himself beside Betsy, who had Thaddeus on her other side. Across from them, the older ladies took up the entire seat with their voluminous skirts.

“There’s a vehicle coming down the lane,” Lady Knowe said, as he pulled the door shut. She gave the roof a hard knock. “I ought to remain and greet whomever it is, but I am tired of guests.”

Jeremy looked out the window and bit back a curse.

“You should be very proud of the wedding,” the duchess said, patting Lady Knowe on the knee. “It went off without a hitch.”

Jeremy felt Betsy’s eyes on his face.

The carriage started.

“As for the person who just arrived, I am a firm believer that guests should send a card the day previous, or not be received at all,” the duchess said with the air of someone accustomed to being begged for an audience.

Jeremy took a deep breath.

“Who was in that carriage?” Betsy asked in a low voice, when they were well on the way to Wilmslow. Lady Knowe was busy interrogating Thaddeus about the proper height of hedgerows, while the duchess put in a word now and then. “You recognized it, didn’t you?”

“My father’s,” he said.

“You are estranged?”

“That is a strong word.” But inside he knew it wasn’t strong enough. “We rarely speak.”

“You won’t be able to avoid him now,” Betsy pointed out.

“Unless I leave for London,” Jeremy said, which was true enough. But he wasn’t a man who fled like a coward. If so, he would have run away from the increasingly irritating emotions that tugged at him when he was around Betsy.

Even more so when he was seated beside her, as he was now. She smelled like a beautiful woman, which was a foolish observation but true. She smelled delectable and English, like all the good, clean things in the world that he’d turned his back on when he went to war.

“You cannot leave the castle yet,” Betsy said, with a distinct tone of satisfaction in her voice. The two seated on the other side of the carriage paused, and she said, “Aunt Knowe, you’ll be so pleased to know that Lord Jeremy recognized the carriage as his father’s.”

The duchess clapped her hands. “The marquess is one of my husband’s close friends.”

“I’ve met him once,” Lady Knowe said, knitting her brow. “Years ago.”

Jeremy held his tongue. He and his father hadn’t spoken since he came back from war a shuddering mess of a man, knowing he wasn’t worthy to become a marquess. Luckily, his cousin Grégoire would relish the title. He had told his father as much, left for London, and not seen the marquess since.

“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