appropriated the entire inn.
“Isn’t this marvelous?” Lady Knowe called, flying to meet him. “We are warming up, and then we shall retire upstairs for baths. We can feel as comfortable as if we were in Lindow Castle. There was only one guest for the night, and he was perfectly happy to go off to the Honeypot. I’m paying for his stay, of course.”
She burbled on, but Jeremy looked to Betsy. She looked back at him, wide mouth solemn and one eyebrow arched, so delicious that Jeremy moved directly toward her.
A hand on his arm stopped him. “Lord Jeremy,” the duchess said, “I wish to apologize.”
“There is no need,” Jeremy said mechanically, bowing. He had no idea what she was talking about.
“I left you and Lady Boadicea at a teahouse unchaperoned. Naturally you both felt uncomfortable, which forced you out into a winter storm. What a marvelous piece of luck that you found your father’s carriage when needed!”
Jeremy forced himself to nod. “Lady Knowe sent the duke’s carriage back for our servants,” the duchess went on. “They should be here within the hour. I could not sit down to dine in this gown.”
“No, indeed,” Jeremy murmured.
Thaddeus was sitting beside Betsy. She would be a marvelous duchess. Just look at the squabble she had with his father in the carriage. Only a future duchess could lecture a marquess and then walk straight past him without a word of farewell.
Her Grace was blathering on about her lady’s maid—why would she think he was interested?—and Betsy was giving Thaddeus that smile, the one that would likely turn his head and make him forget that she was a breeches-wearing scandal in the making.
Damn it.
“If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace,” he said to the duchess, and made his way across the room.
Betsy and Thaddeus looked like a ceramic lord and lady, a flirtatious pair fashioned in France by a man who’d never seen a queen but pictured aristocrats with sweet faces and strong chins.
“Hello,” Jeremy said, pulling over a seat to Betsy’s other side. “How was the auction house?”
“Lady Knowe decided that the weather precluded the trip,” Thaddeus said, all amiable and gentlemanlike. “We came here, and she sent the carriage back to the castle.”
There was something in his eyes. Thaddeus had made up his mind.
Perhaps because the auction itself would be put off due to the weather. Yet if he thought that Betsy would forget the idea of breeches, he was due for a surprise.
“Lady Knowe has ascertained that the auction will be held tomorrow,” Thaddeus continued. “All the ladies plan to attend, dressed as men.”
“I thought you felt it disreputable for a lady to appear in breeches,” Jeremy observed.
“My mother has impressed upon me that she should be my guide in such matters,” Thaddeus said. “I have apologized to Betsy for any discomfort I caused with my naïve and inept response.”
“There’s nothing that makes an aristocrat look like a grocer as much as a robust love of respectability,” Jeremy observed. “My father is the first in my family to bother with reputation at all.”
“Aunt Knowe claims that the aristocracy is like a pond full of swans,” Betsy said, her eyes sparkling. “From above, we look elegant, if not regal. But under the surface, we’re all swimming madly, with not much difference between us and the ducks.”
“An acute observation,” Thaddeus said.
“The snow tonight looks rather swanlike,” Jeremy said idly. “Like the feathers of an unimaginable bird.”
The duchess called to her son, so Thaddeus rose and escorted her from the room.
“You can’t marry him,” Jeremy said. “You’ll spend your adult life watching a man ferry his mother about.”
Betsy threw him an inscrutable look and rose to her feet. “I would escort my mother, had she cared for my company.”
“Our maids have arrived, thank the Lord,” Aunt Knowe announced from the door. “Come along, you two. No dilly-dallying. Jeremy, your cousin is in a frightful state; Mr. Bisset-Caron fears he’s caught a cold. He shall have supper in bed.” She disappeared.
“Unchaperoned once again,” Jeremy said, strolling across the room. “One would almost think that Lady Knowe wasn’t championing Thaddeus as your future spouse.”
It was madness to discuss marriage with Jeremy, but Betsy found it irresistible as well. “If I became a duchess, the world would be at my feet.”
“You don’t want the world at your feet,” Jeremy said, shrugging. “You certainly don’t want the whole world to have your likeness on the wall. What do you want, Bess?”
You, she thought involuntarily.
But that way was madness. There was