from Her Grace about the attributes that commend Thaddeus as a prospective husband.”
“Your father rose to the challenge as well,” Betsy pointed out.
“A failed endeavor,” Jeremy said. “I was such a boring child. Mumps are nothing compared to the hairless horrors of ringworm.”
Betsy giggled. Brandy was spreading through her stomach in a pleasant way, making her feel as if the world was a kindly, glowing place.
“Don’t get drunk,” Jeremy said, giving her a sharp glance.
“Why not?” Betsy asked. She lowered her voice. “It’s frightfully déclassé to go bald at an early age.”
“The opposite,” Jeremy said, pouring himself more tea. “Only a duchess boasts of something as distasteful as ringworm. It displays utter disregard for the cautious mores of the socially anxious. I shouldn’t say this to you, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re so anxious yourself,” he said, glancing at her. “Charming, snobbish, anxious.”
Betsy’s first instinct was to fling the dregs of her brandy at him, but she drank them instead. He was right. Why should she take umbrage? She lived in the grip of a profound fear instilled in her by Clementine and her fellow scholars.
“No answer?” Jeremy asked.
“You are correct,” she said, holding out her glass. “More brandy, please.”
He rose, strolled over to the decanters arranged on a sideboard, and poured her a healthy slug of liquor.
“You told me that you wouldn’t drink after the midday meal,” Aunt Knowe said, her voice displeased. “You’ll never sleep at this rate, Jeremy.”
“It’s for Betsy,” he replied.
“Oh, all right then.” She returned to her cards.
Betsy looked over to find Thaddeus looking at her, so she raised the glass that Jeremy had just handed her. “Luckily, I have no trouble sleeping,” she informed him.
“I’ve taught all my girls to hold their liquor,” Aunt Knowe said. “You needn’t worry about your future wife becoming tiddly and flirting with the vicar.” Then she put down some cards with a shout of triumph. “I fancy that’s cooked your goose!”
“You’re anxious because of your mother, aren’t you?” Jeremy asked in a low voice.
Betsy looked at him. Despite Aunt Knowe’s pride, she was definitely feeling on the tiddly side of sober. “Wouldn’t you be, were you I?”
He pondered that, staring narrow-eyed into the fire.
“Well?”
“I’m trying to imagine my mother running away with a footman rather than dying while I was in the colonies. I’d prefer she was alive and in the world, even if she lived in a different country with the footman. Is that unkind to tell you as much?”
Betsy took a healthy swallow. “It is, rather. Your mother’s death did not shape you as an adult, and others feel nothing but sympathy for you. You’ve made me feel shallow, although my mother’s adultery has had a significant effect on me.”
“Only because you allow it,” he said, without hesitation.
“You know nothing,” Betsy stated. “Nothing at all. Of all the contemptuous things you’ve said to me, that is probably the worst.”
She could tell from his expression that he was surprised and, rather sweetly, taken aback.
“I didn’t mean it contemptuously.”
“That excuse only works once or twice.”
Yet when she met his dark eyes, desire flared up between them. She bit her lip, fighting back against instincts that suggested—madness!—that she transfer herself from her chair to his lap. That she tilt back her head and invite a kiss. That he would kiss her, and her hands would clutch his shoulders.
She jerked her gaze away and put a hand to her burning cheek.
“You just watched two peers parade their respective sons’ virtues before you, and still you think that you have a damaged reputation?” Jeremy asked. “You’re a duke’s daughter. Your mother’s blood is as noble as mine, albeit her morals were a trifle elastic. Morals are not inherited.”
“All characteristics are inherited,” Betsy said. “Have you ignored North’s diatribes on the subject of a horse’s stride?”
“You may have inherited your mother’s legs, but morals are taught,” Jeremy retorted. “You learned your morals from Lady Knowe. I would be extremely surprised if any child in a nursery she oversaw would behave in a less than resolutely English fashion—and by that I mean the behavior befitting an English nobleman.”
“Horatius raced his horse over the bog while inebriated,” Betsy said. Her older brother had perished in that bog.
“Did he ever cheat at cards?”
“Of course not!” she flashed.
“Being reckless with one’s life is practically a British pastime,” Jeremy said. He reached over and picked up her glass of brandy, which she had placed on the floor beside her chair.
“Not good for your sleep,” Aunt Knowe barked from the