falsehood,” he added.
“I am not!”
“You are. You create a face and a smile and put it on like a suit of armor. Who wants to marry a suit of armor? Your entire life is like a bal masqué.”
“It isn’t,” Betsy protested.
He just kept going, relentless. “Will you teach your children to plaster fake smiles on their faces and pipe inanities in a twittering voice? Will they be driven to collect proposals as if gentlemen were daisies in an invisible, wilting chain of flowers?”
Betsy stood in that corridor feeling sick. What could she possibly say to that? “You are unkind,” she managed.
“I like the real you: witty, charming, and intelligent. Sensual and deeply lovable. You are a delight, Bess. A true delight. If I were the marrying kind, I’d be lining up in the queue, bumping Thaddeus out of the way in a rush to win your hand.”
“Charming,” Betsy said. Her mind was rushing this way and that. Fury burned up her spine, and angry words trembled on her lips about his behavior.
“Have you anything further to add?” she asked. “I don’t want to cut you short.” She managed her voice perfectly: It was as calm as if he were remarking on the weather.
His eyes searched hers. “Bess—”
She could accept his opinion of her. She refused to argue with it, because he was right, though he didn’t understand her motives. She made a sudden jerky motion. “Don’t.”
“You could have laughed at me, the way you always do.”
“I laugh when you squabble with me or make fun of my halo. You aren’t making fun.” Hurt, angry words were bubbling up in her chest. What good would it do to say, I thought we were friends.
Or particularly, I thought you were courting me.
Because she had. In some small part of her heart she had begun to nurture affection for a foul-tempered wreck of a man.
“Good night,” she said, turning on her heel and walking away. What a fool she was. There could be nothing worse than being tied to a cruel man. She didn’t deserve his rebuke. She hadn’t been unkind. She had merely tried to befriend him.
She walked faster, knowing he was following. The corridor widened into a flight of stairs that curved to the right and around an indoor balcony. She went up those steps as quickly as she could without running.
She made it halfway around the balcony, the door to her bedchamber in view, when Jeremy caught her arm.
“No,” she spat, her voice nearly cracking despite herself.
“Talk to me. Please.”
Betsy took a deep breath and faced him. “I gather that you are troubled by my response to your summary of my character. You needn’t be. My behavior in polite society has been crafted since the age of fourteen; I am as aware as you are that I create a ‘face’ when I’m in public.”
“My room is just here. Please talk to me for a moment.”
“In your room?” That question destroyed any claim she had to control. “I think not. In fact, I think that you have lost your mind. Everything you said to me was true. You are a guest in my father’s house, and yet you ask me to visit your bedchamber? I do you the courtesy of believing that you are not trying to destroy my reputation or compromise me. After all, you are not a marrying man.”
“I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
As far as Betsy was concerned, no explanations were necessary. An apology would do little, and in any case, his voice was not particularly apologetic. There was a note of command there, as if the Jeremy who had ruled the battlefield was making an appearance.
“I accept your apology.” With a tug she freed her arm and walked to her chamber, opened the door, and escaped without looking back.
Chapter Fourteen
Jeremy stood in the corridor feeling gutted. He had grown accustomed to trading barbed comments with Betsy. With Bess. They had squabbled and disagreed, and her fire kept him tied to the room and not back on a smoke-filled battleground.
Then he had turned sparring into an unkind assault, from pure jealousy.
She had been his friend and he’d watched her turn white. Unkind? He was more than unkind.
He had been cruel.
For one reason. For one damned reason. Because she gave Thaddeus a smile, and because Thaddeus touched her on the cheek.
For that, Jeremy excoriated her behavior, even though he was beginning to understand her pretend smile and the way she collected proposals the way strangers collected Wilde prints.
He entered his