he didn’t really notice me until North’s wedding,” Betsy said, and then she gasped. “You didn’t!”
“Didn’t what?” her aunt asked innocently.
“You deliberately sent Thaddeus down to the billiard room to propose to me because you knew Jeremy was there!”
Aunt Knowe dropped her knitting on the table and rose. “Am I not your favorite aunt?”
“You’re my only aunt,” Betsy replied.
“Well, you are my favorite eldest niece,” Aunt Knowe said, swooping down and kissing Betsy on the cheek. “I couldn’t bear to see you listlessly turning down yet another proposal. I was becoming somewhat worried that one of those gentlemen would coax you into making a mistake.”
“Did you send Jeremy there first?”
“Of course I did,” her aunt said with aplomb. “He was desperate to escape from the ballroom. It was the act of a good host to direct him to retire.”
Betsy began to laugh. “You are evil, Aunt Knowe. Evil!”
“I try,” her aunt said, slinging her arm around Betsy’s shoulder. “Now come along, you nearly-married woman. I am starving.”
“How did you know that I joined Jeremy last night? He very properly escorted me to my door.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” her aunt said. “I will have you know, my dear, that there’s nothing proper about a gentleman escorting a young lady to her bedchamber in the dark of night, especially given a long pause at the door.”
“True,” Betsy said. But she grinned anyway. “I was the one who decided it was too lonely in bed and returned to his room.”
“I found myself very grateful that these walls are so thick. Now that you children aren’t children any longer,” she clarified.
Betsy was grateful too, given that she seemed unable to stay silent when Jeremy’s hands, let alone his mouth, ranged over her body.
They were stowed in the carriage, ready to return to Lindow, before she saw him again. He put his head into the carriage and nodded, his eyes on Betsy’s face. “I’ll be traveling to the castle with my family.”
“That answers the question about whether Bisset-Caron is returning to Lindow,” Aunt Knowe said with a sigh, as the Wilde carriage began moving.
“Jeremy means to tell his father and cousin that we are marrying,” Betsy said. “A blow for Grégoire, who apparently had ambitions to inherit Jeremy’s title.”
“A fool is a fool is a fool,” Aunt Knowe said. “I suppose he expected Jeremy would fall in battle, and it grew into a habit of mind. I suspect he knows of Jeremy’s reaction to fireworks, given an irritable comment he dropped at some point.”
“He made an unpleasant comment about it yesterday. He couldn’t use that incident to take away Jeremy’s title, could he?”
“Oh, no,” Aunt Knowe said comfortably. “That only works in melodramas. For one thing, Jeremy’s father is still alive. And for another, Jeremy is patently sane and we could attest to it. A mere word from your father would squash any foolish petition Grégoire might try.”
“I expect Grégoire is not dangerous, just disappointed,” Betsy said.
“Exactly. Don’t forget tiresome.”
Jeremy would have echoed Lady Knowe, if he knew her judgment. The journey to Lindow took two hours, given snow and ice on the roads. The entire time was taken up by a monologue on the subject of Jeremy’s unfitness for marriage, delivered, naturally, by his cousin. His father rolled his eyes and then fell asleep in a corner.
Jeremy had never given Grégoire much thought. His cousin had been at Eton, but two years behind him. Jeremy had met the younger boy when Grégoire tracked him down on the first day of term and declared himself to be Jeremy’s closest relative.
The fact didn’t interest him then, and it didn’t interest him now.
Grégoire had grown into a man who paid far too much attention to the color of his stockings.
“I don’t say this for my own benefit, but due to concern for our ancient name,” he said now, a patent falsehood. “A man who’s spent time in Bedlam ought not to assume the title.”
“How did you know that I spent time in Bedlam?” Jeremy asked.
Grégoire shrugged. “Someone must have told me.”
“Not good enough,” Jeremy said. He leaned forward slightly and let his expression say the rest.
Grégoire was a pampered only son, not a man who would ever conceive of taking up a place in the artillery or any other branch of the military. He shied away. “Your valet, if you must know. When you disappeared, he sent about to your club and I happened to be there. We were worried that you’d come to harm.”
“I see,” Jeremy said,