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But every time she looked at her hand, her eyes flooded with tears.

Giles’s arms wrapped around her. “Next week, a wedding ring?”

“Yes,” Yasmin said happily. She leaned back against his shoulder and held up her hand so the pink sapphire caught the light.

“You see?” Giles asked.

“See what?”

“The stone laughs. It twinkles.”

She pulled his head down to hers. The evidence was incontrovertible: her grumpy earl was the most romantic man she’d ever known.

Epilogue

The Queen’s Drawing Rooms, St. James’s Palace

On the Occasion of the visit of the French Ambassador

October 14, 1816

René-Eustache, Marquis d’Osmond, had been appointed French ambassador to England last November, yet this was his first visit to the country. He had lived in Switzerland during Napoleon’s shameful ascendancy.

Waiting to be presented to the Queen by the former ambassador, he was surprised to find that he felt slightly intimated by the grandeur of the English court. Who would have imagined it?

As he watched, a group of ladies caused Her Majesty to dissolve into gusts of laughter. Entranced, the Queen paid no attention to the fact that such an august personage as himself was waiting.

René spun the corners of his waxed mustaches, considering the dynamics of the court. Given His Majesty’s indisposition, the English queen was powerful. He only recognized one of the women, the Duchess of Trent, famous for being originally from America. The ladies clearly had the Queen’s ear.

“Pay attention!” the man next to him hissed.

René frowned at the Comte de Ségur, the former ambassador. Ségur would introduce him to the queen and then make his way back to the court of King Louis XVIII.

An exquisite woman had entered from a side door, thus avoiding the throngs of peers waiting behind René. She had the face of a naughty angel, albeit with such dignity as befit royalty. At least six ostrich plumes nodded on her head, yet she carried herself with such grace that she made the style—antiquated to French eyes but required by the English queen—positively elegant.

Her Majesty and her ladies instantly beckoned to her. Aiming a charmingly apologetic smile at those waiting, the lady made her way to the throne and dropped into a deep curtsy.

“Who is she?” René asked.

“The Countess of Lilford,” Ségur breathed. “Her husband is formidable in the House of Lords. They haven’t been married long, but people say she is likely to become the most powerful woman in the kingdom after royalty, of course.”

“I see,” René said, watching with sharp eyes as the countess rose from her deep curtsy, and was tapped on her shoulder by the Queen’s fan, as if Her Majesty was knighting her. Women were often the true power behind the throne, and a wise ambassador did not ignore such matters.

“Lady Lilford is half French and grew up around the Napoleonic court,” Ségur continued under his breath. “There was some sort of scandal—wasn’t there always in that gathering of appalling reprobates?—and she traveled to England to live with her grandfather, a duc, as I understand it. Yes, there he is.”

They watched as a distinguished gentleman dressed with the flair of a French duc bowed over the queen’s hand.

“The countess speaks French, oh so exquisitely,” Ségur said, kissing the tips of his gloves. “Those diamonds she wears are incredible. By all accounts, she inherited two fortunes. You must find her good side, marquis, or you will get nowhere in English society.”

“It will be a pleasure,” René acknowledged. The queen was smiling up at the countess in a manner that suggested the lady was a favorite.

“Be careful around her husband. He has a fierce temper, that one, and is monstrously jealous.”

René nodded.

“The most recent gossip is that the earl’s sister, Lady Lydia, ran away with another man after only a few months of marriage. Lady Lilford has requested that no one gossip of the matter, and strangely enough, I believe that English society has obeyed her. I hear nothing.”

Society was such that a woman of such intelligence, birth, and beauty, combined with a powerful husband, would naturally rise to the top and command the field as a general might a battle.