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“She looks very serious.”

“Indeed, she is not a fribble like ourselves. Doesn’t give a damn about appearances since, as you’ll notice, she’s wearing spectacles, rather than carrying a lorgnette. The earl could always instruct the family portraitist to pretend the spectacles don’t exist. I’m sure he expects perfection in his wife—or at least will want to pretend he’s found it.”

“You’re being rather unkind,” Yasmin said, unable to stop herself. “I don’t think Lord Lilford is so shallow that he’d pretend his wife doesn’t wear spectacles.”

Silvester’s gray eyes were sharply ironic. “The earl is so shallow that he won’t allow himself to court you because he doesn’t approve of your gowns.”

Yasmin waved her fan while she thought about that. “You underestimate his dislike of my frivolity.” By which she meant her reputation.

“Lady Stella should suit him. She wields her intelligence like a hammer. It’s her most obvious characteristic, the attribute she presents to the world.” He glanced at Yasmin’s bosom and waggled an eyebrow.

“You’re suggesting that I do the same with my bodices?”

“I cannot answer because I promised never to make an improper remark to you again,” Silvester murmured. But his eyes laughed at her.

“What do you present to the world?” Yasmin asked. “What is your most evident characteristic?”

He shrugged, humor disappearing. “Oh, Lilford and I don’t need a character or any characteristics. We carry our titles with us, as if they were emblazoned on our foreheads. They prove irresistible, in my experience.”

Yasmin gave him a frank look. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

“You are the exception,” he said, catching up her hand and kissing it. Yasmin looked up to find Giles’s eyes on them, but he turned away and walked into the ballroom, the bespeckled lady on his arm.

Somehow, after that, the evening lost its sparkle. Yasmin and her grandfather had the honor of dining with Queen Titania and King Oberon—Merry and her duke—but even the fact that Silvester had been invited to join them didn’t raise her spirits.

Her grandfather, on the other hand, enjoyed himself thoroughly, arguing with Merry about the cultural differences between America and Britain.

“You British have honed the art of rudeness,” Merry informed him.

“Rudeness is like cockfighting,” the duke retorted. “I’ll grant you it’s an unpleasant sport, but hardly confined to my nation.”

Silvester had been talking to the young lady whom he escorted to supper, but he turned to Yasmin. “What particular rudeness is in question?”

“Nothing important,” she answered, leveling a frown at her grandfather.

“I was describing my conversation with the Earl of Lilford,” her grandfather chortled. “The man had the temerity to imply that my granddaughter would spread squalid gossip about one of his relatives! I set him straight.”

“He doesn’t know Lady Yasmin,” Silvester said.

Yasmin couldn’t help thinking of all the waltzes she’d shared with Giles, far more than she’d shared with Silvester, whom she’d only met this Season.

“Aye, there’s something to that,” her grandfather muttered.

Yasmin summoned up a smile, a bit tremulous. What Giles did know of her, he didn’t like. So why should he care to know more of her? The truth hurt, a dull pain in the area of her heart, but that was absurd.

The only relationship they had stemmed from waltzing and bickering.

Yasmin felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up to find Giles nodding in a tight-lipped way at the table. “Good evening, Lord Lilford,” she said, her heart suddenly thudding in her throat.

“I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes, Lady Yasmin,” he said.

“The first waltz has come and gone, and her dance card is full,” Silvester said, his voice a nice blend of courtesy and something else. Something a bit possessive.

No, very possessive, since he followed that up by putting an arm on the back of Yasmin’s chair.

“I am Lady Yasmin’s escort this evening,” her grandfather said, eyeing Silvester with a distinctly mischievous expression. “I suppose I will allow the Earl of Lilford a brief conversation.” He waved his thin hand, making the lace ruffles at his wrists flutter. “Off with you.”

Yasmin sighed and rose. “If you will excuse me,” she said to the table, curtsying.