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He kissed her again, and Yasmin laughed before continuing. “Sandy, flaxen, creamy, citrine, primrose yellow, butter.”

“I have only yellow,” he said flatly. “Your hair, for example. I know the strands are different colors, but in my mind they are summed up as ‘yellow.’”

“It does me no good to have all those words. My hair is still just my hair, and yes, it is yellow.”

“Your vocabulary gives you delight, doesn’t it? I’ve watched you learning words, storing them away. Last year, you sounded like a Frenchwoman, albeit one who was fluent in English. This year, you sound like an Englishwoman. Or, sometimes, like an American.”

She nodded. “I suppose.”

“I want to spend the rest of my life watching you learn more words. I don’t care if you ever learn the prime minister’s name. There will just be a new one in a year or two. I only want you. I don’t care what society thinks if they see us in a curricle.

“I just want you to sit beside me.”

Chapter Thirteen

Giles meant it.

After the welter of proposals Yasmin had received in the past year or so, she could separate those who were sincere from those who wanted her fortune.

“But you disapproved of me for good reason,” she said, dropping her eyes to his chest because it was remarkably hard to admit one’s faults. “I have a past, Giles. I am no maiden.”

He kissed her eyebrow. “Look at me?”

She reluctantly looked up.

“As long as I am your present and your future, I don’t give a damn about your past.”

“No matter who I marry, some members of polite society will brand me a hussy, if not worse.” She started twiddling with one of his buttons. A nice, if plain, button.

“The gossip will die in time,” he said.

She shook her head at him. “I disagree. You’d have to accept that people will gossip about your countess. Given your strong dislike of gossip . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“I’ll woo you until you are convinced. Marry me, Yasmin.” Giles brushed his lips against hers. “I want to make love to you.” He lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “I would like to lean you backwards on this settee and love you properly. Will you allow me to make love to you?”

She gulped. “Even though—”

One thought was going through Yasmin’s mind: he wanted to marry her, even though he knew she wasn’t a virgin. Even though he thought the condom was hers, which would suggest she was sleeping with men willy-nilly. It wasn’t hers, and Hippolyte had been her only lover. Yet Giles was willing to marry her, thinking that.

He truly didn’t care if she had a scandalous past.

It was such a delightful thought that it made her head swim. He hovered over her, eyes blazing, waiting, and Yasmin opened her mouth without consciously making a decision and said the only thing she could say.

“I’ll marry you, Giles. I will marry you.”

She reached up and put her arms around his neck. His mouth came down, claiming hers. Did she ever dislike kisses?

He licked inside her mouth slowly, his hands gliding over her body, molding the light silk of her gown to every curve. His intimacies kept surprising her, if delightfully. His fingers ran over her breasts, slid around the inner curve of her thigh, slid under her garments and ran down the crease of her bottom.

“You startle like a virgin, Yasmin,” Giles said. Before she could answer, his head reared back. “That was an extraordinarily rude thing to say. I apologize.” He kissed her fiercely until Yasmin let out a helpless whimper.

“May I touch you here?” His voice was dark and sweet as his hand paused on her knee.

“Ye-es,” she breathed, her legs easing open.

“I love that,” he rumbled in her ear. “I love your plump thighs, Yasmin. You’ve driven me mad in the last months. Watching you dance with other men. Watching you bend over. Sometimes I thought if you fidgeted and dropped that damn fan one more time, I would snatch you into my arms and to hell with the audience.”

Yasmin almost giggled. Why on earth would he care if she bent over? But sensations were going through her body like streaks of heat, fogging her mind. He was kissing her again, and all the time his hand was sliding up her thigh until his fingers slipped under her silk underclothes and touched her—there.