Page 5

“Not any longer.”

Chapter Two

At the age of twenty-five, Yasmin considered herself an expert in that species known as “gentlemen.” Like a flock of chickens, they often clucked in unison. Like a herd of cows, they could be categorized by breed, or nationality. And like a sleuth of bears, they could be dangerous.

You should never underestimate a bear—or a gentleman.

Take her best friend Cleo’s husband, Jake Astor Addison, for example. When he looked at Cleo, his expression was absurdly loving. He crowed his feelings to the world. He came from America, a country that famously produced herds of rough-hewn gentlemen. And finally, he was dangerous. When he walked down a London street, people instinctively moved to the side.

Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford, was censorious, buttoned down, and unsurprising. In a flock of British aristocrats, he blended right in. True, he was more beautiful than the average English gentleman, given his white-blond hair and eyes that glinted silver by candlelight, but one did occasionally see a particularly handsome Hereford. Yet there was a steely core to him, a chilly gaze that spoke of power and privilege, but also inner strength.

That wasn’t what made him dangerous to her, though.

She kept imagining that a different Giles was hidden under his starched exterior: a man who was loyal and thoughtful, whose sense of humor paired with a deep capacity for passion. Who would love a woman all the days of his life. Sometimes she fancied she saw raw desire in his eyes, and she couldn’t stop herself from responding like a cat basking in a ray of sunshine.

Consequently, she spent many futile hours attempting to lure out that Giles. She tried to amuse him and failing that, to irritate him. Even so, every time he looked at her with antipathy, it hurt her feelings. She was an idiot. She was responsible for her own bruised emotions since she constantly poked at him.

One didn’t poke a bear. Everyone knew that.

But she couldn’t stop herself. “Lady Lydia is no longer in the ballroom,” Yasmin told him now.

“Are you certain?” Giles replied, his voice edging into a growl as he looked about. In her head, she thought of him as Giles, even though he punctiliously addressed her as Lady Yasmin.

Lady Lydia should be easy to spot, as her head resembled a dandelion, but Giles wouldn’t find her. In the past few weeks, Yasmin had seen the girl slip away many times, in company with various gentlemen.

“She may be seeking fresh air,” she offered. That was one way of describing Lydia’s penchant for engaging in passionate kisses with her latest flirt.

“Likely, she ripped her hem and had to retreat to the ladies’ sitting room,” Giles said, his gaze returning to Yasmin’s face. “My sister is prone to accidents.”

“I was under the impression that those incidents occurred in her first Season? I was in attendance last year when Lady Lydia fell down the steps at the Vauxhall pavilion. I did not see her debut, but I heard—”

“That’s the trouble with society,” Giles interrupted. “You heard about it.”

She really shouldn’t poke the bear. Or, in this case, the hidebound, oh-so-proper peer. Yasmin raised an eyebrow, ignoring her own counsel. “Did your sister not trip over a footstool and fizzle?”

He looked at her blankly.

“Fizzle, fart, foist,” Yasmin explained.

“Such an accident could happen to anyone,” Giles said, the expected disdain crossing his face.

“Indeed, it has happened,” Yasmin said. “As I told Lady Lydia after that tittle-tattle reached my ears, the French propensity for rich food has led to many a public foist, including mine before Napoleon’s assembled court.”

There was a pause. “I suspect you burst into laughter after that mishap,” Giles said, a curious expression in his eyes that she couldn’t quite read.

“I did,” Yasmin confirmed. She had a lifetime’s experience negotiating humiliation in the court. One of her favorite rules for survival amongst the aristocracy—whether French or British—was that a show of weakness had to be avoided at all costs.

“My sister is not as . . . audacious as you are, Lady Yasmin.” There was no mistaking the disapproval in Giles’s voice. Presumably, he thought ladies ought to faint after the disgrace of farting, although men urinated in dining room chamber pots in the full sight of those same ladies.

His opinion shouldn’t matter, but it had the wretched effect of making Yasmin’s throat burn.

“You may loathe gossip, but I loathe rules that pretend no woman breaks wind,” she retorted. “Your sister was shamed for a natural result of the digestive process.”

“Gossip can be ruinous, no matter how innocent a mistake.”

“I know that,” she said. “Believe me, I have experienced the unfortunate consequences of gossip. As I told your sister, one cannot allow such unpleasantness to affect one’s confidence.”

Giles’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t realize you and my sister were so well acquainted.”