Page 58

“Yes. She refuses to marry me because I belittled and disrespected her. She deserves better than me. She’s right.” He dropped his head into his hands again.

“Oh.” A hand rubbed his sleeve, trying to comfort. “I’m sorry, Giles. She’s making a mistake.”

He snorted. “No, she’s not.”

“She always danced with you, Giles. And she . . . she liked dancing with you.”

The words filtered into Giles’s brain slowly. “We desire each other. She succumbed to that, briefly, then thought better of it overnight.”

“I used to kiss boys during the waltz you shared. Did you realize that?”

He shook his head, not giving a damn.

“I was free to do as I wished during the first waltz because you never looked away from her face. Other people glanced around the room while dancing, but your gaze never shifted. It may be true that she does not feel the same,” Lydia said, her voice not unkind. “She did glance around the room. That’s how she noticed that I was sneaking away.”

Giles took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. A dull pain reverberated in his chest.

“Perhaps she wanted you to propose simply because you had belittled her,” Lydia said thoughtfully. “I suspect there’s pleasure in bringing a man to his knees who has made his aversion apparent. It’s not unlike what I was doing, for slightly different reasons.”

“I didn’t mean to show my . . . my aversion.”

“Yet, you did,” his sister said as blunt as ever. “You danced with Lady Yasmin only once an evening, so everyone assumed it was merely a matter of courtesy. You curled your lip when she giggled. I never wanted you to be around her, because I could see how much you wanted her. But everyone else?” She shrugged. “They think you despise her. Apparently, she told Algernon Dunlap in your presence that you disliked her, and you didn’t counter it.”

“What?” Giles racked his memory. “I didn’t counter it?”

Yasmin had indeed said something like that, just before they walked in the garden and kissed for the first time. He had ignored it.

What if Lydia was right? If Yasmin had been compelled to make him like her simply because he had disparaged her?

Suddenly, her comment after their first kiss jumped into his mind: “You needn’t like someone to desire them.”

Lydia sighed. “I’m sorry. She’s not good for you, and you’re not good for her, but that doesn’t help when one has been rejected.”

He stood. “It’s quite all right, Lydia. If you’ll forgive me, I shall not wait for tea.”

A patter of feet followed him up the stairs. “Giles!” his sister protested.

At the top of the steps, he took a deep breath. If Yasmin didn’t want to marry him, it was hardly a reason to be uncivil to his younger sister. “Please forgive me, Lydia. I am not myself today.”

“I blame her,” Lydia said, her voice shaking. “You are never—She has hurt you!”

“Not on purpose,” he said curtly. “I am shamed by my behavior, which she had to point out, and you have affirmed. I was attempting to ignore my feelings for her. I did so in an unpleasant fashion. I caused her pain.”

“You’re better off with a different woman,” Lydia declared. “I know you don’t want to hear that, Giles, but it’s true.”

He bit back an answer that would shred her. “I criticized your behavior on the grounds it might damage your reputation,” he said instead. “That was laughable, given the damage I was doing to another woman. I apologize, Lydia.”

“You were only trying to protect me,” his sister said.

“Perhaps. I was protecting myself when I treated Yasmin as less than a lady. That was unacceptable.”

“We all make mistakes,” Lydia said. “You too, Giles. Granted, this is the first mistake that I can recall you making in the years I’ve known you.”

He frowned at her.

“You’re perfect,” Lydia said flatly. “Always perfect. It’s as if we are from different families, rather than merely different fathers. I fart, I stumble, I make an exhibition of myself. I can’t help wanting revenge even though it’s unladylike. I rather liked kissing strange men.”

“I am not perfect,” Giles stated. “I just told you—”