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The Prince Regent’s Reception

Carlton House

Thankfully, Yasmin did not have to wear hoops to Carlton House, as she would if she attended one of the queen’s drawing rooms. Instead, she put on a favorite gown she had last worn at the French court, cream colored with magnificent gold trim and a high-standing Medici collar, adorned by the Portbellow diamonds.

Her grandfather looked every inch a duke in a dark violet coat studded with emeralds, his wide cuffs thick with embroidery.

“We shall be the most elegant personages in the room,” he observed with satisfaction. “I gather from my correspondence that Lord Pettigrew will introduce his fiancée to the Regent this evening. Let’s hope the sour-faced puss hasn’t learned that you left the ball with her brother last night.”

“We must remain far away from her,” Yasmin said, taking his arm.

He patted her hand. “Away from your fiancé too, I suspect?”

Yasmin swallowed a lump in her throat. Her grandfather had easily agreed over breakfast to eschew the rest of the Season and retire to the country. He truly cared for her. “I think it would be best.”

“The two of you are like a Shakespeare play,” His Grace observed. “Beatrice and Benedict, wasn’t it? The couple who fought so much?”

Yasmin smiled wryly. “My English isn’t good enough for Shakespeare. We are certainly not Romeo and Juliet.”

“Pooh!” the duke retorted. “Those two young fools didn’t love each other. When your grandmother died, did I contemplate suicide? Absolutely not!”

“Yet you loved her, didn’t you?” Yasmin asked.

“Exactly why I wouldn’t follow her,” he said gruffly. “If I had drunk poison, who would keep her memory alive? Your mother has never shown much interest in either of us. I had to stay in this world or you, for one, would have known nothing of your own grandmother.”

Yasmin rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I shall always remember you, Grandfather. I wish I’d known the duchess as well.”

“Yes, well,” His Grace said. “No need to mourn my death yet. Once you marry that irascible earl of yours, you’ll need me to keep the peace.”

“We will always need you,” Yasmin promised. “If I marry the earl.”

“Pooh!” her grandfather said, chuckling. “The two of you blaze like the sun at high noon, but you’ll be true to one another. He loves you. I can see it in his eyes.”

Yasmin’s heart thumped. “He doesn’t show it.”

The duke laughed. “Yes, he does!”

Carlton House, home to the Prince Regent, did not compare to Versailles, but it was lavishly elegant in an English fashion. The Prince Regent had positioned himself in the spacious entry, greeting guests before dispatching them to the ballroom on the floor above. To either side of him, a double marble staircase turned this way and that, twisting around a glittering chandelier that hung from the pale green ceiling far above.

Yasmin had been unable to summon up much excitement about meeting a member of the British royal family, and meeting the Prince of Wales didn’t change her mind. The Regent’s bosom was as large as hers, and his cheeks were veined and red. He leaned in until she could smell brandy on his breath and informed her that he adored Frenchwomen.

“Made his admiration clear, didn’t he?” her grandfather said after they murmured farewell and started up one of the flights of stairs. “I reckon you could outdo your mother and take a future king rather than a mere emperor, if you wished.”

“Grandfather!”

“A joke in poor taste. I apologize, my dear. The Regent’s a lustful fellow but easily as tiresome as Napoleon. You don’t want him.”

“For many reasons,” Yasmin observed.

“There’s a beautiful library here,” her grandfather told her, escorting her up the steps. “Not that Prinny uses it much. I hear that he had that lady novelist, Jane Otter, to visit.”

“Jane Austen,” Yasmin corrected him. She felt wretchedly nervous about seeing Giles. To her dismay, the ballroom was crowded, but not so much that she didn’t instantly register the earl and Lydia on the other side of the chamber.

“Come along, Granddaughter,” the duke said, marching toward them.

“We were going to avoid Lydia!” Yasmin hissed.

“That was your suggestion, not mine. A future countess does not scurry around corners to avoid a bad-tempered lass, not to mention her irritable brother.”