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She crushed the letter into her pocket. “Your correspondence!” she cried, tripping into the study where Giles was working.

She watched as he looked rapidly through the mail and then set the bundle to the side. He was looking for a letter from Yasmin, she realized, with a sick feeling. Her brother turned back to his work without saying a word.

“Did you hear about the house party being thrown by the Duke and Duchess of Trent?” Lydia asked gaily, leaning against his desk.

“We cannot leave London, Lydia. I am needed here. Moreover, your wedding rapidly approaches.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that! For one thing, I haven’t been invited.”

“I have,” her brother remarked, still not looking up from the letter he was writing.

Lydia leaned over suspiciously, but saw it was addressed to some lord or other.

“I wouldn’t want to go,” she said, keeping her voice sprightly. “I hear that all sorts of scandalous activities are going on. Birds of Paradise and opera singers.”

Giles carefully put his quill back in the stand. “Lydia, you are a grown woman who is going to be married. You have to stop lying.” His eyes were hard as stones.

Heat surged into Lydia’s cheeks. “I’m not lying! People are chattering about the party.”

“Whether Blanche is chattering or not, you know what she is saying isn’t true, so do not repeat it.”

Lydia straightened abruptly. “It’s nice to know that my elder brother has no faith in me!”

Giles looked up again. “Faith has to be earned, Lydia. I gather that you dislike the duchess, but repeating unpleasant gossip about one of the leaders of society only harms you. If she learns of it, she will never invite you or Lord Pettigrew to future events, let alone one of her house parties.”

“I don’t dislike the American duchess.” Lydia was conscious of a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps a touch of guilt. “In fact, Lord Pettigrew offered her husband one of his puppies.”

“In that case, I assume that you made up a story about Her Grace’s party in order to tarnish the reputation of her close friend Lady Yasmin.”

“I didn’t make it up!”

But she had.

Still, all was fair when it came to protecting one’s buffleheaded brother, surely? Giles the Guileless, unable to recognize the machinations of a designing woman. Just look at how trusting he had been as Lydia’s chaperone. She could do—and had done—precisely as she wished.

Giles flicked a glance at her, and Lydia saw very clearly that her brother didn’t believe her, which hurt. Though she deserved it.

Fine.

Yasmin’s name wouldn’t cross her lips again, but she wouldn’t merely give in and leave her brother to a sorry fate either.

“Good afternoon,” she said, turning around.

She hunted down their butler in his pantry, polishing some silver. “Duckworthy, from now on, please deliver all the mail to me first. My brother tells me that several letters addressed to me have ended up on his desk.”

“Aye, my lady,” the butler said with complete indifference.

Another week

Dear Giles,

You haven’t answered my letter . . . Perhaps foolishly, I am hoping that we can still be friends. I intend to return to society, you see, and brave it out. I have experience in that. You didn’t ask, but I find I would like to tell you about Hippolyte.

Monsieur Charles was so dashing to a silly sixteen-year-old. Most people in the court ignored me, since my mother was engaged in an affaire with Napoleon; Empress Joséphine was livid. It made Hippolyte’s attentions all the more potent.

I was as stupid as you can imagine, treasuring every whispered compliment and clandestine letter. I foolishly accepted his assurances that he could not court me openly, or even dance with me, because of my mother, or so he said.

After a few months, he lured me into an elopement, arranging for a ceremony with a false priest. He kept me in a cottage for a week before laughingly telling my parents what he had done. He offered to marry me if they gave him an estate.