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“But she wouldn’t be lying.”

“She’s French,” Lydia said contemptuously. “No one will believe her. We can bribe the butler. Turing doesn’t want to marry me.”

Giles was so enraged that he was having trouble shaping words. One part of him thought that Lydia should suffer the consequences and marry Turing. But he didn’t like the man. He hadn’t liked him when he was babbling poems about Lady Yasmin’s eyes, and he liked him even less now.

Another part of him was struggling with guilt. Lydia had no chaperone, and that was his mistake. How had he not realized that she was exactly like their mother, consumed by anger and thoughts of revenge? Their mother had flouted every civilized rule in pursuit of what she called justice.

“Please, Giles?” Lydia clasped her hands together, tears suddenly glinting in her eyes. “I can’t marry Edwin Turing. Better men will propose to me.”

“Not if you lead them into a room and grapple with them on a sofa,” Giles stated. “No gentleman will marry you under these circumstances unless he is forced.”

“I know that!” Lydia cried. “It was just . . . boredom.”

“And revenge,” Giles added.

She nodded. “Please, please, Giles? If I promise never, ever to be alone with a man again until I’m married?”

Giles caught a glimpse of the young girl she had been in her first Season, making mistakes and suffering for them. Kisses were mistakes with more serious consequences, but they were still mistakes, not felonious sins.

“I will hire a chaperone immediately. And speak to Turing.”

“Don’t forget the butler,” Lydia said. “Oh, and that—and to Lady Yasmin. You’ll make her promise to be silent, won’t you? She’s desperate to marry you, so she’ll do whatever you say.”

Giles snorted. “No, she is not.”

“She wouldn’t help you if she wasn’t.”

“She helped me because she is kind, Lydia.” He watched his sister carefully.

Lydia’s jaw jutted out. “She helped you because she wants to be your countess, Giles. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Giles poked a last curl behind Lydia’s ear. “I shall escort you to the carriage, and then return to speak to Turing.”

“All right.” She slipped her hand into his arm. “You worry too much. I can bring Lord Pettigrew up to scratch. We’ve known each other since we were children, and I heard yesterday that he is determined to find a wife.”

“He’s a good man,” Giles said. He hesitated and added, “A decent man.”

“More to the point, he’ll be a marquess someday, and the Chichesters aren’t impoverished. He doesn’t gamble or take laudanum. If he’d just get rid of his facial hair, he’ll do. Most of all, he likes me, and he’s never said a word about Father.”

Giles nodded. The fellow had a short, pointed beard, but it wasn’t the sort of detail he cared about. Obviously, his sister did.

“I have never allowed Lord Pettigrew to even touch my hand, though we danced together any number of times last Season,” Lydia said earnestly, looking up at him. “I will behave, Giles. I promise. I just haven’t concentrated because I was enjoying the game.”

“Revenge is not a game,” he said evenly.

Lydia nodded. “The wrong game,” she amended. “Courtship is another, and I promise you, Giles, that I know how to play it.”

“Excellent.”

Giles couldn’t help wondering if he knew how to play it.

He had a sinking feeling that he did not.

Chapter Nine

The following day

12, Mayfair Place, London