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“Your Majesty, his name is Hippolyte Charles,” Yasmin said.

“Well, get rid of him,” the Regent cried, waving his hands at the footmen. “Hideous mustaches, hideous. I’m sure you can do much better.” His smirk was a masterful invitation.

“Thank you,” Yasmin said. She felt as if she had turned to ice.

Her grandfather took her arm. “Would you like to leave, my dear?”

“No,” she said calmly. Her eyes met Giles.

He bowed. “Lady Yasmin, may I request the honor of your hand in this waltz?”

Her throat closed, and she couldn’t answer, but she took his hand. Head high, she allowed Giles to sweep her into the waltz.

She only stumbled once, on meeting Lord Wade’s gleaming eyes. He looked like a vulture, waiting to swoop down on carrion. She was the carrion: ruined now that English gentlepersons had encountered her past. Vague gossip was one thing, but now they knew she was no lady. She had been ruined since the age of sixteen.

After a few minutes of dead silence, Giles cleared his throat and said, “Would you like me to kill him?”

“What?”

“I could challenge Charles to a duel,” Giles said. “He wouldn’t put up much of a fight.”

“No!”

“I thought you’d say that.”

Yasmin struggled to come up with something to say. “If I had been carrying a child, my father intended to force Hippolyte to marry me and then stab him directly afterward.”

“Had you been my daughter, I would have done that whether a child was involved or not,” Giles said, his voice perfectly even.

“Yes, well, my father is . . . didn’t see it that way.”

“Are you still planning to retire to the country tomorrow?”

Yasmin gave him an incredulous look. “Yes!” She was trying to decide how many dances she had to endure in order to make it clear that she wasn’t running away.

Before she could run away.

And perhaps never return.

His jaw flexed. “Am I to understand that you don’t wish me to visit?”

“Why would you?”

“That is petty and unworthy of you.”

Yasmin took a sharp breath. “You’re right. I’m being childish. Yet there’s no need for a lengthy discussion. I have moved from being scandalous to being a fallen woman, in the Biblical parlance. The Countess of Lilford can perhaps have a marred reputation, but she cannot be a trollop.”

“Please do not use that word in relation to yourself. May I pay you a visit tonight?”

“No, oh, God, no,” Yasmin cried, the raw note in her voice surprising herself. “Please, Giles. I want to go home and leave for the country tomorrow without another scene. Please. I’m begging you.”

“You may be carrying our child.”

Yasmin gasped, but thankfully, the music was loud enough to prevent eavesdropping. “As I told you, we are not a fertile family,” she said in a low voice. “My mother managed it only once, as did my grandmother. In that unlikely event, I will certainly let you know. I will send a letter.”

Giles’s brows were drawn together, his mouth tight, but the waltz ended.

Jake Addison stepped forward. “My dance, I believe.”