The reluctant countess, p.3
The Reluctant Countess, page 3
Giles threw her a glance that said, “So?”
“I should have known that Lord Boodle was an admirer of the French,” Yasmin improvised.
“Why?”
“He named his daughter Blanche.”
“And?”
Yasmin lowered her voice. “Blanche Boodle! The girl must be desperate to marry and change her name.”
Rather surprisingly, one side of Giles’s mouth twitched, as if he contemplated a smile. “I think that is a fair observation. She is my sister’s closest friend and spent time with us last summer. Miss Boodle was disappointed not to marry in her first Season.” He cleared his throat. “I saw her dancing with Gerald Boyle earlier this evening.”
“Why don’t you smile on occasion?” Yasmin asked. “Are earls constitutionally stern or are you the exception? Blanche Boyle would be unfortunate, but Blanche Booble would be worse!”
“Not a real name,” Giles said.
“I assure you that I met a Mr. Booble just the other day. Granted, he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, and Lord Boodle has higher aspiration for his daughter.”
“You ‘met’ a grocer?”
“I did,” Yasmin said. “I wanted to buy fresh strawberries, so I went to Covent Garden. It’s one of my favorite places in London.”
Giles’s brows drew together.
“You have visited the market, haven’t you?” Yasmin asked.
“Never. I hope you did not make this excursion unaccompanied?”
“For goodness’ sake, it’s a daily market, not a rookery! The worst that could happen is that I’d be pickpocketed. Since I am accompanied by a footman, I needn’t worry about someone cutting my reticule strings. I find it one of the most fascinating places in London. Truly, you must pay it a visit.”
She almost offered to accompany him to the market . . . and rethought it. Giles wouldn’t even dance with her twice; he certainly wouldn’t wish to be seen at an open-air market so far beneath him that he’d apparently never descended from his carriage to explore it.
More importantly, she was determined to stifle the irrational impulses she had to make his expressionless eyes light up with interest or humor.
The earl had turned away and was peering over the stone walls, as if Lydia might be hiding in a quadrangle. Each grass oblong held two rows of stone posts topped with marble pineapples. Singularly unattractive to Yasmin’s mind—if rather funny.
He turned. “Why are you laughing?”
“Those dreadful pedestals,” she said, chortling.
A row of stone pillars set on square pediments rose into the air just high enough so their bulbous pineapple finials showed above the garden walls. But if someone glanced over the wall and viewed pillars from the ground up . . .
Giles made a humming sound, and the edge of his mouth twitched again. A belly laugh in another man, one had to presume.
“Once seen, you’ll never unsee,” Yasmin said. “No matter how much you might wish to. It casts a dubious light on our host’s notion of elegance, don’t you think?”
“His grandfather’s notion, I would think. It took time to scour stone pineapples to that smoothness.”
“But just imagine when they were new,” Yasmin said. “Most of them have lost the flourish of leaves on top, but if you consider that one, closest to the wall . . .”
“In medias res, as it were.”
“My education is inadequate as regards Latin,” Yasmin told him. “What does that mean?”
“In the midst,” Giles said. He hesitated, then elaborated. “In mideruption, in this case.”
Yasmin laughed. “I like you so much better when you aren’t imitating a Quaker. Look, your lips are actually curling upward.”
Unfortunately, that comment turned him back to a block of wood.
“Shall we continue, Lady Yasmin?”
“There it went,” she said with exaggerated mournfulness. “No more of this phallic foolishness. All hail the moment of joy, for it hath met its demise.”
“‘Hath met its demise’?” he repeated.
“I was caught in an extraordinarily long church service last week so I amused myself by memorizing bits from The Book of Common Prayer. Very good for my English, if a trifle antiquated.” Yasmin reluctantly began walking again. “We ought to return. I don’t want to turn the corner and be out of sight of the terrace.”
“You were certain that my sister had entered the garden with Lord Pepper. We should follow the path to its end.”
“Not unless you want everyone in that ballroom to be gossiping about us.” She caught sight of Giles’s instinctive flinch. Instinctive. He must positively loathe her to have that reaction without thinking.
Enough was enough. Later, she ought to give serious thought to why she always waltzed with a man who disliked her. Despised her, even.
After all, she had plans for this Season: she meant to find a husband.
A kind and charming Englishman, preferably one who had reached forty years of age, when the blood didn’t run so quickly. A man who would show her respect and give her children, without making false promises. A man generous in spirit to whom she could confide her scandalous past. He would understand rather than condemn.
Even contemplating how Giles would respond to her story made her instinctively flinch, just the way he had after the suggestion that people might gossip about the two of them.
“It’s growing cold,” Yasmin said, turning around. “I’m wearing fewer layers than you are, and my next dance partner will be looking for me.”
He began to remove his coat.
Yasmin raised a hand. “Don’t—”
She changed her mind as the earl’s broad shoulders emerged, clad in linen so fine that she could see the contours of his chest. His muscled chest. “On second thought, I am chilled.”
Even his shoulders had pads of muscles on them. It was something of a revelation. Most of her suitors had slim silhouettes. Even Hippolyte—with the ease of long practice, she dismissed that thought.
Giles shook out his coat and wrapped it around her. Unlike ladies—such as his sister—who piled all their hair on top of their head in a big puff, Yasmin let a few strands fall over one shoulder. Her curls bunched against the collar of his coat, and he carefully drew them free.
In another man, it would have been a tender gesture, but Giles’s expression was verging on a glare. There was no rational reason to be so attracted to him, and yet his chilly gaze felt like a caress, and the touch of his fingers on her neck made her shiver.
What she needed was an older, cuddly version of Giles. “Cuddly” was a new-to-her English word, one that summed up so much, to Yasmin’s mind: it meant to hug or embrace, but also to be comfortable with.
Their silence was growing embarrassing. “You show to advantage without a coat,” Yasmin said. “Do you box?”
“Yes,” Giles stated.
A raindrop splashed on her cheek, and he reached out and brushed it away. Their eyes caught.
“You’re right. We should return,” he said, looking back at the mansion. The ladies had retreated inside. “Even if my sister had been imprudent enough to venture into the garden, she hates discomfort. Lydia would never play the coquette in this weather.”
“All right,” Yasmin said. She felt a bit shaken, unable to come up with another playful comment, her stock-in-trade. There was something about Giles’s uncompromising gaze that made it difficult to flirt with him.
Before she could move, his hands closed on her shoulders. Yasmin’s eyes widened at the sensual intent in his eyes, but she didn’t stop him when he slowly drew her closer, or when he leaned down, and his mouth touched hers. Their lips met and clung. He didn’t press her, and she didn’t open her mouth.
The man had no warmth in him and yet a brush of his lips sent heat racing down her limbs. One kiss ended and another began. Yasmin swayed toward him as his lips met hers in yet another chaste kiss that sent pure lust quivering through her body.
“You are so—” His voice broke off, but that raw, abandoned tone spoke for itself.
Yasmin felt dazed, her heart beating too fast, her mind unable to keep up, but one thing was clear: she didn’t want to feel like this. She wanted nothing to do with kisses that made a woman dizzy. She’d experienced those before and still had the scars. Lust led to horrendous decisions.
The earl pulled back and dropped his arms from around her. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
He was back to the clipped, aristocratic tones of an earl. His gaze was remote, with all the warmth that he might show a parlor maid. A misbehaving parlor maid, given his hardened jaw.
Even though Yasmin agreed, she felt a flash of anger. “Because you don’t like me?” she asked, the question slipping from her lips before she thought better of it.
His lips tightened. Silence answered her.
The blow felt almost physical, which was so stupid. She’d known that truth for months, after all. “True, you don’t have to like someone to desire them,” Yasmin supplied for him, slipping off his coat and pushing it into his hands.
She walked quickly back, ignoring the silent man pacing at her side. She was battling with shame. How stupid could she be?
So many men had tried to seduce her, yet after her experience with Hippolyte, she had easily refused them. That was her secret defense when English ladies sneered at her: she had nothing to be ashamed of. Their husbands, brothers, and sons may desire her, but she never returned the compliment.
Yet Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford, hadn’t even bothered to flatter her. Presumably, he couldn’t think of anything complimentary to say. She tried to imagine him praising her: “You are so . . .” what?
So frivolous. So loose. So beneath him.
The words beat through her head in a pitiful melody that made her irritated with herself. And with him, that stupid man who thought she wasn’t good enough for a second waltz but kissed her when no one was watching.
They walked silently through the drawing room. When they reached the ballroom doors, Lydia’s yellow topknot was instantly visible.
“My sister is waltzing with Pepper a second time,” Giles observed blandly as if nothing had happened between them.
Lydia’s cheeks were pink and her eyes shining, though it was a question how her brother would interpret her expression. Presumably, he was aware that it was improper for a young lady to waltz twice with the same gentleman. One might accept two invitations to dance, but two waltzes?
To Yasmin’s mind, Lydia was positively begging to be labeled “brazen,” if not worse. Yet, the last thing either sibling wanted was her opinion. Clearly.
“Good evening, Your Grace.”
She turned away and curtsied in front of her waiting dance partner, London’s most eligible bachelor, Silvester Parnell, Duke of Huntington. He wasn’t precisely cuddly, but at least he didn’t look at her with icy dislike.
The duke bowed. “Good evening, Lady Yasmin. Chilled to the bone?” he asked as they slipped onto the dance floor, joining the waltzing couples.
“Are my gloves very cold?” Yasmin asked. “I’ve been outdoors and it’s beginning to rain.”
“Not the weather,” Parnell said. “The earl. Lilford.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Chilly bugger, isn’t he? Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have used that word in front of a lady.” His eyes laughed at her.
Yasmin let his cheerfulness replace the sick feeling in her chest. This duke liked her as she was. “Bollocks!” she said, grinning back at him. “You don’t care for the earl?”
“We were at school together, but he decided early on that I was a frivolous excuse for a man and not worth his time.”
A shared confession felt soothing. “Alas, the earl has a similarly low opinion of me.”
“More the fool he,” the duke said, twirling her in a circle.
“No flirtatious comments,” she ordered, letting her smile fall. “I like you too much for that.”
“I am not fool enough to join the parade of besotted men at your heels. Of whom, I might add, the Earl of Lilford is definitely one. I’ve caught him more than once standing at the edge of the ballroom, staring at you like a mooncalf.”
“Nonsense. Lord Lilford was preparing his next insult.” Yasmin had no intention of discussing Giles with anyone, let alone one of her suitors.
“It’s irresistible, given how you look in that gown.”
“Enough,” Yasmin ordered. “I’m sick to death of flattery.” Silvester Parnell was fast becoming one of her closest friends—but only as long as the duke avoided the kind of flummery that made her uncomfortable.
“It’s irresistible to tease you.”
She frowned.
“Anyone who watches you closely will notice that you are a flirtatious minx in public and prudish in private. Most of my fellows haven’t noticed because they’re imbeciles in public and private.”
“Do not watch me closely,” Yasmin ordered.
“Do not watch me closely, Silvester?” he amended.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Very well.”
Silvester’s grin was charming; he was intelligent, fairly handsome, titled. Giles didn’t have his charm, so why was she still thinking about his kisses? It was absurd. Obviously, she should marry the friendly duke, who liked her, and laughed at her jokes.
If her grandfather had attended this ball, His Grace would be nodding with approval from the sidelines.
Her grandfather was under the fixed conviction that the only way to heal the shame Yasmin’s mother had brought upon the family was for her daughter to marry a highly respected peer. “If only Mabel had chosen to engage in garden-variety adultery,” he had told Yasmin a few days ago, “no one would give a damn. But no. She had to sleep with an emperor!”
Yasmin reserved judgment about adultery; it seemed to her that malicious gossip circulated widely, no matter the indiscretion.
Still, according to her grandfather, marriage to a duke would remedy the family disgrace.
Yasmin had the distinct sense that Silvester—for all his claim not to be one of her suitors—was a purposeful man. In the past three weeks, he had danced with her, plied her with champagne, and told her stories of his family.
One of these days he would pull out an heirloom ring, likely a rock as big as one of his knuckles.
And then what would she do?
Chapter Four
Breakfast the following day
82, Stratton Street, London
The Duke of Portbellow’s townhouse
As a little girl, Yasmin and her nanny used to visit her mother every morning promptly at eleven a.m. Her mother would be half-buried in rosy satin pillows, a matching eye shield pushed to her forehead and a band of satin snugly wound around her chin in an effort to combat much-dreaded jowls.
It wasn’t until Yasmin was older that she understood that her mother’s grogginess was due to the soothing drops she took in her morning chocolate. She would languidly touch Yasmin’s cheek. “You are pure sunshine, chérie,” she would murmur. “You have a beautiful smile. Your teeth shine so. Always smile, even when the world frowns at you.”
Yasmin learned to brush her teeth without complaint, and to smile even when French ladies sniggered. People didn’t know what to make of Yasmin’s smile. It made them uncomfortable that she wielded happiness like armor.
But this morning she was having trouble summoning even a grimace. She had woken with the conviction that it was time she found a husband whose respectful manners would dispel her grim memories of Hippolyte Charles and his stupid long whiskers.
Someone in whom she could confide her past, without fear of contempt.
Someone who would make her forget all about Giles.
Her grandfather, the Duke of Portbellow, was seated opposite her at the breakfast table, attired in the grand style of his youth. He had once told her that a gentleman without a wig was no better than a crusader without a helmet. And a gentleman without lace at the wrists?
No better than a chimney sweep, in His Grace’s opinion.
His wig was white, his morning coat was black, and the white flounces covering his hands were fashioned from lace as delicate as cobwebs. A footman stood behind him, painstakingly applying butter to toasted bread.
“You seem tired, Granddaughter,” the duke observed.
When she first arrived in England in February of last year, Yasmin had been certain he disliked her: certainly, His Grace despised the sensuality of her dress and the pleasure she took in frivolous subjects. Unlike her mother, the duke didn’t care for her smile and told her that if he wanted to see so many teeth, he would tame a lion. “I have it on the best authority that they smile just before they eat you,” he had told her.
But when one Season, followed by a tranquil summer, turned into a second Season, she decided that the duke rather liked her. In fact, her grandfather might be lonely if she returned to France, not that she had any such intention. Her mother had retired to Provence a few years ago, before Napoleon’s first exile, and neither the duc nor duchesse had evidenced a wish for their daughter’s return.
“You’re not smiling,” her grandfather said now, revealing a rarely attempted ability to assess another person’s emotional state.
“’Twas a long night,” Yasmin said, accepting a plate containing a preparation of eggs done four ways.
“You could eschew the Duke of Trent’s ball tonight. Inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream indeed! Only an American would think that amusing,” His Grace said. He raised a finger, and a footman sprang from the wall. “Bring my granddaughter a portion of haddock. Your grandmother believed that young women,” he said to Yasmin, “require fish on a regular basis.” He raised the finger again. “And a small mug of beer. Good for a nursing woman.”
“I’m not nursing!” Yasmin was startled into saying.
The duke would never be so inelegant as to shrug, but he ignored her. “Beer,” he commanded. A footman scurried out the door.
“I am looking forward to the Trent ball tonight. I have a new gown, and moreover, I am very fond of Merry. She and Cleo are my closest friends,” Yasmin said, poking at the haddock that appeared before her.
