“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.

But I gather his most important mission was to communicate Empress Joséphine’s contemptuous congratulations.

She knew, you see. She more than knew: she planned it. She loathed my mother for seducing Napoleon, and Hippolyte was a weapon close to hand. They had been lovers, which everyone but myself knew. My ruination was the perfect revenge for an angry empress.

The two of them laughed openly about how easily I’d been seduced. I thought I outgrew the pain, but I didn’t. It affected my attitude toward intimacy. My clothing is provocative because I cannot give in to how gossips characterize me. Still, inside, I have always felt disgusted by the memory of my own behavior.

You taught me not to be ashamed, and I will always be grateful.

I don’t have much more to say than that. I wanted you to know that although I was a silly girl, I was outgunned, as they say.