This evening, he would not ask Yasmin for a waltz. Nor on any future occasion.

It was one thing to indulge his fascination with an occasional dance. But given his certain knowledge that she had listened to blather about his family, if not shared it herself?

He and Lady Yasmin weren’t exactly friends. But he would have thought—

Anyway, he didn’t believe that Lydia would walk into the garden with a gentleman. Rumormongers always believed the worst. They jumped on the ugliest interpretation of an innocent action.

He cleared his throat. “Are you looking forward to this evening, Lydia?”

“Of course I am! The duchess has such novel ideas.” She removed the reticule tied to her wrist, pulled off her gloves, took out a talcum bottle, and began to powder her nose.

“Ought you to be wearing face powder?” Giles asked. Now that he looked closely at his sister’s face, he realized she was wearing lip color too. “Have you blackened your eyelashes?” They fringed her eyes in a startlingly sooty fashion.

Lydia flicked her brush in the air and then hooked it back on the talcum bottle and stowed it away in her reticule. “Of course.”

“Is that . . . Do debutantes paint their faces, then?”

Lydia cast him a pitying look. “I am not a debutante, Giles. I am in my second Season.” She pulled out a tiny pot and dipped her finger into the geranium-pink paint, rubbing it across her bottom lip.

Giles came to the blinding conclusion that he’d made a huge mistake. How could he have considered himself able to guide a young lady into society, sister or no? “Where did you buy those cosmetics?”

“They are sold everywhere.” She pulled her gloves back on, shaking her head at him. “I suppose you think that women such as Lady Yasmin don’t paint their faces?”

Giles studied Yasmin’s face every time they danced. Her skin was creamy and translucent, and her cheeks turned pink when she was embarrassed. Sometimes, if she was making a particularly dramatic point, she would close her eyes in exasperation. Her lashes were thick and dark brown, with golden tips. Not pitch-black, the way Lydia’s were.

“I don’t think she wears cosmetics other than on her lips.”

Lydia snorted. “Not that I’d ever want to model myself on Lady Yasmin, but of course she paints, not to mention wearing that scarlet lip color which, by the way, is a huge mistake. Given how puffy her lips are, it makes her look debauched.”

The disdain in Lydia’s voice made Giles’s jaw tighten. He may have private misgivings about Yasmin but— “Why do you speak so disparagingly of the lady?”

“I don’t say anything that isn’t repeated everywhere,” Lydia told him, wrinkling her nose. “She wouldn’t be welcome in society, except that her grandfather is foisting her on to us. I’ve heard any number of people say the same. Plus, she’s old.”

Giles caught back a snarl.

“Will you please tie my reticule back on my wrist?”