Moreover, after a second dance with Viscount Templeton, they sat at the side of the ballroom and discovered that they both disliked hunting, long sermons, and Gunter’s lavender ice cream.

“Yours, if you want him,” Merry whispered after the viscount reluctantly left to dance with another lady. “I like being a noblewoman, by the way. I oughtn’t to say that, as an American, but I do.” As Silvester emerged from the crowd, she added mischievously, “We could be the most fashionable duchesses in London.”

Yasmin rolled her eyes and allowed Silvester to draw her into a waltz. After their second dance, a somewhat boisterous quadrille, he tucked her beside him on a snug sofa.

“Where’s your most devoted swain, the Earl of Lilford?” Silvester asked now.

“Swain?” Yasmin asked, frowning.

“Suitor. Lover. Wooer.”

She tucked the new word away in her memory. “Lord Lilford dances with me out of courtesy.”

“The man has been asking you for the first waltz all Season. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed, because you always save it for him.” Silvester picked up her dance card. “Dear me. Perhaps there’s a chance for me, after all. It seems Viscount Templeton had the pleasure of your first waltz tonight.”

“You didn’t request that waltz.”

“I assumed you were saving it for Lilford. I would have preferred the supper dance, but you had already given it to your grandfather. In case you’d like to start saving a dance for me every night, I choose supper.”

Yasmin smiled. “I like my grandfather, and I enjoy dining with him.”

“Then you’ll be glad to know that your grandfather was one of my grandfather’s close friends. Gramps was not what you’d call an ordinary peer, but your grandfather liked him anyway.”

Silvester waved her dance card in the air. “Even if you don’t marry me, you shouldn’t dance with Edwin Turing, darling—” He bit off the endearment when she frowned at him. “Why do you hate that word so much?”

“I dislike empty endearments in general,” Yasmin said, accepting a glass of champagne from a passing footman. Generally, she didn’t drink much wine—though she loved a sip of brandy—but she was feeling oddly melancholy not to have a waltz and a squabble with Giles to look forward to. It made the evening ahead feel long and dull.

After what Giles said about her—what he thought about her—they should never dance together again. Nor kiss, obviously. She had stayed up half the night rehearsing the moment when she would carelessly inform him that she hadn’t saved the first waltz.

It had been ferociously disappointing when he didn’t ask for it.

“Edwin Turing is a loose fish,” Silvester stated.

“I’m surprised to hear that,” Yasmin said. Her grandfather had unceremoniously refused Turing’s proposal of marriage, telling her that the man had neither the requisite money nor status. But he hadn’t mentioned moral failings.

“I know Turing has written a sonnet or two to your eyes, but setting aside his public adoration for you, he’s a voluptuary. He practiced his seductive wiles on one of my sisters, but she unceremoniously gave him a clout on the cheek.”