“We will return home now, Lydia,” he said with icy precision. “Please compose yourself and make yourself presentable. Your hair is untidy.”

He turned to face Edwin Turing. The light was dim, but Giles thought the young man had turned rather pale. As well he might.

“Given the sonnets addressed to Lady Yasmin that you have been publicly reciting, I assume that you had no intention of offering marriage to my sister. Unfortunately, that decision is now out of your hands.”

“I understand,” Turing said, bowing.

“As if I would accept such a nincompoop!” Lydia snapped, curling her lip.

Turing dropped his air of civility and glared at her. “I don’t care to marry someone with hair that looks like a hedgehog.”

“That’s enough!” Giles barked.

“At least I’m not as stupid as a post!” Lydia cried.

“You’re meaner than one,” Turing said.

Lydia raised her hand into the air, but Giles caught her wrist before she could strike her erstwhile suitor. The reticule she wore tied around her arm ripped down one side, its contents scattering on the carpet.

Giles kept his eyes on his sister’s face. “Lydia, I must ask you to remain silent before you further disgrace yourself.”

“I am not disgraced!” She twisted her hand free and glared at Lady Yasmin, who had bent over to gather up her cosmetics. “I’m not compromised unless she tells the world.”

“I shall tell no one.”

“Then you needn’t bother with a proposal, Turing,” Lydia said.

“You have been compromised, Lydia,” Giles said, feeling an errant thread of sympathy for his little sister, even in the midst of his anger. “The butler knew where we could find you and presumably who you were with. Mr. Turing must marry you.”

“Oh, a butler! Who cares for that!” Lydia cried.

As Lady Yasmin placed a comb and several hairpins on the chair, Lydia kicked a tiny bottle of scent so that it rolled under the sofa. “Don’t touch my things!”

Lady Yasmin put the pot of lip color on the chair and regarded Giles’s sister with a steady expression. Lydia shut her mouth and shifted her gaze away.

“Mr. Turing, perhaps you would be so kind as to escort me back to the dining room,” Lady Yasmin said, her voice as low and pleasant as ever.

He bowed hastily, sweeping a hand through his hair in an attempt to return it to the popular “frightened owl” style that he had affected earlier that evening.

“I shall expect you to pay me a morning call, Mr. Turing,” Giles said.

“No, no!” Lydia cried, her eyes widening. Apparently, she was only now starting to understand that her future had been decided. “I don’t want to marry him!”

“The feeling is mutual,” Turing said, adding with impatience, “We’re not the first or the last couple compromised, Lydia. You might as well put up with it.”

“You probably arranged for this to happen!” she retorted shrilly.

The young man stared at her. “I’d arrange to be struck down by a carriage first. I’m a gentleman, though you’ve little claim to—”