The butler’s narrow mouth closed. He hadn’t had any idea.

“Lady Yasmin is as vulnerable as any of those ladies. You offer her a tremendous insult.”

“I had no intention of offending Her Ladyship,” the butler said with a gulp. “Please accept my sincere apologies.”

Yasmin was torn between pleasure that Giles was defending her, and surprise that he considered her Silvester’s future bride. No wonder he had declared they shouldn’t have kissed.

“We can do without a maid,” she said. “Your name is Wickford, isn’t it? Never mind, Wickford. I realize that you are in a difficult spot. The earl and I will contrive to engage in the hunt without improprieties.”

“No, no,” Wickford said, stammering.

“Now you offer me an insult,” Giles said unpleasantly.

Wickford bowed so low that he folded in half like a sheet of parchment.

“That was not an insult,” Yasmin said to Giles. “The truth is that I am perfectly capable of defending myself, whereas a younger woman may not be.”

Giles did not reply, but he took her shawl away from Wickford and helped her put it on. “Is this all you have to wear?”

“It’s a warm spring day,” Yasmin said, looping the shawl around her shoulders in an elegant fashion that allowed the ends to drape almost to her knees.

“Please tell me if you feel a chill.”

Yasmin looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Much though I enjoyed the moment when you removed your coat, Lord Lilford, I hardly think that the weather will have changed to that extent.”

She caught sight of the butler’s expression—no longer apologetic but smirking—and sighed inwardly. Another nail in the coffin of her reputation.

He would spread it far and wide that Yasmin had watched Giles undress.

Chapter Ten

Once in a hackney, they sat quietly until Yasmin couldn’t take it any longer. She was not silent by nature.

“This will be a new experience for you. Didn’t you tell me that you had never walked through Covent Market?”

“I have not,” Giles said. He hesitated. “I apologize for the insult offered to you by that butler. I shall speak to the duke and have him turned away.”

“Oh, I expect you frightened Wickford into future politeness,” Yasmin said lightly. “I should clarify, though, that the Duke of Huntington has not proposed marriage, and if I read his mother’s intentions correctly, she would prefer that Lady Stella have that honor.”

They lapsed into silence again. Yasmin spent the time reminding herself that she planned to have nothing to do with Giles. She had been spinning fantasies about him, but none of them could come true. He was a hollow man, cold to the bone.

Silvester, on the other hand, was charming and warm. Almost cuddly. Perhaps she would marry Silvester, just as Giles apparently thought she should. Or Viscount Templeton, who unfortunately had not been invited to the scavenger hunt.

They were drawing up to the market when Giles cleared his throat and said, “The Duke of Huntington will propose to you within a week or two. I’ve known him my entire life. He pretends to be frivolous, but he isn’t. When he makes up his mind, he doesn’t stop until he succeeds.”