They were nearing the bottom of the ballroom, so Giles drew her closer and began turning in circles. Lady Yasmin kept talking, effortlessly following his lead. “My point is that it’s natural for your sister to refuse a chaperone.”

“Why?”

Her mouth tightened. “I suppose you think I’m getting too high for my nut, Lord Lilford. But I know young women.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by a reference to your nut.” Giles took a deep breath, fighting off the fact that his cock responded to her scent as if . . . He wasn’t any good at metaphors. Perhaps all the blood in his body had drained from his head.

Lady Yasmin gave him an impish smile, and he instinctively drew her closer once again. “American slang,” she told him. “Getting too high for your nut means that you are overreaching.”

Giles cleared his throat. “The phrase applies only to male overreachers.”

“His nut,” Lady Yasmin said. “Like a—” She broke off, her brows drawing together again. “Not a reference to a squirrel hiding his treasure in a tree?”

“No,” Giles said. “I believe we’re talking about male anatomy.” Not that he had ever discussed male anatomy with a young lady before.

“Bollocks!” she said, with an enchanting giggle.

Giles swallowed hard. The woman he was holding in his arms was a lady. Her mother’s situation didn’t mean . . . Though Lady Yasmin clearly wasn’t chaste in the strictest sense . . . His thoughts fogged with a bout of pure lust.

“I find the differences between English and American usage fascinating,” Lady Yasmin said. “But I keep tripping over naughty words. English is littered with them, far more so than French.”

“Americans and British are fond of bawdy puns,” Giles agreed. The smile on her mouth made him want to bite her. Kiss her. Both. The only explanation was that he was losing his mind. It happened to men in middle age, though at thirty-two he hardly considered himself there yet.

“To return to the matter at hand, the fact that your sister doesn’t want a chaperone is proof that she needs one.”

Giles frowned. “Lydia spent three years at Mrs. Bretton’s Seminary, and Mrs. Bretton herself assured me that my sister is a pattern card of excellent behavior. In fact, she said that my sister is innately ladylike.”

“Of course she did,” Lady Yasmin murmured, rolling her eyes. “I expect your sister was a parlor boarder?”

“She was,” Giles confirmed.

“After charging you a king’s ransom, Mrs. Bretton could scarcely tell you the truth, could she? Moreover, she hopes you will place your daughters in her care, in time.”

He felt his frown turn to a scowl. “What ‘truth’ are you referring to? More gossip?”

“God forbid. You’ve made your opinion clear,” Lady Yasmin said, glancing at the orchestra. “This waltz must be almost over.”

Giles had bribed the orchestra director to play the longest waltz in their repertoire, so he ignored that observation, spinning in a few more circles so their thighs brushed together. He was cursed with a sensitive nose that sent him urgent messages about who had bathed before the ball, and who had not. Even among the washed, there were those whose perfume burned his nose, billowing like an invisible cloud around their bodies.