“We didn’t find enough objects to bother returning to Covent Garden.”

“The list was not easy,” Lydia said, clearly determined to be courteous. “Lord Pettigrew and I found only three, though we had a lovely time wandering through the market. I bought some darling buttons.”

Giles twitched, but it wasn’t the moment to mention Yasmin’s button collection. He had a strong feeling that Lydia would not welcome any signs of affinity with his future wife.

“I asked Lady Yasmin to marry me.”

Lydia gasped. “No.” Her throat began working, but no sound emerged for a long moment. Then, “I shall hate you if you do this, Giles.”

“That seems an extraordinary response,” he said, startled.

“I shall marry and go away, and never speak to you again!” Her voice choked.

“Lydia.” He moved to a chair from which he could take her hand. “I find it hard to believe that you are so deeply worried about my countess. My wife is my wife, after all. You will marry and live in another household.”

“You don’t understand!” The words burst out of her chest, and she dashed away a tear.

Giles was starting to have a very bad feeling. His sister was shaking visibly, and her eyes were bleak rather than enraged, glazed with tears. He tightened his grip on her hand. “Help me to understand.”

“Mother told me.” A sob struggled free, and she broke off. Giles fished out his handkerchief and handed it to her. “I ha-have no father,” Lydia said, blotting her eyes. “My mother, our mother, was no better than a whore.”

Bloody hell.

“Even if she made some unconventional choices, Mother deserved our respect,” Giles said, thinking frantically about the best way to respond.

“She was forced to marry our father because she was carrying you,” Lydia spat.

“I believe that may have been the case.”

“That wouldn’t be terrible, but she told me that the child might have been Father’s—or some other man’s! Doesn’t . . . ? Don’t you feel . . . ?”

She broke off again.

“I’ve never been much good at expressing feelings, Lydia. What do you feel?”

“I don’t have a family,” Lydia said brokenly. “I have a name, but it’s a fraud. You have a title, but that may be a fraud as well. Our father was a thief, and our mother . . . Well, it hardly matters, does it? I did ask her, in case you’re wondering, whether she stayed true to your father. She didn’t. She refused to tell me the name of my father, and merely said that you might be our father’s son. Or not, but either way you and I are only related through our mother.”

“I am aware.”

“Likely, they were footmen or grooms. We don’t even look alike,” Lydia said, starting to sob. “You’re my only relative, and we’re both frauds. All the time, in the seminary, I kept waiting for one of the girls to reveal it. Every minute I was wound as tightly as . . . as piano wire, waiting for the truth to come out.”