“So do I,” Giles said, wrapping his arms around her. “So we’ll have a secret betrothal. It sounds like an old-fashioned play, like A Man of Mode.”

Yasmin came up on her toes and brushed a kiss on his lips. “No courting me in public.”

“I will agree as long as you allow me to pay you private visits. I can’t stay away from you, Yasmin. I might challenge Silvester to a duel merely for touching your hand.”

“I can’t believe you’re so worried about losing me!”

“I know loss,” Giles said, his expression bleak. “My father was there one day, gone the next. My mother was ranting about a judge at breakfast, dead by dinner.” His arms tightened around her.

“I’m sorry,” Yasmin whispered. She reached up to put a kiss on his lips, which led to another round of kissing that didn’t end for long moments. “Oh, my goodness,” she gasped.

“I shall pay you a visit every evening, if I don’t see you during the day,” Giles decreed, his jaw set.

“Only if my grandfather agrees.”

“Your grandfather allowed me to carry you into your bedchamber,” Giles pointed out. “He didn’t challenge me to a duel when his butler informed him of the locked drawing room door. Your grandfather wants me to marry you.”

“True.” Yasmin leaned into him, loving the warm strength of his body. She barely stopped her hand from dropping from his chest to below his waist. Just . . . just to feel.

She sprang away, startled by the sweet ache she felt between her legs.

“You’ll have to learn to ignore it,” Giles said ruefully, one side of his mouth hitching up.

Yasmin felt heat spilling into her cheeks, but she didn’t know what to say.

He leaned in and took one more kiss. “Tomorrow.”

Chapter Twenty

The following afternoon, Yasmin walked into a tea party only to discover that her fiancé had accompanied his sister there.

Not that anyone would guess they were betrothed.

Giles bowed stiffly before her, intoning, “Lady Yasmin.” He promptly turned about and sat beside his sister. For her part, Lydia threw Yasmin a triumphant look, and it took all of Yasmin’s inner strength to curve her lips into a gracious smile.

An hour or so later, when she walked upstairs to visit the ladies’ withdrawing room, feeling forlorn and a bit lonely, she saw her fiancé. “Saw” wasn’t the right word. Giles came up the stairs behind her, his legs eating up the steps.

His expression had changed from austere to hungry.

“Oh,” Yasmin breathed.

He backed her into someone’s bedchamber and shut the door smartly behind them. “Giles!”

“No talking,” he growled. “May I kiss you?”

“Always,” she gasped, her heart speeding up.

He spun her against the door, his mouth descending on her parted lips in a feverish kiss that sent heat coursing through her body.

She pushed back his coat so that she could spread her hands over his chest, her fingers stroking slabs of muscle barely disguised by a linen shirt.