His fiancée was so damned beautiful that for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Her hair darkened to the color of aged amber in the candlelight, and her eyes danced with happiness. Presumably, to see him.

That was a first. His mistresses never shone with pleasure at his presence. They were good women, kind women, but he had never encouraged friendship. Somehow Yasmin was breaking down his reserve.

“I’ve missed you,” he said under his breath.

She twinkled at him. “I hope your sister is enjoying all the excitement attached to her betrothal? Is everything going well?”

Yasmin would be his wife. He could be honest. “Luckily, the Pettigrews don’t seem to register Lydia’s critiques,” he said, choosing his words carefully.

“How fortunate,” Yasmin said. “Some people never do notice criticism. As opposed to those of us who are overly sensitive to slights.”

“You?”

Her mouth twisted. “I’d love to say that I wasn’t, but I am.”

“Yet you act as if they don’t matter.”

“Some things truly don’t bother me much, as when a lady gives me the cut direct, or a gentleman ogles me.” She gave him a swift elbow. “I was very bothered when a gloomy earl curled his lip at me.”

He looked at her smiling face. “Why did you have anything to do with me if that is how you felt?”

“I couldn’t look away from you.” Her smile was impish.

Giles stared at the curve of her delicate earlobe for a moment. He wanted to kiss it. Nip it. “What do you mean, you couldn’t look away from me?”

“Just that. At first, I considered you to be the sum total of all the people who have despised me.”

He felt sick and must have looked it because a small hand locked around his again.

“Not like that! I mean that I tried hard to tell myself that other people’s opinions don’t matter. And yet I failed to convince myself with regard to you. There you were, scowling at me from the margins of the ballroom, and still I saved the first waltz for you week after week. I couldn’t stop myself.”

Giles smiled ruefully. “I was the same. I was looking for a wife to placate ancestors who’ve been dead for years, but I couldn’t stay away from you.” His muscles tensed from the effort to stop himself from gathering her into his arms.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said in a low voice.

“I’m incapable of looking at you in any other way.”

Her eyelashes flickered, and then she wrapped her arms around her middle and let out a low moan. The table went silent.

“Something is wrong,” Yasmin said plaintively. She sounded as fragile and pained as a bird with a broken wing, though her eyes glinted with laughter under her lashes. “I feel ill. I believe it was the chicken. Did it look pink to anyone else? Perhaps it was the white sauce.”

A woman opposite dropped her fork.