She whimpered in protest as he staggered back, panting. It was wrong, she knew it was wrong. But she’d give up her hope of heaven to have that large male hand touch her breast again.
Serena’s gaze dropped. She blushed and looked up in a hurry. His breeches did little to hide his excitement. That kiss had tested his control, as well as hers.
She gulped in a ragged breath, hoping it would calm her rioting pulse. It didn’t.
Her chastity had never been an onerous burden. She’d known that one day she’d surrender her virginity to Paul Garside in the sanctified space of a marriage bed. Stupidly, she’d never much considered the actual act.
Now, staring into Giles Farraday’s glittering dark eyes, she realized that despite her girlish adoration, she’d never hungered for Paul. But dear Lord above, how she hungered for Giles. For his kisses. For his teasing which made her feel they shared a joke nobody else got. For, heaven forgive her, lying beside him with no barriers between them, not even clothing. For that long, powerful body to pound into her.
Giles sucked in an audible, shuddering breath. Heavy eyelids lowered over his eyes, the thick, black eyelashes sweeping down. These details of his appearance enthralled her. This Christmas, she’d noticed so many small beauties that once she’d been blind to.
Paul was like the sun, his light eclipsing all other satellites. Except Serena now admitted that Giles Farraday was nobody’s satellite. His attractions were subtle, almost self-effacing—and all the more powerful for that.
Her wondering gaze traced his face. The raw bone structure, the expressive lips, the uneven line of his nose that conveyed more character than any perfect profile could. The thick eyebrows that expressed a universe of reaction with the smallest twitch. The dark eyes that saw so much.
Too much.
Before she could censor herself, she spoke. “You know, I meant it last night—you really are handsome. No wonder the London ladies are mad for you.”
His smile was lopsided. “I doubt they want me for my pretty face.”
“Then what…” Her voice faded, and heat prickled her cheeks.
With a grunt of laughter, he took her hand and drew her toward the bench. “That answer’s beyond the scope of this instruction. After all, I don’t want to end up facing either Paul or Frederick down the barrel of a dueling pistol.”
Something unhappy crossed his face as they sat, although he sounded just as he always did. Sardonic. Amused. Detached.
Giles hadn’t kissed her with detachment. However inexperienced she was, she knew that. Although perhaps she should arrange for him to kiss her until Twelfth night, just to make sure.
The droll fancy withered as she recalled that Paul intended to propose on Boxing Day.
That prospect really shouldn’t make her heart sink.
She’d marry Paul Garside, and Giles would go on to share his secrets—and his kisses—with some other lucky girl. It appalled her quite how much she wanted to rip out that unknown female’s hair by the roots. And she’d like to do the same to all his London ladies, too.
“Stop talking.” Her hand tightened on his, and she turned toward him. “I came here to learn how to kiss.”
Serena couldn’t blame him for looking startled. She sounded close to losing her temper. Whereas instead, she was close to losing her mind.
“You don’t need more lessons. You graduated with honors.”
Hurt stabbed her. While this was a game for him—and supposedly for her—she hadn’t expected him to tire of her so quickly. “Don’t you want to kiss me again?”
With a hunted expression, he ran one elegant hand through his thick, dark hair, leaving it beguilingly disheveled. “It wouldn’t be wise.”
“We’ve only just arrived.” For pity’s sake, could she sound any more like a whiney child, denied a treat? “You can’t send me away yet.”
“Serena…” He paused. “Who the devil decided to call you Serena? I can’t think of a less appropriate name.”
“My father did. Don’t change the subject. Why are you being difficult?”
His expression turned austere. “I don’t trust myself to kiss you again.”
Relief flooded her. “So you do want to kiss me?”
“Hell, Serena.” He surged to his feet and retreated, staring at her as if she might bite him. With a soft crunch, his heel crushed the sprig of mistletoe. “You don’t understand.”
She remained on the bench, watching him. “So make me understand.”
“Devil take you, this isn’t a conversation a man has with a close friend’s sister.”
She worked to keep her voice steady and said what she knew in her heart to be true. “You want me.”
“You’re a pretty girl. Nothing could be more natural.”
Why did she feel like she wasn’t getting the whole story? “Nothing.”
Her fingers itched to order his hair, to smooth the lines of discontent marking his face. But she stayed where she was, struggling to make sense of his reluctance. He’d set off from the stables, intending to kiss her. Then he’d kissed her. Now it seemed he’d give her no more kisses.
Serena sat up straight and summoned all her courage. “I see that kissing isn’t enough for you. For a sophisticated man, it’s all too schoolboy and schoolgirl.”
“Don’t talk rot.” His hunted expression intensified. “I don’t even know why you want me to chase you, when you’re so set on marrying Paul. He’s the one you should meet secretly. He’s the one you should drive mad with kisses.”
“I told you why.”
He turned away to stare out at the lake. Ruler-straight shoulders betrayed bristling tension. “You wanted to test your wiles on a man who doesn’t matter, before you use them on the man you want.”
Humiliation coiled in her belly as her hands gripped the edge of the bench. “That sounds horribly shabby.” When he didn’t respond, she burst out, “If kissing me offends your high standards, why on earth did you agree in the first place?”
Without looking at her, he set his hands against the window frame. “Serena, are you going to marry Paul?”
The coiling in her stomach turned out to be snakes with fangs. “He hasn’t asked me.”
“He will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. He told me.”
Of course he had. For heaven’s sake, Paul had all but told her. If she’d offered one word of encouragement last night, he’d have whisked her off somewhere private and proposed. “I’ve wanted to marry Paul all my life.”
Giles finally faced her. He looked stern, and years older than twenty-six. “In that case, it’s wrong to kiss me.”
She flinched from that stark assessment. “You knew all this when we started.”
“Yes, well, it turns out that I have more of a conscience than I knew.” His smile was bitter. “Paul’s a friend, and you’re an innocent, and all three of us deserve better than this.”
Rising on trembling legs, she shot Giles a glare of genuine dislike. While inside, razors cut her to ribbons. “So that’s it?”
He gestured an apology. “I’m afraid it is.”
“That’s…cruel.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s the only thing I can do.”
She resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “You’re so blasted stubborn.”
Something that looked like sorrow flashed in his eyes. But it vanished before she could be sure. “I expect you hate me now.”
Serena was angry and piqued and cringing with mortification. But the truth was that when she examined her emotions, she didn’t hate him. What she mainly felt was piercing regret that his exquisite kisses were out of bounds. Which was lunatic when she meant to accept Paul’s proposal on Boxing Day.
Her silence made him sigh. “I hope you’ll forgive me one day.”
“For kissing me?” she asked through lips as stiff as wood. “Or for giving me my marching orders?”
Faint humor eased his expression. “Both.”
With a sharp click of her heels on tile, she crossed to collect her belongings. The cold in the summerhouse was biting. Strange she only noticed now.
“I’m glad you find this funny.” With short, sharp movements, she put on her hat and gloves and turned toward the door with a defiant swing of her hips. “I’d hate to think educating a clumsy beginner provided no entertainment.”
“Serena…” He stepped forward, but she raised her crop to gesture him back.
In a distant corner of her mind, she knew he was right to question their actions. But that didn’t take the sting away. Or make her any more prepared to be fair to him.
His kisses had flung her into a dazzling new world. Now without warning, he hurled her back onto the sharp rocks of harsh reality. “My thanks for deigning to show me what I’ve been missing, Lord Hallam.”
“Lord Hallam?” Those expressive brows slanted in not entirely convincing mockery. “You really are angry with me.”
She didn’t smile. “You won’t tease me back into charity with you, Giles.”
“At least I teased you back into calling me Giles. Can’t we just admit we both made a mistake and pretend it never happened?” With an attempt at his old nonchalance, he leaned one shoulder against the pillar.
The last few days had taught her more about Giles Farraday than the previous eighteen years. He might want her to believe he laughed off this dismissal, but she didn’t believe him. She also knew that he’d let stampeding elephants trample him before he explained himself further.
She nodded coldly in his direction. “You know, I’m not sure we can.”
Serena caught his shocked dismay, as she turned toward the door and marched out. Anger, and hurt, and a sexual frustration she’d never felt before Giles had kissed her roiled in her stomach. Tears she was too proud to shed stung her eyes.
How dare that oaf Giles Farraday make her cry?
Gracelessly she scrambled into the saddle. As she wheeled the horse around, Giles appeared at the top of the steps. At least he was smart enough not to offer to help her mount. The touch of those deft hands would be unbearable. If only because it provided a painful reminder of the pleasures he denied her.
She waited for him to speak. Apologize again. Or accuse her of overreacting. Or least likely, but most longed for, call her inside for more kisses. Because the awful truth was that even now, if he invited her back into his arms, she’d go. Pride be damned.
But he continued to watch her with an unwavering regard. And this time, he didn’t pretend to indifference.
For an intense interval, their eyes met, and she wondered how she could ever have overlooked him. He was the most striking man she’d ever met.
Her horse stamped in impatience at the delay, but Serena held the mare and studied Giles, imprinting his image on her mind forever. The tall, lean body. The rumpled black hair. The quirky, intelligent face that lately seemed so much more appealing than mere good looks.
Something strong and dark rushed through her, something that wasn’t a game at all.
With an abrupt gesture, she set her heels to her horse so the mare bounded into a gallop. But as she dashed through the trees, nothing could erase the memory of Giles standing, proud and solitary, in that frame of white marble.
Solitary. And heartbreakingly lonely.
Chapter 9
Giles leaned back in the leather chair in front of the library fire, stretched his legs toward the grate, and stared unseeingly at the plaster flowers and garlands twining across the ceiling. An empty glass dangled from his fingers. He’d hoped brandy might ease the ache in his loins—and the sharper ache in his heart.
Chance would be a fine thing. All the liquor in the world couldn’t wash away his hopeless longing.
It was late, and he was alone. Again. After dinner, the guests had spread through the house. The children, allowed to stay downstairs because tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and their parents played games in the drawing room. The older guests sat at cards in the morning room. Frederick and Paul had invited Giles to play billiards, but he’d declined. When a man said farewell to a dream, he was allowed an evening to wallow in despair before facing up to a desolate future.
Unrequited love was the very devil, and a conscience was nothing but a damned inconvenience. The worst of it was that now he knew the magic of Serena’s kiss, his torment bit deeper than ever.
He was well repaid for his nasty little plot to wreck Paul’s plans.
What a bloody fool he was. Of course he hadn’t won. Paul and Serena were made for each other. Destined from birth to marry. Much as he hated to admit it, they’d be happy. God rot it. Watching Paul and Serena make sheeps’ eyes at one another at tonight’s dinner, hearing her laugh at his jokes, imagining the whole world celebrating their engagement, made Giles want to shoot himself.
Paul’s company chafed like sandpaper, although he’d been Giles’s best friend since they’d started at Eton. Paul had fought beside him when the school bullies had decided to put that swarthy, fatherless oddity, Lord Hallam, in his place. More recently, Paul had explored London’s pleasures with him.
Now Giles consigned handsome, charming, good-natured Paul Garside, the companion to whom he owed so much, to the deepest pit in Hades.
He sighed heavily and thought without interest about refilling his glass. And about leaving. There was nothing to be gained from staying in Dorset. He should go back to London.
Except there he might encounter the happy couple.
His estates in Devon? No, still within reach.
Perhaps he should sail for India. With luck, a hungry tiger might put him out of his misery.
Because nothing but annihilation would stop him wanting Serena. Even then, he’d probably come back and haunt her.
When he’d set out to stymie his friend’s wedding, he’d intended little more than a flirtation to show Serena that life didn’t begin and end with Paul bloody Garside. But her kisses were as addictive as opium, and they turned a man’s brain to porridge. At the church, the possibility of discovery had kept a rein on his desires. In the isolated summerhouse, he’d rapidly reached a point where kisses weren’t enough.
And they had to be.
Giles couldn’t deflower Frederick’s sister while he was a guest in the Talbot house. But her dangerous willingness to follow his lead had enticed him to the verge of the unforgivable.
He’d misjudged the powerful effect of his beloved’s nearness. Keeping his hands to himself had been simple when Serena treated him as a vague acquaintance. When he held her in his arms, control became impossible. He’d stepped away, the only thing he could do to preserve honor. His and hers.
And incurred not gratitude, but chastisement for his efforts.
He stared into the fire, recalling that nasty quarrel. And the pain shining in her gray eyes, pain that all the pique in the world couldn’t conceal.
Like an echo of last night, the door clicked shut behind him.
God give him strength. If Serena sought him out again, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. Although given the way she’d refused to look at him all night, he couldn’t imagine she wanted his company.
No, in sending her away, he’d fatally wounded her pride. Regret added its doleful note to the dismal music playing in his soul. He’d done the right thing, but he could have been gentler.
He’d been so near to using her innocent response as an invitation to take things further, that he hadn’t been in command of himself. She’d had a lucky escape this morning. Although she’d never thank him for it.
When the intruder didn’t speak, Giles angled his head around the chair’s high back.
His heart plummeted. It wasn’t Serena.
It was worse.
Wearing a hard expression Giles had never seen before, Paul stood four-square in the center of the library. There was no trace of the lighthearted comrade who had shared so many escapades. “I should have known. You always sneak away to a library when things get too hot
in the real world.”
“Just wanted a minute’s peace, old chap. We confirmed bachelors sometimes find family life a bit much.”
Paul didn’t smile. Which was odd. Giles had long ago decided that Paul could smile through a hurricane. Foreboding stirred. A foreboding the next words confirmed.
“And of course you’re hoping this brooding act will trick Serena into looking for you.”
Slowly Giles rose. “I haven’t spoken to Serena all night.”
“At least you don’t insult me by pretending to misunderstand.”
Giles sighed and turned toward the sideboard. “Would you like a drink?”
“No.”
“She doesn’t want me.” Giles poured another brandy. He had a grim inkling he might need it. “She wants you.”
“That’s right.”
Moving deliberately, pretending that a row with his best friend wasn’t imminent, he turned. “You know, old pal, that overweening confidence might get you into trouble.”
“You’d like to think so.”
Actually Giles offered the advice without self-interest. Or not much. He’d never had a chance with Serena. Even less after today.
He shrugged. “Just warning you.”
Paul stepped closer, his shoulders straight and his hands forming fists at his sides. “And I’m warning you—stay away from the woman I intend to marry, or bloody well take the consequences.”
Despite the confrontation’s seriousness, Giles gave a derisive snort. “You might have been able to beat me in a physical contest when we were boys, Garside. But I wouldn’t be too sure that’s the case now.”
Anger narrowed Paul’s eyes. “You’re proving a pest, Hallam. I saw you go riding with Serena this morning, and I’ll wager you chased her into the church the day before. Nobody in their right mind would believe that you’ve turned into a musty, fusty antiquarian. Credit me with some intelligence.”
Unfortunately, he did. People might see the large, benevolent baronet, and mistake his easygoing nature for stupidity. Giles had never made that error.
Despite wisdom counseling retreat, he taunted his rival. “How do you explain her sudden interest in my company?”
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