Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection
“For kissing me?” she asked through lips as stiff as wood. “Or for giving me my marching orders?”
Faint humor eased his expression. “Both.”
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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.