She frowned. He might sound like he was joking, but something in his expression made her wonder if he was. “It sounds magnificent.”
The irony crept back into his smile, and she found herself regretting the loss of that unsuspected sweetness. “Oh, it’s that, all right.”
“But not a home?”
“It takes love to make a home.”
Before she could question his statement—surely the most astonishing part of what had so far proven an astonishing day—he turned to speak to Belinda and Frederick who had dodged darting attacks from overexcited youngsters to reach the fireplace.
Released at last from his blazing black gaze, Serena took her first full breath since that extraordinary kiss. When Giles stared at her, she’d felt as though someone tightened a strap around her chest.
What in the name of all that was holy had just happened?
Nothing. Everything.
Who knew Giles concealed a romantic streak beneath his cynical hide?
But that wasn’t what had made her heart clench with poignant emotion. No, what made her ache was the revelation that beneath his rakish dash, Giles Farraday was lonely.
* * *
Giles looked out the window of the bedroom he always used at Torver House and pondered the bleak winter landscape outside. The estate nestled in a pretty valley where a river ran down toward the distant sea.
But that wasn’t what he saw, as he stood above gardens and fields, hills and coppices, all bare with the season.
No, his attention was centered on the knot garden directly below, where his best friend walked in the gathering dusk with the only woman Giles had ever wanted. His best friend, who had informed him a week ago that this Christmas, he meant to offer for Serena Talbot and that he had every hope of being accepted.
Of course he did. He’d be a deuced blockhead if he didn’t.
The girl had never had eyes for anyone else. And Paul was quite the catch. Rich, handsome, honorable.
And, Giles admitted grudgingly, a damned nice fellow.
There were no impediments to the match. The families were close, Serena would make the perfect chatelaine for Paul’s charming Palladian house. After the wedding, she wouldn’t even have to move far from the parents she loved. Paul’s estates were only several miles away from Torver.
Everyone liked Paul. Damn it, Giles liked Paul. When he didn’t want to shoot the lucky sod for crowning a singularly fortunate life with a happy marriage to lovely, ardent Serena Talbot.
The outcome seemed inevitable. Paul and his bride would live a glorious life, and rear a brood of golden-haired children, and enjoy a contented, prosperous, useful future.
Paul was probably suggesting that very future to Serena right now.
Damn. Blast. Hell. Bugger.
Giles sighed and told himself that he’d always known this day would come. She’d never been for him. That had been clear from the first.
When he’d arrived as a grieving, prickly boy, reeling from the loss of his beloved parents, Serena had been wary. As she’d grown up, her patent adoration for Paul meant that in her world, Giles operated as a mere adjunct to his picturesque friend. Nothing much beyond Paul bloody Garside ever registered with her.
Giles’s one consolation had always been that while Paul was undoubtedly fond of Serena, his feelings hadn’t advanced far past that. It wasn’t much of a consolation. Paul had had more than his share of flirtations, but Giles knew that he always meant to please his family and marry the youngest Talbot girl. In recent months, that plan had changed from a duty to a pleasure.
Paul was as susceptible to a pretty face as the next man. This last year, Serena had fulfilled the promise of beauty that Giles had always seen beneath the muddy pinafores and untidy braids.
So this Christmas, the engagement was all set to go forward.
Except…
Except something unexpected had happened downstairs when he’d kissed Serena—a treat he always paid for in nights of restless longing.
Call him an optimistic fool, but he’d swear that for one sizzling moment, she’d looked into his eyes and seen him. Seen him as the man he was, not Paul Garside’s shadow.