Characteristic irony twisted his lips. “I’m sure a clever girl like you can snare a fellow who’s already set on having you.”
Self-derision edged her laugh. “Then you have more faith in me than I have. When it comes to feminine wiles, I’m a complete novice. Whereas you two have spent the last few years playing the rake in London.”
Amusement lit Giles’s dark eyes. “I take umbrage at that.”
“I can’t see why. It’s true.”
“And how the devil do you know that?”
“Frederick is indiscreet in his cups.”
His laugh brushed across her skin like velvet and made every fine hair stand up. “Damn.”
“Paul is used to sophisticated women.” As her blush heated to fire, she squared her shoulders. She may as well finish this awful discussion. Retreat no longer seemed like an option. “I’ve never even kissed anyone.”
Giles appeared almost as shocked at her confession as she was that she’d made it. Fleetingly he stopped looking like Lucifer sulking in the underworld, and instead became the boy who was a mere five years older than she was. “Serena…”
“There. Now you know the dreadful truth.”
Giles had always been something of a mystery to her—this was the longest time they’d ever spent alone together—but his reaction now was particularly cryptic. His marked eyebrows drew together, more in consideration than disapproval, she thought. “You know, perhaps I could help.”
Her lips turned down. “How?”
She had the uncanny feeling that he waged some battle with himself. When he met her eyes, she drowned in the dark depths. “I could show you how to kiss a man.”
Serena hardly heard. Blood pounded in her ears, and she felt giddy. She had the oddest urge to lean forward and rest her head on that broad chest. Just rest.
Which was mad, when Giles had always been too disagreeable and difficult to be a comfortable companion.
“I’m sorry.” Avoiding her eyes, he picked up his hat. “I shouldn’t have suggested it.”
“Suggested what?” She blinked, forcing herself back to the real world where she wanted Paul, and Giles was just an annoying interloper. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Oh.”
“So what did you say?”
When the raffish Lord Hallam turned charmingly sheepish, her heart performed another of those bewildering little skips. “I offered to be your tutor, to help you cultivate the skills to bewitch the gallant Sir Paul.”
“Tutor?”
“I offered to kiss you.”
Her heart slammed to a stop. Good heavens above. Giles was talking about kissing her. How astonishing.
She should be offended. Or angry. Instead the idea lodged in her mind, and wouldn’t shift.
The more she thought about it, the more appealing it became. Would it really be so disgraceful to kiss Giles? Serena had long been curious about what a kiss was like. She’d always imagined Paul would be the first man to kiss her. But it might be best to get her clumsy first attempts out of the way with someone whose approval didn’t matter quite so much.
Perhaps this was the meaning behind that bizarre, unsettling dream. That Giles was to be her path to Paul. If she’d stayed in the dream longer, maybe Paul would have appeared to oust Giles from the central role.
“Here?” She glanced around the empty church, decorated with green boughs and walls of memorials to long-dead Talbots.
Wonder lit his face. “You agree?”
“Yes, I think I do,” she said thoughtfully. “I have a feeling you’re quite good at kissing.”
A tilt of those expressive eyebrows. “Only quite good?”