But, now, upon seeing who was entering the drawing room behind Irwin, her heart made it abundantly clear that its true desire had arrived.
Rhys.
Oh, wasn’t he a sight for a sore heart.
The room went completely still, even the puppy.
Black eyebrows winged into a scowl, Lord Percival lowered his pipe. “Osborne?” It was as if he refused to believe what his eyes were telling him. “As I told you, I would contact you when I have word about?—”
Rhys shook his head, interrupting Lord Percival. “I obtained the ring.”
What was that note in Rhys’s voice? Was it…resolve?
“Then a letter would’ve sufficed if you’re here to thank me,” said Lord Percival, dismissive.
But Rhys had the look of a man who wouldn’t be dismissed. “I’m not here to thank you.”
That got a lift of the eyebrows from the room.
Tilly hardly noticed, for Rhys’s silver-gray gaze had shifted and had caught hers and now refused to release it.
And like that, the world shrank down to two—them.
As if from a great distance, she heard Isabel say, “I suppose you’re here to wish us a happy Christmas, then.”
His voice a low, velvet rumble, he said, “Happy Christmas.”
But Rhys wasn’t saying it to the room.
He was saying it to Tilly.
“Osborne,” said Lord Percival, plainly irked, “don’t you have a family to be with today?”
“I do.”
Still, he spoke solely to Tilly.
Her.
She was the one he wanted to be with today.
She couldn’t breathe.
His eyes burned with an intensity she’d seen once—on their final night together.
He’d spent so much of his life in the role of wastrel and rake, but here he was himself.
He wasn’t in a role.
He never had been with her.
“I have a gift for you,” he said with an imploring note that struck straight through to her heart.
“Oh?”
“It’s not here.” Beside that pleading note ribboned another—uncertainty. “Will you come with me?”
“Yes.”
