Page 10 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
She wrapped the dark red fabric around herself tightly with a breathed word of thanks and stepped out of the shadow of the marquis. Free of his role as a privacy screen, Moorvale went about retrieving the bloodied towel from where it had fallen and getting a look at his face in the mirror.
"It is not nearly so bad as it looks right now," he assured the room, chuckling at the reflections of their horrified faces as he began using water from the basin to begin clearing the mess from his face. "Echo has never been much of a nurse."
"Ah, it's worth a bit of care," Alex replied with a shrug, as though slashed faces and compromising maidens were a casual form of polite morning discussion in this house. "Heloise can stitch it up for you, but she'll probably make you shave the whole beard off first. At least your shirt wasn't ruined."
Sheldon grumbled a noncommittal reply and cast a quick look at Tia through the mirror, whose presence must still, to him, be mystifying.
"What happened?" Glory asked, somewhere between a demand and a sigh.
"I woke up to Lord Moorvale shaving. He clearly did not know I was here and I startled him, causing his injury," Tia said quickly, the heat in her cheeks likely giving away just how long she'd allowed his ignorance to go on. "That is all. Lord Moorvale, I am so very sorry!"
He waved her off, shaking his head as though her apology were absurd.
"Miss Everstead arrived late last night and we hadn't time to prepare a room for her," Glory explained to Sheldon, a little frown playing on her mouth. "I did not think you to arrive the very next morning. It's a wonder no one warned you that your room was occupied!"
"I didn't ask anyone," Sheldon replied with a shake of his head. "Why would I?"
"Yes, Glory, why would he?" Alex repeated with his broad grin still firmly in place. "It seems innocent enough! After all, it isn't as though Miss Everstead hid in the dark, lying in wait to knock poor Sheldon flat with an accounting ledger."
"Hush, you," Glory tutted, cutting her eyes to her husband as though she understood this strange statement perfectly well.
"The fault is entirely mine," Sheldon volunteered into the small beat of silence, though no one seemed to much care whose fault it was.
"Tia," Glory said with a sigh, "come with me, we shall get you dressed in my rooms."
Tia nodded, going to her friend with steps hastened by embarrassment and gratitude, neither of which Glory took the time to notice, still focused on the remaining problems in the room.
"Alex ... Sheldon ... I ... ugh!" She looked from one to the other and apparently found herself lost for instruction. She sighed and rolled her eyes to the heavens, throwing up her hands. "I will deal with you both later," she decided, and dragged Tia out of the room by her elbow.
Chapter 6
Though he could not recall exactly how, Sheldon found himself, shortly after the events of his shaving mishap, sequestered with all three Somers siblings in the master bedroom suite.
Gideon was still in the bed, his nose cherry red at the sides from what looked like a truly terrible stretch of sneezing. He was clutching a mug of steaming ginger and lemon tea, seemingly more concerned with inhaling its steam than drinking it, and he was frowning directly into the mug, as though to avoid having to look at his significantly less helpful and soothing companions.
If Sheldon hadn't been so shaken and also bleeding from the face, he might have found the sight of buttoned-up, proper Gideon Somers laid so low by a winter grippe terribly amusing. From the moment they had met all those years ago as children at Hawk Hill, Gideon had always been pristinely presentable, dark auburn hair combed and arranged, cravat starched and folded to perfection.
It might as well have been a different man entirely, laid up in bed in a rumpled set of wool pyjamas.
"Careful!" Sheldon yelped as Heloise Somers, the youngest of them and the only girl, worked a sticky paste over the cut in his cheek. She had only just arrived at Somerton with her husband and daughter when she had evidently been whisked upstairs with a patient to tend to.
"I am being careful, Moorvale," Heloise replied lightly, though her touch did not soften on his bare cheek. "You didn't want me to stitch it up, so you'll have to brave the pinching. I've never had a patient who whines so."
"I feel naked," Sheldon added, seeing no reason why he should not whine all at once. His magnificent winter beard had been carried away in a bowl of water and foam, leaving him bare-faced despite the brewing snowstorm outside. He ignored the jab about Heloise's patients, feeling quite entitled to his moaning, even if he did not often require the services of a midwife.
"You were fairly close to naked, weren't you?" Alex put in jovially from his perch on the bay window across the room. "As delightful as your scandalous little encounter was this morning, it might have been a great deal worse."
"Yes, how is it possible that you did not notice a person in your bed?" Heloise questioned, amusement curling the edges of her mouth. "I am rather sorry I missed the immediate aftermath."
Gideon mumbled something too low and riddled with congestion to make out, though all present could glean fairly well that it was a rebuke.
"She is a wee little thing," Sheldon said defensively, watching from the corner of his eye as Heloise leaned back to admire her handiwork. "She seemed to have slept without moving and was just folded into the blankets like nothing more than a new pillow. Besides, why should I have to search my own bedroom for intruders?!"
"It was only for one night. How were we to know you would arrive before she could be relocated?" Alex asked, clearly delighted that such a thing had occurred despite its unlikeliness. "I daresay she only arrived a few hours prior to you. It's just that she had the decency to wake us when she got here."
Gideon cleared his throat, sipping at his tea as though it might fortify him through having to speak to this rabble. He kept his eyes on the tea, puffy and swollen as they were, likely because it was the least irritating thing in the room at the moment. "Will someone, please," he asked raggedly, "explain to me why Miss Everstead is here, alone, and seemingly having arrived in the dead of night?"
"I was wondering that myself," Heloise said with a smirk. "And instead of being downstairs with the ladies, getting the full effect of this latest scandal, I am in here with you lot."
