Page 16 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
“Oh, Lord Moorvale,” she replied, cool and unshaken as she tipped her head back to retain an even gaze between them, “I amneverpatient.”
He thought he could see the reflection of that long-ago kiss in her eyes, wide and unblinking on his. Perhaps it was just the strength of his own memories reflected back at him. He was enchanted by the way her lips parted as she looked at him, the flush in her cheeks, and the weight of her hand, which she had placed upon him of her own volition.
"Lord Moorvale ..." she began.
"Sheldon," he said, his voice sounding gruffer than he would have preferred. "Please call me Sheldon."
She gave a little laugh, shaking her head and taking a step backward, but her cheeks remained pink and her smile spoke to a shared secret between them. "Sheldon," she echoed, her eyes sparkling. "I must make haste to the parlor, I am afraid. I am expected."
"Ah." He swallowed, a pang of disappointment catching him somewhere in the chest. He drew his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders, as though he were being dismissed by his general. "I will leave you to your business, of course,” he said. “But, perhaps we might continue this conversation after dinner?”
"Perhaps," she agreed, stepping around him with one more light touch to his bicep, the scent of cranberries weaving around him as she passed. She threw one last look over her shoulder as she departed, and just before vanishing around a corner, added, "Or perhaps not. I suppose you must simply be patient enough.”
Chapter 9
The snow was coming heavier now, dancing on the wind in leaps and pirouettes. Tia found them impossible to look away from, and had abandoned the embroidery project she'd begun only an hour before in her lap, marked with only a smattering of diagonal, crimson stitches to instead curl up in the chair she'd chosen and watch the ballet of snowflakes from the large windows in the Somerton sitting room while it was still light enough to do so.
She had an image in mind for her embroidery, something bright and cheerful and festive for the season. She thought two children on a sleigh might be charming, perhaps lined with a garland of holly. Yet it was much easier to sit and watch the snow, imagining such a scene, than it would be to draw it to life with her hands and needles and thread.
She thought of her sisters piling onto that old, blue sleigh that they'd kept for so many winters, until it fell apart. The blue had always been faded and scuffed, but it hadn't mattered to the Everstead girls, squealing and shoving until only the most committed two remained inside and the thing tipped over the cusp of the hill. She thought of the way the sharp wind had bitten into her ears and cheeks, and the delighted whooping sounds they had made as they went 'round and 'round again.
"What are you smiling about?" Glory asked, draping her arm over the side of the chair next to Tia's and twisting her body in a languid stretch. "Still reeling over Lord Moorvale clean shaven?"
"Hm?" She blinked, the memory floating off along the backs of the snowflakes as she returned to her spot on the chair. Once Glory's question had registered, she drew a frown and snapped, "No! I was notreeling."
"The devil you weren't." Glory laughed, dropping her own embroidery work into the basket that sat between them, already clearly lined enough to make out the silhouette of a deep woodland in winter. "You floated around like some forlorn spirit throughout all of tea. My mother-in-law likely thinks you're a bit soft in the head."
"I shall be sure to wow her with the strength of my wit the next we meet," Tia said sarcastically, narrowing her eyes at her friend. "Antagonism doesn't become you."
"Pish posh," Glory replied with a toss of her blonde curls. "Everything becomes me."
Tia snorted, though she did not disagree, focusing her attention back on the wooden hoop in her lap and the length of glossy red thread that ran from her needle. She drew it through the linen and down again, creating yet another marker on the outlying borders of what would become her sleigh, another crimson hatch in the oat-colored fabric that reminded her so strongly of an injured slash on a well-formed cheek.
He had looked sodifferentin the hallway this afternoon. Like a different man entirely, truth be told, though of course there was no mistaking him for anyone but Sheldon Bywater. No, he was still not the golden prince from her girlhood fantasies, but who had known those cheekbones were so high or that mouth was so full? How had she missed the sharp angles of his jaw and the strength of his chin?
She sighed.
Could a man that large even ride a white stallion without crushing the poor beast beneath his weight? He would be more at home in a barbarian's furs than in shining armor, she was certain, better swinging a club than a sword. And, after all this time, she couldn't truly pinpoint what she had wanted in that fantasy prince, anyhow. Perhaps she wanted only the looks of envy and admiration cast at her by other ladies, who had not achieved such storybook perfection.
She watched the snow, swirling and tumbling sideways and backwards and up and down. She wondered if a snowflake first imagined itself in a clear, perfect path, falling like a raindrop from its birthplace in the clouds to its destination in the grass, only to find that its life would be much more complex, once it was suddenly spiraling through the open sky.
Her dear friend Nell, bookish and quiet and steady, had married a man who could have been the perfect realization of Tia's fantasy prince. She thought of him, undeniably handsome and refined, a gifted politician and Society favorite, and she felt nothing. She had felt nothing even when he had been a bachelor, and they had danced at Almack's some two years past. Nothing at all.
She compared that to the way her heart had slammed into her ribs when she'd seen Lord Moorvale in the hallway earlier and frowned. What use was being God's chosen species, the superior and intellectual human, when at her roots, she was still nothing more than an animal, driven by irrational instinct? Was she Tatiana Everstead, an educated miss who knew her own mind, or was she some forest creature, defined by her surroundings?
She thought again of the teacup on that long-ago day in her Nana's cottage. She thought of the bat, wings spread wide as though to deliberately terrify, eyes slanted and cold. She had always been afraid of bats, though she was not certain she'd ever seen one in the flesh. Her impressions were entirely from drawings and the occasional sounds in the night.
Nana insisted that bats were nothing more than puppies with wings. She said that to really see one would be to fall in love with the wretched thing.
But Nana had beenstrange like that. She had been fond of beetles and spiders and mice and all manner of things the average woman would rather avoid. She had always insisted that her favorite flower was any one that she could eat, though of course, she might have been jesting.
She had always loved violets, hadn't she? It was easy to picture her with long hair, a sheet of silver-threaded black, falling around her face as she snipped only the most perfect blooms from her garden. They smelled like the promise of spring, like a final whisper of frost and the fledgling blades of grass poking out of the earth. She would put them all over the cottage, on the fireplace and the dining table and the bedroom dressers.
Tia found herself smiling at the window, decidedly warmed by the haphazard pathways of the snowflakes outside.
Perhaps they were happier than raindrops, she considered. Only a snowflake could begin as a thought of bats and bugs, and end a vivid recollection of a beautiful, beloved woman, arranging a vase of violets.
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