Page 24 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
She nodded, eyes wide, which only made him groan again.
He leaned in, tilting her head up with his fingers sinking into her loose hair, drawing it in a curtain over her shoulder. "One kiss," he reminded her, "then you must run to bed."
"Yes," she said, breathless but impatient.
"Good girl."
She held her breath, as though she were about to dive into deep, dangerous waters. He was at her lips in an instant, and yet somehow impossibly gentle, impossibly patient. She lifted her arms to loop them around his neck, desperate for something more urgent, something more demanding. She pulled him closer, opening her mouth beneath his, remembering the way he had tasted her over a year ago.
He nipped at her bottom lip, meeting her with heat and hunger. His fingers tangled in her hair, possessive. His heart thundered against his ribs, strong enough that she was certain she felt it, pressing herself into his chest while he was wrapped in her arms.
She thought her own heart might burst. Her head swam, her vision clouded, and when it ended, she thought she might cease to be from wanting it to continue. He pulled away slowly, his eyes burning and touch lingering.
"Go now," he growled. "Go."
She must have obeyed, for in what seemed like a blink of her eyes, she found herself alone in the cold hall, her hand resting on the doorknob of the green bedroom that she had taken from the man next to the fire. If the metal of the handle were not so cold beneath her fingers, she might have continued on her way in utter reverie, lost in instinct and want.
She squeezed her eyes shut, turning the knob and entering the room, where the bed invited her, rumpled and warm and yet somehow empty. She knew she must sleep, and half in a dream she shed her dressing gown and climbed beneath the blankets. She wondered, somewhere in the muddle of her mind, as she drifted toward the abyss of slumber, if she would know in the morning that it had been real or if she would believe that it had all been a dream.
Chapter 12
Gideon Somers was dribbling red wax onto his iron star, his eyes squinted to ensure precision. Having not the patience nor the fortitude for creative decoration, he had resolved simply to stamp the house crest into his ornament, a fact which Sheldon suspected would rather annoy his wife. All the same, he watched Gideon do this with the same meticulous care that he did everything, seated primly behind his desk in the Somerton study with the star protected by a leaf of parchment lest the unthinkable happen and a slight mess be made.
Sheldon was less concerned with perfection, and at this very moment had his own star hanging in the sunlight of the study window, its crudely painted face at least bearing passing resemblance to a bat. He had been wracking his mind, trying to remember all the hiding places that he'd once used within the manor, but his sleep-deprived head did not seem capable of summoning the energy needed to recall the best ones.
True to long-neglected tradition, both men had waited until the day the hunt was to begin to hide their stars.
"What's the matter with you?" Gideon asked, his tone light and his eyes still on his star as he rolled the seal through the cooling wax. He raised his eyes to meet Sheldon's, his brows drawing together. "Did you catch my grippe? Shall I ring for lemon tea?"
"No, no," Sheldon said, raising his hands. "I'm not sick, I am just a bit sleepy. Your guest bed is far inferior to my usual one, you know."
"Yes, I know," Gideon replied, lifting an eyebrow. "It is for guests, not you. You ought to have taken the green room back when you had the chance."
"I will live, I assure you. Besides, it pleases me to know I've left that particular lass in a place where she can't help but think of me." He hesitated, measuring Gideon's demeanor for suitably casual conversation, and then asked, "What do you think of her, by the by? Miss Everstead."
"I hardly know her," Gideon replied, leaning back in his chair and squinting at his friend. "She is certainly pretty."
"Beautiful," Sheldon agreed with a sigh. "Truth of the matter is, I can't rightly say how much I truly know the lady either, and yet I'm entertaining wild thoughts. Is that how it was with Rose?"
"I knew Rose quite well for many years prior to our elopement," Gideon replied, though without any trace of rebuke. "I suppose I would be lying if I claimed my obsession with her only began once I'd gotten to know her, though the remarkable woman she is can undoubtedly and assuredly be cited as what ensured my enduring fascination. Are you saying you're considering proposing to this girl?"
Sheldon winced, pushing himself up from where he was sitting and pacing over to the bookshelf by the window, preferring to look at either rather than face his friend. "Don't you think it is past time I marry someone?"
"I hadn't considered it," Gideon replied, with what sounded like earnestness. "You spend hardly any time at all at home, after all, and have spent so many of the past years abroad."
He paused, hand half raised to trace his fingers over the spines of Gideon's books. "She asked me yesterday if I was in a spot of trouble with household management," he said, those words just now registering clearly. "How would she have known that? Hawk Hill is all but complete, you know, and I've been agonizing over how to proceed once it's time to actually ... well, live there!"
He turned, distressed to see Gideon rubbing the side of his mouth, apparently stifling some amusement.
"What the devil could you possibly find funny?" Sheldon demanded.
"Itisfunny," Gideon replied with a shrug. "Why on earth would you have poured so much time and effort into restoring that castle if you never intended to make it a proper home?"
"Because it was something to do!" Sheldon sighed, dropping his head and pressing his fingers to his brow. "It was like to fall over if I didn't do something, and once I'd started, it was a way to feel I was doing right by the place and the bloody title. So long as I was rebuilding, I was above criticism, wasn't I? As long as there was never-ending hammering and splintering and so on, no one could rightly frown upon me finding elsewhere to spend my time. No one would question why I wasn't in my home county, acting the marquis like my father had done."
"Plenty of peers spend very little time concerned with the actual administration of their rank," Gideon pointed out. "At least you show up when it's time to cast a vote. You're not a drunkard or a gambler or a fool, and you haven't compromised half a dozen debutantes. Frankly, in terms of the peerage, you're more than respectable as you are."
Sheldon peered at him, wanting so badly to believe what Gideon was saying that he couldn't help but feel suspicious of its veracity.
