Page 27 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
"It is cold in the stables," Tia said, after allowing him a moment of reflection. "If we are to hunt together, I say we begin in the library and search for Papa's favorite story. Though I did think perhaps the child is referring to the morning news, if you know where that is kept."
"That does sound like Gideon, doesn't it?" Lord Moorvale said with a laugh. "All right. We have a bit of time before dinner, and there is more than one library. Do you wish to read the other clues before we begin?"
Tia shook her head. "I am not familiar enough with this place to overwhelm myself so. Let us start with these two clues and perhaps expand if we have no luck."
He grinned and offered her his arm, inclining his head toward the exit of the room.
She took it, perfectly aware of the suggestibility of such a thing. If they were to spend more time alone together, she reasoned, they might as well do so under the guise of propriety. And besides, she rather liked the idea of herself and Lord Moorvale as partners—partners of any sort at all.
* * *
Whatever it wasshe had expected when wandering off into a private enclave with Sheldon Bywater, it certainly had not been perfectly respectable treasure hunting, as planned. Yet here they were, on opposite sides of Somerton's proper library, scanning the shelves for anything that might constitute a "story" while also large and roomy enough to hide an iron star.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, her fingers resting absently on the leather spines of various books, none of which quite seemed to fit the bill. He had already pulled a few volumes out, flipped through them, and returned them to their places, evidently a lot more familiar with the type of narrative that pleased Gideon Somers than Tia could possibly have been. In all honesty, she was not entirely certain that she herself had a favorite story, at least not one that others might easily point to and say, "Yes, that is the one Tia loves best."
She frowned. She had much preferred the prospect of more kissing in darkened rooms to the existential examination of her own literary preferences. "Do you have one?" she asked, perhaps a bit more accusatorily than she had intended, she realized, as he turned suddenly from his task. "A favorite book, I mean," she asked, a bit softer.
"I quite like the first half of theOdyssey," he answered. "Before the poor sod's life goes to shambles."
"Isn't that rather the point of theOdyssey?" Tia squinted at him and crossed her arms over her chest. "It is a tragedy, is it not? Besides, you cannot just pick the first half of something and call it your favorite!"
"Why not? If you only read the first bit, it's a rip-roaring adventure," he countered, as though it were the most sensible argument in the world. "Why should I continue on once the good part is over?”
“Because that isn’t the whole story!” she insisted.
“Ah, well, nothing is ever truly the end of a narrative, though, is it? King Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and becomes king. We only find out he also becomes a cuckold if we read the next tale. There’s nothing wrong with leaving off before any of that happens!”
She scoffed, shaking her head. “You have no faith in ‘happily ever after,’ I presume?”
“Oh, I have utter faith in it,” he said seriously, “which is why I don’t enjoy troubling myself with pessimistic nonsense following great triumph. Why shouldn’t the story conclude as our general reaches the shore of Ithaca, triumphant at last?”
“Because there’s more!”
“There’salwaysmore,” he repeated, grinning at her irritation. “We don’t need to hear about the political nightmare and eventual, boring reconciliation of the high families of Verona, do we? Does it matter who Gretel eventually marries after she and her brother abscond from the witch?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, refusing to concede this point, which only made him laugh. “Well, what about you, Miss Everstead? Have you a fondness for novels and the like?"
"Not really, no," she confessed with a self-conscious shrug. "I was just ruminating on that very thing and feeling rather out of sorts about it. The clue, though, does say Papa's favoritestory, not favoritebook, doesn't it? Perhaps we've got it all wrong."
"I don't follow."
She tapped her fingernails against the wooden bookshelves, thinking on this. "Well, take the tale you told some days ago, about your ancestors in the cave. That is a story, is it not? But you did not recite it to us from a book. Perhaps Lord Somers has a favorite story of the sort that is oral tradition, not literature. I suppose if I had to choose my own favorite story, it would be one of those that my Nana told me, taken from only her memories, rather than any book I've picked up over the years."
He nodded, stepping away from the bookshelves and dropping himself onto the nearest sofa. "And what sorts of stories were those?" he asked, with seemingly genuine curiosity.
"A lot of stories about the fair folk that she'd learned as a child," Tia said with a wistful smile. "Queen Mab and the tale of fair Niamh and Oisín on their journey toTír na nÓg."
He blinked at her in surprise. "Your gran was Irish, was she?"
"Mm," Tia confirmed, following his lead and finding a seat near her perch at the shelves. "Do you know those stories?"
"A few of them," he said. "Myth and legend often blend and bleed between the borders of Celtic peoples, and I had a nanny or two as a lad with a fondness for the fair folk, especially as a means to convince me to behave."
"Did it work?" she asked with a raise of her eyebrows. "For, I must confess, my sisters and I frequently wavered between fear of being spirited to the other world and a lingering desire for a magical adventure of just that sort. And of course, my Nana had all manner of stories from her own life that toed the line between whimsical recollection and sheer embellishment."
"As all good stories do," he pointed out with a twist of his lips. "Though I cannot imagine Gideon recounting any event with more detail than was strictly necessary and utterly factual."
"Perhaps he is fond enough of a story that it is entertaining to tell and retell without added flair?" Tia considered this, trying to remember if the viscount had ever commanded the conversation with some story or memory. "Perhaps we might attempt to draw such a thing out of him over dinner tonight?"
