Page 31 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
No. It would not do to think on it. She did not wish to be sad. This windy, frostbitten morning was one of the few days of her final sanctuary, the last turn of her youth before the consequences of her decisions would set an unalterable and likely less than pleasant path for her future. She would feel joy here, at Somerton, for as long as she could.
She would feel young and curious about the future until the very last moment that her youth and curiosity must be quashed—a moment that hovered threateningly just in the periphery of Tia's days. She must revel in what joy she had left.
As though to champion this thought, the wind howled again outside, cracking the wood on the naked branches of the taller trees and sending them skittering down onto the icy ground. In answer, the logs in her fireplace crackled and spit, drawing her finally from the darkness of her early-morning reverie into the full presence of the waking morn.
She pushed herself from the pillows and stretched her arms over her head, her fingertips touching the cooler air near the window, which had not yet been warmed by the fire. She smiled, her eyes settling on her luxurious borrowed dressing gown, which hung on the bedpost at her feet. She would wrap herself in its velvety embrace and linger over her breakfast today, and she would take care in her dress and toilette.
Sheldon Bywater, Marquis of Moorvale, had promised to take her on a tour of Somerton, and she wished to look enchanting.
She must live only in the present, she thought, for the present was joyous and beautiful.
* * *
The wind showedno signs of slowing.
Whilst enjoying her breakfast in the private silence of that big bedroom, Tia had remembered that the stables below her window had a particular horse in residence to whom she owed a great debt. So, once she was dressed, she had slipped down the stairs and through the kitchens with a handful of dried pear and an extra blanket, meant for the old nag who had carried her here from Norwich on that fateful night, which seemed an eon ago.
That was where Lord Moorvale found her, whispering thanks in the horse's ear as she fed her strips of fruit from her gloved hands.
"What a beast," he said, grinning at them as his words left his lips in a gust of white fog. "I admit, I am surprised to find you fawning over such a modest creature."
"So am I," Tia confessed, stroking the horse's mane. "She did me a great service, bringing me here, and to my shame, I am not even certain what her name is. The stable hand at one of our waypoints called her Wench, and I confess I started to do the same thereafter. It is rather lacking in dignity for one who helped me so truly."
"Oh, I don't know about that," said Lord Moorvale, leaning against the wooden beam near the horse's stall. "I'm rather fond of wenches myself."
"I'm certain that is true," Tia retorted with a little smirk. "Still, she deserves better. What say you, Lord Moorvale? Have you a talent for naming mounts?"
She knew he did. He was not often the source of gossip in London tea rooms, but his stables were well-respected and oft-lauded. She handed another sliver of pear to the horse and looked over her shoulder at him, raising one dark eyebrow. "Well?"
"I usually name foals," he cautioned, approaching her side and offering his own, ungloved hand to the nag to sniff before stroking her nose as though she were just as worthy of such a gesture as any purebred charger. "It is harder, I think, to name a thing whose life is already half lived. More than half, actually, by my estimation."
"Well, I suppose I could keep calling her Wench," Tia teased, giving him a little nudge with her shoulder. "It just seems rather ungrateful."
"Hmm." He considered the horse carefully, watching the way her ears twitched and the way she accepted the strips of fruit so gently from Tia's fingers. "I would never have guessed this old girl capable of such a long journey, on such short notice, and in the cold."
"I never would have guessed myself capable of it either," Tia replied with conviction. "Perhaps we women must always surprise ourselves."
There was a whistle of force as the wind pushed itself through the beams of the stables, knocking loose a flurry of errant snowflakes that sprayed over them, raining down upon their coats and hair. Tia watched a snowflake on her glove as it began to melt, losing its crystalline shape ever so quickly once it had made contact with a living thing.
Sheldon sighed, dusting the powder from his shoulders. "I think we are in for a squall," he predicted, gesturing at the gathering clouds on the horizon. "And here I thought it would be a nice, blue day."
"A squall," Tia repeated, testing the word on her tongue. "Is that a good name? Squall."
He blinked at her, perhaps having forgotten for a moment the task they had undertaken. "Squall is a rather aggressive name for such a docile madam," he said, considering it as he stroked the horse's head, "but perhaps that is all the better, for she certainly was unpredictably fierce when the time arose."
"Squall it is, then," Tia said happily, scratching behind the horse's ears and allowing her fingers to brush Sheldon's, just for a moment, an almost touch, lingering there between the soft leather of her gloves. He did not pull away, and so she found that she did not either, allowing their fingers to interlace alongside the puffs of warm air that came from the contented mare as her eyelids began to droop.
She turned to face him, drawing a step nearer against the shiver of cold that passed through her as the wind battered against the walls. "I believe," she said softly, only a whisper from melding their bodies together, "that you promised me a tour of the manor today."
"Well," he replied in his low brogue, "I take my promises very seriously, Miss Everstead."
"Call me by my name," she replied, batting her lashes. "I very much like the way you say my name."
He raised his brows, using their entwined hands to tug her to him, and wrapping his free arm around her waist. "Tatiana," he said, enunciating slowly, not knowing how deeply these sounds thrilled her. He lowered his cheek to hers, his warm breath teasing at her ear, and whispered, "I will say your lovely name as many times as you wish."
He was not dressed for the cold, she thought, burrowing into his embrace and inhaling his scent. He wore no overcoat, and the linen of his shirt felt loose over the broad expanse of his warm, muscled chest. It was his Scots blood, she thought, that kept him warm, and his Scots boldness that shared that warmth with her. She shivered as his warm breath trailed along the side of her neck, his lips pressing to the little indent at the base of her ear as he inhaled her hair, running his hand down the curve of her back.
"What should I show you first?" he whispered between tastes of her throat, his lips and tongue traveling down the slim column of her exposed neck— the only part of her that was not currently insulated from the elements.
