Page 39 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
He glanced around the room for where he'd thrown his trousers, but could not see them, nor any of his clothes, save for the jacket hanging by the door. She must have put them neatly away somewhere, he realized, as she'd bustled around with all that excess energy he'd left her with while he tumbled into the abyss.
He had never bedded a virgin before. He had never much thought about the prospect of doing it. Perhaps if he had, he might have gone about things a fair bit differently. Unfortunately, the clarity that had come with finally having her was full to the brim of awareness of his own shortcomings.
He looked at her, wrapped back up in her homespun, that orange skirt clinging so pleasantly to her round hips and her legs, which he remembered with a jolt must be naked beneath the wool. He had torn those stockings to shreds in his enthusiasm to get them off her. The memory went straight to his loins. He raised his eyes, appreciating the figure she cut, waiting so patiently for him in his bed, her breasts rising and falling beneath her thin blouse, tucked away as though he had not licked and fondled them only hours before.
He had told her there was more, had he? Well, at least he'd had that much sense.
He cleared his throat and quickly rinsed the soapy water from his skin, hurrying back to the bed before she might observe just how much he enjoyed thinking of things to do to her. He would get to peel the clothes from her sweet little body not once, but twice tonight. The second time, he aimed to remember every pale inch of her in stark detail. The second time, it would be Tia who found herself dazed and euphoric in the aftermath. He would take his time, no matter how badly it pained him, no matter how deep and animalistic his desires became.
"I lay with you for a time," she said as he made his way back into the modest cover of the blankets. She fell backwards, her head landing near his thigh, and stared wistfully up at the ceiling. "It was lovely, being skin to skin that way, listening to the way our breathing began to match. I have shared my bed many times, with sisters and friends and classmates, but I have never enjoyed the presence of another body next to mine as I did earlier tonight."
He did not answer. The truth was that he had never fallen asleep with his bed mates, always careful and considerate in removing himself, lest he set expectations he could not meet. Falling so deep into slumber with the scent of her hair around him and the softness of her skin against him had been just as novel for him as it was for her.
She turned her head up to meet his eyes and said, "I imagine sleeping through the night that way would be blissful."
"Tatiana," he said carefully, making her lips curve into a dreamy smile. "The more you talk that way, the more I feel like I must have you again."
"Well," she said, her voice low and sweet as she batted those dark lashes at him, "then I suppose you must have me."
"Not just yet," he corrected her, reaching down to stroke the side of her face. "You have been so attentive and thoughtful, and deserve the same treatment in kind."
"Oh?" she asked, breathy and fascinated. "I might enjoy being attended to."
"You will," he assured her. "I will make sure of it."
He drew his hand down over the delicate bones of her throat and to the first button in her blouse, which he was able to flick easily open from his place above her. She moaned softly, arching her back and pressing her chest out in encouragement for him to loosen another button. He licked his lips in anticipation of tasting the glowing, moon-pale skin he was revealing, eager to worship her as she deserved to be worshipped.
So absorbed was he in undressing her again that he did not hear the sounds of warning that were issued by the structure beneath them. Later, he'd realize there had been the groan and strain of wood under the weight of an enormous amount of snow, and the delicate tinkle of glass cracking down its center. But in the moment, he was simply too involved in unwrapping this particular Christmas gift for his senses to be at work.
Was it the sharp snapping of breaking wood that broke their reverie, or the scream of the horses from beneath the bedroom window? Neither of them startled, so much as they simply halted their motions, breath bated for the confirmation that there was to be yet more chaos, which of course arrived in good time with the ring of raised voices.
He sighed, dropping his forehead between her half-exposed breasts as she began to give a dry, ironic chuckle.
"There, there," she said, patting his head the same way she had Echo's. "It's all right."
* * *
She had held backfrom following him down the stairs, a precaution for appearances that Sheldon acknowledged he would not have thought of himself. So, instead of finding himself with his face buried between her soft thighs, his hands warm around that sweet flesh, he was coated in shards of ice, stuck in a stable that smelled like frozen manure, while Callum's piebald stallion screamed rather dramatically in his face rather than moving his speckled arse in the direction of warmth and comfort.
"I don't think the root cellar's large enough!" cried one of the stable hands from over Squall's back, as blankets flew off her like a wind-blown pile of parchment. "Not for all of them!"
"Fit what you can down there," Sheldon roared back, his voice still reduced to nothing but ashes against the fury of the storm. "The rest will go where they must for now."
Somehow, despite struggling to hear himself when he shouted, he could hear the dogs clamoring at the kitchen doors as the horses were led past and guided with ginger steps into the small underground larder. It was dark and clammy down there, but at least the ceiling would hold. Convincing a few of the footmen to bring down and light lanterns while the horses jostled against each other had been Tia's task, one Sheldon was pleased to see she had executed without delay, casting flickering, mournful orbs of light onto this palace of onions and yams.
He had taken care to put a barrier of geldings between the mares and the stallions, having learned from his last disaster at Somerton just how risky it was to put all of a species into one unsupervised pen. Once they had all been filed where they were meant to go, he was pleased to see that the stable hand had been wrong. With the carriage horses and Heloise's mare in the township, there was just enough space for the remaining horses down here, though much could be desired in the way of elbow room.
Horses don't have elbows, he told himself as another splinter of wood fell away from the entry to the stables.
He grimaced, ducking inside to survey the damage, and wondered how Hawk Hill was faring in this, farther to the north. Perhaps the days of construction were not at an end after all, for there would surely be repairs necessary after such a tempest.
The loft above a selection of stalls was sagging, like to collapse in due course. Sheldon took careful steps onto a ladder, placed on the adjacent wall, to ensure nothing valuable would be lost when it fell. There was a small sleeping nook up there, he noted, but whichever stable boy had taken to using it had been wise enough to sleep elsewhere tonight. That, at least, was a mercy, for after all that business with the horses, Sheldon did not relish the prospect of rescuing some cowering boy, half frozen to death, from imminent injury.
The weight of the snow drift had caved in a portion of the stable roof, creating a chain of damage as wood crashed into wood, startling large beasts who then began to beat against their confines. The wind had not stopped howling, and the snow that had fallen into the stables had begun to turn to hard, glossy ice, spreading in a dangerous glaze across the wood beam floors.
Yes, it was best that this place stay empty for now, until repairs could begin.
Gideon was going to be beside himself.
