Page 46 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
"Yours, I hope," he replied in a voice thick with fatigue, making her giggle as they stepped out into the snowy night again.
A few hours must have passed, for the moon, while still bright, was much higher in the sky now, and appeared only a fraction of the size it had been before. Without stopping to admire the scenery, it was a relatively quick walk back to Somerton proper, and the cold air seemed to bring back Sheldon's alertness enough that she was not dragging him along.
"What were you thinking about, while I slept?" he asked her softly.
"Christmas decor," she answered truthfully, immediately followed by a self-conscious giggle. "In defense of my intellect, that is what I spent all day attending to."
They were as quiet as possible slipping back into the estate. The lamps were mostly dimmed or extinguished now, but any sidelong glances they caught from the servants seemed more to do with their snow-crusted clothes than the scandal of their being together, alone, in the night. Tia supposed it looked properly crazy, taking a midnight garden stroll at this time of year.
They parted just below the squeaky step that Tia had come to recognize and avoid, and as he kissed her hand goodnight, she realized that she had left her gloves and muff in the greenhouse. It seemed that losing garments was becoming a quick motif of this affair.
She would get them in the morning, she thought. All things could be done in the morning.
She drifted off to sleep thinking of the sweet man who had rested on her lap, and imagining a stone castle, lit to sparkling with a thousand candles of Yuletide cheer.
Chapter 22
As the days trickled by, taking them ever closer to Christmas, the mood at Somerton became markedly more festive. This was particularly notable in the children, who had found boundless reserves of energy for snowmen and sledging and running through the halls, with their giggles echoing throughout the manor.
Much to Sheldon's chagrin, Rose Somers had come to the same conclusion he had during their conversation on the stairs, some nights prior, and had soundly beat him to the study to retrieve Reggie's iron star from the family tree. Reggie himself had also found a star, the one planted by the Somerton butler, cleverly concealed underneath the handrail of the staircase, next to a stair that was particularly loud when stepped upon, which of course, Reggie took ample joy in doing as frequently as possible.
Quickly up or slowly down, the sound of me will make you frown.The clue had been a good one.
Sheldon was unclear whether Reggie had solved that clue or if he had just happened to spot the star from his vantage point while making merry on the staircase. He supposed there were no rules against dumb luck, in any event.
The morning before Christmas Eve saw the household transported to the township, where they attended a service at the church, followed by a tour of the parish's Christmas market. Several stalls and tents had been erected along the pathway on either side of the church building, where townspeople were selling goods that ranged from sweets to preserves to soaps to toys and so on.
He had never been much good at selecting gifts, he knew, but he enjoyed browsing the selection anyway. Besides, it was the perfect opportunity to converse at length with Miss Everstead without being overheard by any number of Somers family members. They hadn't had a proper moment together since that night he'd fallen asleep on her lap. He chuckled to himself, remembering how she'd humored him and stroked her fingers through his hair as he mumbled nonsense like a child and likely subjected her to a sampling of snores.
"Good morning, Lord Moorvale!" shouted the Reverend Halliwell from a few stalls away, where he had been inspecting bright jars of cherry preserves. He was a good-natured gent of middle age with a healthy paunch about the middle and a ring of gray hair about his head. The good reverend had somehow convinced the dowager that he'd make a fine second husband, despite her rather pampered life up until the point of their vows, and indeed, she seemed more than content as his bride of almost a year now. The reverend hustled over to where Sheldon stood and extended his hand for a shake. "I'm pleased you could join us this morning."
"It's always a pleasure," Sheldon said. "I'm surprised that storm that blew through here didn't wreck your plans for the market this year."
"Oh, if we had begun to put up the stalls that day, it very well might have," he confessed with a frown, planting his hands on the rear of his hips as he turned from the market to the marquis. "We are very lucky that no real damage was done. I hear there were a few mishaps at the manor house?"
"The stables got the worst of it, and there were some broken windows on the ground floor. Nothing dire, I assure you, despite Gideon's moaning."
The reverend quirked his lips in a look of wry amusement. "He takes after his mother, you know."
"Aye, he does." Sheldon laughed, casting a look at the dowager as she approached them, her eyebrows raised in curiosity. "We were just discussing you," he confessed as she reached her husband's side and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow.
"Is that so? Well, please, do elaborate."
"D'you remember," Sheldon asked, a gleam of mischief in his eye, "that Christmas when Alex was just old enough to start running about on his own? One night, the nanny came flying into the dining room, screaming that the little master had escaped Somerton."
Ruthie shot him a look but was unable to stifle a slight upturn of her lips at the memory. "She did use the wordescapedidn't she? As though we were keeping the boy prisoner in his own home."
"We abandoned the food and set apart in search of the little devil," Sheldon told the reverend. "Gideon was certain that wicked wee Alex had discovered some secret tunnels beneath the house, while Lord Somers was religiously checking the insides of all the fireplaces, despite the fact they were lit. But Lady Somers ... well ..."
"I knew my son," she said defensively. "He wouldn't be tempted by fireplaces or crawl spaces. He wants what he knows he isn't supposed to have."
"She found him in the parlor, next to whathadbeena string of candy drops, drying before we put them out for Christmas morning," Sheldon put in. "He had eaten the entire lot and was passed out in drunken bliss in a pile of unhung garland, with the knitting needle we'd been using to string the candy clutched in his chubby little hand. The viscountess was not pleased."
"It was a mix of emotions," she said with a shake of her head. "On one hand, relief and vindication, on the other, wanting to throttle a toddler for disobeying, being a little glutton, and toying around with sharp objects! But there he was, so soundly asleep, that I couldn't bring myself to wake him only to launch into a lecture, so I sat with him until he woke up and forced him to confess his sins."
"She sat with him in the dark," Sheldon clarified, "without telling us she'd found him, so we were all scrambling around the house, half starved, and unaware that the issue had been resolved."
"I did apologize for that."
