Page 51 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
She scoffed, pressing her thumb into the center of his palm so that his hand closed around it. "I don't practice palmistry," she said. "Not every form of divination is the same!"
"Aye, but you might humor me a little," he said, nuzzling the crown of her head and opening his hand up again. "Pretend you see great things."
"Oh, all right, hm." She twisted her body flat onto her back and examined his hand, tilting it this way and that. "Yes, I see fortune and plenty in your future. You shall have all you ever wanted."
"Oh, shall I?" he said with interest, adjusting to study the lines of his palm next to her. "Well, that's good news, then, allowing that I ever determine exactly what it is that I want."
She laughed, dropping his hand, and tilted her head up to meet his eye. "Are you still ruminating about the castle you have to live in, Sheldon? Most people should be so lucky!"
"I am more concerned about living in it alone," he corrected, "and this being my last Christmas at Somerton."
"They are your family," she said with far more certainty than he felt. "You will always be welcome here. But do you not wish to build your own home and hearth? Would Hawk Hill not look very fine decked in holly and garland? You could invite them to you, couldn't you? Be the host for a change."
Now that was a thought he hadn't considered. He'd hosted the Somers family once, about a year ago, for two hasty weddings on his side of the Scots English border. He had been oddly excited to see them exploring the big, medieval hall at the center of the castle, and anxious to make a good impression. She was right. The place might look very fine in Yuletide dressing.
"Did your mother decorate the castle for Christmas," Tia asked, "when she was still alive?"
"Alive? My mother is still alive," he said, shifting over in surprise.
Her eyes widened. "Oh. You just always speak as though you grew up with only your father around."
"Ah, yes, well." He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. "She was unfaithful, repeatedly, and my father set her aside. If I didn't look so distinctly like my Bywater ancestors, I imagine he might have sent me away too. As soon as he died, she began a new family with a new man, and seemed much more equipped to be a mother the second time around. I send her money time to time, and check in on the wee ones."
"Goodness," she said, pushing herself up to sit, her hair draping around her like a fine black curtain. "You've siblings too?!"
"They feel more like niece and nephews, truth be told," he said with a shrug, stroking the dip of her waist. "Like you said before, the people here are my family. I've little to no connection with my blood ties. I know how strange it sounds."
Tia pressed her lips together, tilting her head. "Not terribly strange. I always felt more kinship with my Nana than with my parents, and more with Glory and Nell than I do with any of my real sisters. I think some small part of me hoped that I'd burned my last tie to my family, and all the obligations that are attached therein, when I ran away. That letter arrived today and I thought, yes, finally, I will be free of them and they of me and I will start anew."
Her voice tapered off, her eyes looking far away, farther than the confines of the room, and she gave a trembling sigh, shaking her head. "What do I do now?"
"Tatiana," he said, pushing himself up and pulling her into his arms. "What did the letter say?"
She made a strangled sound against his shoulder, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and pulled away, blinking tears from her eyes. "I will show you," she said, and pushed herself away from him and off the bed.
She pulled the night rail back up and over her shoulders, shaking her hair loose down her back. She had stuffed the envelope into a small box, between a few modest trinkets that she was fond of wearing. She held it in front of her as far as she might, so that he could take it as quickly as possible, and allow her to be free of it.
He pulled the letter free as expeditiously as he could without damaging it, and unfolded it before him. To call it brief would have been understatement. It consisted of three lines.
Tia,
All is forgiven. Wedding still viable. Return home at once.
H. Everstead Esq.
He blinked up at her, baffled by this cold and concise response from her father, and found her eyes swimming with tears, frustration evident down to her balled fists.
"After everything," she breathed, fury thin on her tongue, "they want me to go back and begin the entire damned nightmare over again. He didn't acknowledgeanythingI wrote to him. He did not deign a single meaningful response to a word I said, and now it is as though all the effort I put forth to topple my fate and find a new path was for nothing at all."
He folded the letter up and set it aside, holding his hand out for her to join him and sit. "What if you were already married to someone else?" he said, his voice remarkably steady considering the way his heart had leapt into his throat.
She began to shake her head, to protest, and he stopped her once more, forcing himself to say the words.
"What if you were to marry me, instead?"
It was effective at silencing her, at least for a moment. She stared at him in what appeared to be sincere shock, her lips parted but soundless for the longest stretch of a few seconds Sheldon had ever experienced. When she spoke, it was not the tearful acceptance he was bracing for.
Instead, she said, "It's impossible," in a tiny, faraway voice.
