The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe: A Somerton Christmas Scandal by Devlin Ava

Author:Devlin, Ava
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Tia awoke to the smell of crisp bacon and cinnamon-dusted oats being wheeled into her room on a dining cart. She did not stir, hoping instead that the food would be left to enjoy at her leisure and the fire re-stoked so that she might take her time rising on this frosty December morning. The smell of cinnamon in the tea made her give a dreamy smile, anticipating the warmth and taste of it on her tongue.

The wind had begun to howl some hours ago. Tia noted with appreciation that whomever had built this place, some generations ago, must have taken great care in their craftsmanship. The beams and bricks of this room allowed no recess for its fixtures to go rattling about, no matter how surly and persistent the weather without became.

In fact, if it weren't for the sounds of the trees creaking and the agitated horses voicing their discontent from below her window, Tia might have remained oblivious to the wind, waking only once the sun created its prisms through the crystals of ice that crawled over the windows in this room, showering her bedspread with slats of pink and blue and yellow and green.

She had slept very, very soundly. She attributed the depth of her slumber primarily to the quantity of cider she'd consumed last night. She had indulged deeply, the core of warmth spreading through her middle as she drank, each sip bringing her a little closer to imagining she was a member of the Somers family. It was hard to avoid wishing for such a thing as she watched them interact by firelight. What must it be like to belong to a family like this one? What must it be like to have a marriage like each of the Somers siblings had managed to create?

Despite all the years she had spent next to Glory, who had always been rightfully hailed as the most beautiful of Mrs. Arlington's pupils, last night was the first time she had ever envied her. Watching her rib and laugh with her husband, snuggled into his lap, exchanging barbs and kisses as easily as breathing had been akin to witnessing a fairy tale come to life for Tia.

Is that what she had fled on the morning of her would-be wedding? Is that what she had forsaken in her fear?

She rolled her face into the downy embrace of her pillow, attempting to conjure up the features of the man she had been set to wed. She willed into being an image of herself, curled into the lap of a husband, warm and safe and cherished, and she realized that she could not remember the baron's face at all. She could not even recall the color of his eyes.

As though it were an entity all its own, her mind filled in the blankness of the man in this tableau with one whose features she knew all too well, taunting her with how badly she wanted him. She knew she was being unreasonable, imagining such intimacy with a certain marquis.

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