Alexander Hasket,
Gloomy weather has my spirits low, but your kind letter brightened my day. I can feel the brotherly affection pouring from your words.
In order for me to inform Celine of my punishment, she would need to leave her boudoir. As far as I can tell, the newlyweds have not yet surfaced for air.
Now you’re to wed a ceasg according to Mother. Apparently it is some sort of half-fish, half-human creature. I’m not entirely clear on how it differs from the kelpie. I assured her that your children would be no more hideous with a ceasg wife than a human wife, and she calmed right down. I also reminded her thatthe last human woman you tried to court had her father arrested rather than wed you. She agreed that if the ceasg would have you, it was for the best. She does long for grandchildren, after all.
Best wishes,
Davina
P.S. I asked a friend of mine with some familiarity with sheep. Apparently they come by their jumping skills quite naturally.
XANDER
Tom sentLock and Godfrey to town for whatever timber and building materials could be scrounged up before braving the shed. After, of course, shucking his coat and rolling up his sleeves in a way that truly ought not be quite as appealing as it was.
Unwilling to risk the infested hellscape a second time, I waited outside offering helpful encouragement. He was taller than me—at even greater risk of spider attack—but he merely ducked under the doorway before setting a lantern on the floor of the shed and taking inventory of the supplies.
“Was that skittering? I thought I heard skittering.”
“Probably a mouse—there are almost certainly mice in here,” he said, running a hand through his messy curls with no real concern.
“Are you sure you want to be in there?”
He turned to face me, his smile light and easy. “It’s fine. I’m a fair sight bigger than a mouse. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there are almost certainly mice in your doorless house as well.”
Oh, good Lord, I hadn’t considered that and now that I had, I wanted to cry. “There aren’t rats—surely?”
“And bats. Snakes as well—we should probably ask Lock if there are any we should worry about.”
My whimper was masculine and impressive. Tom’s smile was bright and teasing.
He stepped out of the shed and caught my hand in his. “I’ll protect you,” he whispered, dipping his forehead to press against mine before stepping back into the shed. The display had no reason to affect me the way it did, but I was forced to bite back another whimper for an entirely different reason.
Quietly, he took stock of the equipment before pulling several different saws—or saw-like things—off one wall and setting them on the grass in front of the shed. He forged back inside and brought out a long T-shaped pole with some sort of cylindrical metal bit at one end. Its purpose was a mystery to me, but it, too, was set on the grass.
Seemingly satisfied with his collection, he grabbed the lantern off the floor, blew it out, and returned to my side. He dropped that beside his tools and ran a hand through his hair before brushing off his shoulders.
There was a cobweb in the crook of his neck that he missed. Summoning all the bravery I possessed, I brushed it away with the back of my hand, the other hand mimicking the effort on the opposite shoulder for no real reason other than the pleasure of an excuse to touch him. Of their own volition, my hands slid down his shoulders to his chest. Tom’s eyes slid closed, savoring, before they fluttered open again—darkened.
His hands caught mine, trapping them against his chest. “Do you want a sheepfold built? Becausethatis not how you get a sheepfold built.”
“What is a sheepfold?”
“Small paddock, but for sheep. They’re usually made of stone, but that would take longer and require materials we don’t have.”
“How do you know that?”
“Michael. He’d take me sometimes, when he visited with tenants.”
“And you know how to make a sheepfold?”
“No, but I can hazard a guess.”
I nodded toward his collection of tools. “You know what all of those things are? How to use them?”
He shrugged. “More or less.”
