Chapter 11
Eleven
???
It took everything in Sadie to project a calmness she didn’t feel as she followed Nicholas back into the parlor. He’d understood what she was doing when she mixed the tea. He knew.
Well, he didn’t know she was a telepath, but he knew she was a witch. He’d be wondering, now, about what form her power took. He’d be watching, waiting for her to betray herself.
And yet …
Nothing in the thoughts that had drifted to the surface of his mind had given her the impression that he cared what her power was. For once, his thoughts hadn’t perfectly matched what he was saying, but only because he was trying to set her at ease and pretend he bought her lie.
He hadn’t offered the use of the brewing room in order to trap her into admitting her magical affinity.
He simply wanted her to have the option to craft potions without explaining herself.
Despite hearing his thoughts, she couldn’t truly believe he wouldn’t turn around and demand to know her power, though.
Safer to insist she had none.
She stayed on the edge of the room while Nicholas crossed to the divan and handed Lenora the mug of tea. Madeleine made her way to Sadie’s side. “Is everything all right?”
Damn it, she must not have schooled her expression as well as she had thought. She shrugged, trying to relax. “I’m not the one who had a scare.”
“No, but you are the one dealing with my son.” Madeleine lowered her voice, “I gather he hasn’t accepted our story of your origins as readily as I had anticipated.”
Sadie found herself grinning. “He doesn’t believe that story at all, but that’s fine. I can handle him.”
When it came to the dowager’s lies, Sadie had no worries. It was only her own lies that scared her.
“Yes, I do believe you can.” Madeleine nodded once, then moved off toward the divan.
Sadie glanced that direction, unsurprised to see that Nicholas had moved aside as soon as he had delivered the tea.
Lenora had her hands wrapped around the mug, as though she needed the heat, despite the warm temperature.
She looked calmer already, though, and Sadie allowed herself a moment of pride that her efforts with the tea had helped.
Then Abigail looked across the room, directly at Sadie, and glared.
Her thoughts came unbidden, harsh and clearly directed at Sadie, though Abigail couldn’t know they’d be heard.
She had to go and make something to help Lenora, didn’t she?
Now Lenora is calming down and won’t want to leave before the month is up.
And she had to lure Nicholas out of the room right as I was showing how sweet I can be, comforting stupid Lenora.
Sadie reminded herself that people were allowed to think what they would never say aloud without deserving judgment.
It was a rule she had established for herself years ago.
Not one she always managed to implement faithfully, but still something she tried to live by.
It was as much for her own benefit as theirs, too.
If she judged people based on their private thoughts, then she was more likely to betray she heard those thoughts.
It was best to pretend she never even heard them—and to trace the glyph on her amulet as often as possible to reduce the risk of hearing them.
Of course, this time, it hadn’t taken her telepathy to ruin things.
Sadie had managed that quite well on her own, by adding a little magic to Lenora’s tea.
When Abigail looked away, and therefore no one was watching Sadie, she slipped out of the room. She needed space. Time. A chance to think without others’ thoughts mixing in with her own.
She had agreed to stay at Marstede because she could treat it as an exception to her rules. She should have known better. She should have remembered to always heed her grandmother’s advice.
Live in the present. Learn from the past. Plan for the future.
She had decided not to plan for the future because her future wasn’t here.
But Lamsdel was in Marstede lands, and the lord of those lands now suspected she was a witch.
Sadie had to decide how risky it was to remain at the manor now that she had betrayed her water-affinity.
She had learned from the past that hiding her magic altogether was the safest route.
Letting out a sliver of the truth always led to the discovery of all her secrets.
Sadie had made it halfway down the hall when the parlor door opened and closed once more. She glanced back, but it wasn’t Nicholas following her.
And she wasn’t disappointed about that. She didn’t want to face him until she had a chance to think through everything.
She didn’t.
Helen stood in front of the door for a moment, as if unsure which direction to turn. Her thoughts poured out in a wave. I don’t want to live here! How can the dowager stand to be so close to a haunted forest?
With an internal sigh, Sadie walked back the way she had come and put an arm around Helen’s shoulders. “Come on, I’ll make you a mug of tea, too. I bet you could use it after sitting with Lenora like that.”
“How are you so calm?” Helen asked, letting Sadie steer her toward the kitchen. “Doesn’t it worry you that Lenora was attacked?”
“A bat isn’t really that dangerous, and the situation is completely out of the ordinary.”
“That is worse. Whatever spirit haunts the forest must have driven the bat out.” Helen studied Sadie for a moment. “Does it really not bother you that you’d be stuck here if you marry Lord Marstede?”
“Honestly? I don’t think Nicholas plans to marry any of us. That is Madeleine’s wish, not his. But even if he did propose, you don’t have to accept, Helen.”
“I couldn’t refuse!”
“Then tell Nicholas not to propose to you.”
“I couldn’t.”
Sadie sighed. Ladies couldn’t do a lot of things, it seemed. “Do you want me to tell him for you?”
“You’d do that?”
“I would.” In fact, Sadie anticipated taking great pleasure in making the report.
She wasn’t going to leave, she realized.
She didn’t need more time to think. It didn’t matter that Nicholas suspected she was a witch.
Sadie was going to live in this present and enjoy it as much as possible.
She knew the exact shape of the cage she had to return to in the future, and it was time to have a little pleasure before locking herself back inside.
Helen clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “Then, yes, please. Thank you, Sadie.”
“Of course.” Sadie opened the door to the kitchen. “Now let’s get you that mug of tea.”
???
Nicholas didn’t need a reminder to leave his workroom on time the next day. He was waiting in the lavender sitting room before the clock struck the hour, ready for his walk with Sadie. She entered the room exactly on time, dressed in a pale yellow walking dress that looked vaguely familiar.
“Yesterday didn’t scare you off?” she greeted him.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” He offered her his arm, then led the way outside.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” She tugged as they stepped outside, leading him toward the western side of the manor. Toward the Gloaming Forest. “But if that bat was part of your master plan, you have succeeded with at least one-sixth of your goal.”
“Lenora is packing her bags?” He didn’t try to hide how hopeful he sounded.
“No, though she might be considering it. But she isn’t the one I am talking about.”
“Abigail, then. Please tell me Abigail disappeared in the night.”
Sadie scoffed. “You’d need far more than a bat to scare her off. She would put up with marrying a bear if it got her a title.”
“Then she should go find herself a noble bear. I’m certainly not going to propose to her.”
“Nor will you propose to Helen.”
He blinked. He wouldn’t, but Sadie’s statement was oddly certain. Helen wasn’t truly objectionable like Abigail—though her stance on magic bothered him. “You are correct, but why are you so sure?”
“Because I’ve been tasked with telling you that she does not want you to propose. If you did, she’d have to say yes, and then she’d be miserable living in Marstede. Helen is terrified of the forest.”
The forest Sadie had deliberately steered them toward. Nicholas allowed her to take them onto the nearest path that led under the trees. The sunlight filtered through green leaves, the shadows shifting in the breeze. “Is this your opinion?”
“No. We discussed it yesterday after everything. As I said, I was tasked with passing on this information.”
“Then please reassure Helen that I will not propose to her. Preferably with my mother close enough to overhear her relief at hearing it.”
“Do you really want your mother to know that one lady is out of the running? Won’t that just incentivize her to throw you at the others even harder?”
Sadie made a valid point. “True, but at the end of the month it might help my cause if Mother admits that the women she invited have as little desire to marry me as I do them.”
“That’s quite the generalization. All I said was that Helen doesn’t want to marry you.”
“You’ve previously stated that you have no intention of staying beyond the allotted month. And I think it is safe to say Lenora has changed her mind.”
Sadie glared at him. “You are making assumptions. Lenora was overwrought yesterday, but that doesn’t mean she is planning to run away. It is dismissive of you to decide she can’t recover.”
Nicholas winced. She was right. Again. “It isn’t so much an assumption as a hope,” he explained. “Not that I want Lenora to be traumatized, but since the event already occurred, is it really so terrible for me to wish it would make a difference in her views on marrying me?”
Sadie didn’t absolve him, but she didn’t expressly tell him his hopes were indeed terrible—though the look she gave him was eloquent enough. “Even if you got your wish and Lenora wanted out, that is still only two of six women, hardly enough to prove your mother wrong.”
“And you. That brings the score to an even half. Or have you changed your mind?” Given that Nicholas didn’t want to marry, he wasn’t sure why he held his breath waiting for her answer.
“I said I had no expectation of staying beyond the month. No expectation is different from no desire.”
Just the word desire from her lips was enough to set Nicholas on edge.
A new fantasy joined his repertoire, this time of him pressing her against the trunk of one of the massive sycamores, caging her in with his arms as he kissed her until neither of them could breathe.
He’d never be able to walk through the forest without picturing it again.
Sadie’s cheeks grew rosy. “A desire to stay at Marstede, I mean. Not to, uh, marry.”
Her words were enough to make him pull back his imagination—before he betrayed the exact nature of his thoughts any more than he already had. He wasn’t thinking about kissing, suddenly, but he was very focused on Sadie. “You like Marstede? Most people consider my estate unrefined. Rustic.”
“It is a little wild, but that only makes the comforts all the more cozy.”
It shouldn’t surprise him to hear she appreciated the wildness. She had led him directly into the forest for their walk, after all. And yet, he was so used to defending his love of Marstede, that her voicing of his own views took him completely by surprise.
“You’d actually enjoy staying in Marstede for longer than a month?
” The fern-lined path they were on branched, and this time Nicholas chose the direction they took, leading them down the narrower path that curved between the trees to the right.
He wanted to show Sadie a particular spot in the forest. She’d appreciate the spring, with its clear waters and the blooming hydrangeas flourishing right up to its edge.
“Careful,” Sadie chided with a smile, “or I’m going to start thinking you want me to stay.”
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to beg her to stay. His mother might have been right about him denying that he was at times lonely. Marriage, he still believed, was not the answer, but Sadie might be. At least temporarily.
It was the mystery of who she really was and what she was hiding. That was all. Which reminded Nicholas of the charm in his pocket, the one he wasn’t sure how to offer her.
“I’m not going to expel you from the manor, despite your secrets,” he started.
Her smile disappeared as if it had never been, and he knew he had taken the wrong tack.
She’d argued so readily about her secrets before that he had forgotten how nervous he’d made her when he realized she was a witch.
Her magic must be tied to the true secret, the one that had nothing to do with whatever game his mother was playing by inviting Sadie to stay.
The path bent, and the spring came into view.
Nicholas stopped, staring over the water and hoping the scene brought as much peace to Sadie as it always did him.
The clear water gave a perfect view of the multi-colored pebbles lining the bottom, more beautiful than the flowers, in his opinion, for they remained year round.
The breeze passing over the water smelled richer, purer.
He breathed it in. “What I mean to say is you are safe here. Secrets and all. You can trust me, but I realize that my saying as much is hardly enough to secure such trust.” He pulled the amethyst out of his pocket.
“Since I don’t know what you are hiding—or hiding from—this may not be exactly helpful, but it won’t hurt.
And if you told me more, I could make a protection that was more targeted. ”
Sadie stared at the gemstone in his hand, her dark eyes wide, and he tried to think what else he could say to convince her to take it.