Chapter 12
Twelve
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Sadie gaped at the small purple stone in Nicholas’s hand, not quite daring to reach out and touch it. “You made a protection charm for me?”
“I know you said your amulet is more sentimental than anything, but I’ve noticed that you often try to feed power into it, despite the fact that earth is not your affinity. Even if it were, though, that glyph isn’t powerful enough to offer any sort of true protection.”
“I’m not in danger.” Not the sort that could be defended against with protective glyphs. Sadie’s only danger was betraying herself.
He raised a brow. “And your name is Sadie Pentry, and you came from Algimon in a carriage with a maid and trunks.”
Put that way, it did make sense that he wouldn’t believe her when she claimed not to need a protection charm. “I told you, my maid went home sick, and the carriage broke down.”
“And your trunks?”
She looked away from the amethyst and out over the water of the spring where they had stopped.
The path led directly to the nearest bank, the only spot where it was possible to approach the water without getting tangled in the hydrangea bushes dripping with indigo blooms. She wanted to take the final steps to the spring, pull off her ankle boots and stockings, and dip her toes into the refreshing coolness.
She didn’t care that the act wouldn’t be ladylike, but it felt too intimate all the same.
She looked back at Nicholas. “Obviously, I didn’t carry them when I walked the last bit after the axle broke. ”
“But they would have been delivered by now.” He looked her up and down. Aha, that’s why the dress looks familiar. “You wouldn’t be wearing my mother’s clothes.”
So much for Madeleine’s insistence that he wouldn’t recognize the dresses.
Sadie lifted her chin in the air. “That has nothing to do with a lack of clothes of my own. Your mother took pity on me and spared me the embarrassment of making public the quality of my own wardrobe compared to everyone else’s. ”
“You don’t sound embarrassed. And I’d think having me recognize my mother’s clothes on you would be worse.”
Sadie fell into the argument with relish. This lie was safe. “Nicholas, how I dress is not influenced by your opinions. You are but a man. It is the women in your home whom I must armor myself against in silks.”
“But we are all to be friends this month, aren’t we? Mother declared it so the first day.”
Sadie snorted. “Not even Madeleine believes such a thing is possible, despite what she said.”
“My mother is capable of grand delusions. This entire endeavor is proof of that.”
“She isn’t delusional, merely optimistic.”
“Deludedly optimistic. In what possible way could she have ever thought that inviting Abigail to Marstede would make me more inclined to marry?”
“To be fair, I do think she’s realized inviting Abigail was a mistake.
” It was why the dowager had extended the invitation to Sadie after all, because she had miscalculated and needed extra contrast. Not that Sadie thought there was anything she could do to make Abigail a more appealing potential wife to Nicholas.
But Madeleine wasn’t hoping for Abigail as a daughter-in-law, so that hardly mattered.
“Sadie,” Nicholas sighed, “I’m not going to forget that you haven’t accepted the charm.”
He held his hand out again, uncurling the fingers that had wrapped around the amethyst as they spoke. For a moment, Sadie understood Helen’s protestations that she “couldn’t.”
As a proper lady, Helen couldn’t refuse an offer of marriage from a baron. She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t want to marry him. It had seemed almost silly to Sadie at the time, but as she looked at the gem in Nicholas’s hand, all she could think to say was, “I can’t accept that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s a small charm I carved in a single morning.”
“It’s a jewel.”
“An amethyst is hardly on the same level as a sapphire or diamond.”
“I won’t take it.” Sadie said, finding her footing again. “Won’t” was so much better than “can’t.”
“If you don’t take it, Sadie, I’m going to be forced to do something drastic.”
“How will you make me accept it?”
“No, that’s all the warning you get. Accept the charm with grace, or be prepared to deal with the consequences.”
Sadie crossed her arms. “I’m not taking it.”
Nicholas rolled the amethyst in his hand, until he held it pinched between thumb and forefinger. He held it up a little higher, his hazel eyes glinting nearly emerald in the dappled light, daring her.
She accepted the dare with a lift of her chin.
Nicholas stepped forward, holding the stone between them at the height of her collarbone.
His eyes went dark as his gaze drifted down.
She sucked in a breath, and he dropped the amethyst into her bodice, directly between her breasts.
His fingers hadn’t even grazed her skin, yet she burned with awareness of how close they had come.
Nicholas looked up again, a flush highlighting his cheekbones. “Ready to accept it now?”
Because of the size of the stone, it had fallen too deep into her corset for Sadie to fish it out with any sort of dignity. But that didn’t mean she was conceding. “This won’t make me keep it forever.”
“If you return it to me, I will give it back to you in the same manner. As many times as it takes.”
“I won’t give you the opportunity.” Oh spirits, she sounded breathless rather than firm.
Nicholas groaned. “Sadie.”
In his mind, he was leaning in for a kiss. He pictured it in exquisite detail, his head dipping lower, Sadie tilting up her chin to meet him, their bodies swaying closer.
Sadie saw the thought, and braced her hands on his chest, going up on tiptoe before she could think it through. It was a mistake, reacting to thoughts rather than actions. The type of mistake that betrayed her.
Except …
It wasn’t a mistake. Nicholas moved almost in time with his thoughts, leaning down and taking her lips at the same instant she lifted toward him.
He cradled the base of her head with one hand, but before he could use that grip to angle her head for a deeper kiss, she was already moving, responding to what she saw in his thoughts, wanting it all as much as he did.
Her telepathy opened up, a flower unfurling to soak in the sun. She didn’t fight the images as Nicholas’s control gave way and more and more of his thoughts slipped to the surface. She could hardly tell what was real and what was only in her mind, but it didn’t matter, because it was all wonderful.
Nicholas kissed with a focus on details that Sadie had never before experienced.
He didn’t just press his lips against hers, he changed the pressure, testing until he found the exact point she melted into him.
Then he licked at her lips, tasted her, and devoted himself to discovering what made her moan, what made her chase if he pulled back, what made her dig her fingers into him.
She reciprocated, using the knowledge her magic gave her.
He pulled her closer when she bit down on his lower lip.
The hand at her nape drifted around, down over her collarbone, and to the skin that had burned for his touch earlier.
His finger dipped just under the edge of her bodice, and she couldn’t hold back her gasp.
His hands fell away and Nicholas stumbled back. Mistake. This is a mistake.
He pulled himself together, his thoughts disappearing under a layer of control that had been absent moments before.
Sadie looked past his shoulder, not sure she could stand to see regret in his eyes as well as hearing it in his thoughts. Around them, a shimmering blue barrier winked out of existence. He’d warded them while they kissed and now dropped it as he moved further from her.
Nicholas’s voice was gruff when he managed to speak. “I apologize, I shouldn’t have—”
Sadie’s gaze snapped back to him. Did he think she hadn’t been willing, was that why he stopped? “You don’t need to apologize. It was a joint endeavor.”
“One that shouldn’t have happened.”
“Why not? We both enjoyed it.” Sadie couldn’t believe she had asked the question. Except she didn’t have to hold back with Nicholas. She hid her magic, but she didn’t have to hide herself from him. And she wanted the answer to that question.
“That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. I still have no intention of marrying, Sadie.”
She blinked. “I never expected you to change your mind about that.” She knew better than to believe herself in one of Pippa’s favorite love stories.
Sadie would not marry someone while keeping a secret as large as her magic.
And since she fully planned on never telling anyone about her power ever again, she had accepted that she’d never marry.
But this month? It was an oasis in the desert of loneliness she lived in.
A temporary respite, a chance to indulge without having to worry how it would impact her normal life.
Surely she could enjoy herself that much without her power ruining everything?
He scoffed. “I’m supposed to believe you won’t try to leverage this”—he pointed between them —“into a proposal?”
She rolled her eyes. “Why would I want to spend my life with someone I have to trick into marriage?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not so vain that I assume it is about me. But the ring does come with a few other perks, like a title and access to my estate.”
Sadie took a step back. “You really think I am so mercenary?”
“I don’t know what to think! You are keeping too many secrets. Most of what comes out of your mouth is a lie. Why should I believe this one thing when I know I can’t trust anything else?”
“Right.” Sadie had been deluding herself. Of course he didn’t trust her. Why would he? “Then I suppose I agree. This was a mistake. You should go back to the house. Abigail is probably waiting for you.”
???
Shit.
Nicholas realized too late that the real mistake was lashing out at Sadie in panic.