Chapter 15
Fifteen
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Nicholas answered a question from Jane about an ingredient she needed for a potion and tried not to let his impatience show. She was so earnest, looking at him with near reverence, that it would be extra cruel to let her see how little he cared.
But he didn’t care about dried herbs. He cared about Sadie, who had escaped the sitting room the moment his mother declared her the winner of the game. He needed to talk to her. Privately, before supper.
He was done running from his attraction to her.
If he had to spend the rest of the month with a houseful of women, then he would, by the spirits, at least spend as much of that time as possible with the woman who made him laugh.
Who challenged him and treated him like a person, not a goal or a duty, or—in Jane’s case—a knight in shining armor.
The woman he’d kissed and wanted to kiss again. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that. She knew the score. One month, and one month only. Actually, only three more weeks at this point.
Then he’d have his solitude once more.
He told Jane he’d see to getting the ingredient she wanted, let her profuse thanks wash over him, and pleaded with the spirits not to let anyone else—especially his mother—come up to talk to him next.
The spirits took pity on him. He was able to leave the sitting room without further delays moments after Jane. Since she’d be heading to the brewing room, Nicholas knew exactly where to look for Sadie.
He strode out of the manor and into the forest. He hadn’t truly lied when he put the spring down as his favorite place in Marstede.
Depending on his mood, the spring or his engraving workroom were equally likely to be his preferred spot at any given time.
And since his walk with Sadie? Well, the spring was both a frustrating reminder and a delightful memory.
He walked a little faster than usual down the forest paths, only slowing when he reached the curve that brought the spring into view and didn’t spot Sadie.
There was only one spot where the vegetation around the banks broke, so she couldn’t be on the other side unless she had forced her way through the shrubbery.
Maybe he’d guessed wrong. Maybe she had gone to the brewing room. Or, if she hadn’t wanted to be around Jane, she might have retreated to her suite.
His eyes roved over the path, looking for any sign that Sadie had come that way.
He almost missed it. A deep shadow under a flowering bush tricked his eyes for a moment, and he didn’t make out the pile of clothing tucked away until the same moment he heard a splash.
His feet carried him forward even as the sensible, respectable part of him realized he should turn around right then.
She was swimming, her arms cutting through the water in practiced motions that had her racing from one end of the spring to the other in moments. She turned, spotted him, and dropped until the water lapped at her chin.
Sadie had forgotten that the water was crystalline and hid nothing from view, though her movements sent ripples through the water that distorted things.
Still, Nicholas was able to see far more than he should, and he did look.
It wasn’t intentional, but instinct. The moment he realized what he was doing, how exposed she was, he slammed a ward between himself and the spring, one that was as solid as a wall, and unlike his usual protections, completely opaque.
The ward didn’t erase what he had already seen from his memory, though.
As terrible as it made him, he hoped nothing would ever erase that memory.
Sadie was perfection. Soft and curvy in all the right places.
If he was ever having a bad day, he’d only have to recall the sight of her to instantly feel better.
Of course, he’d also make himself hard as a rock every time.
He heard the splash as she rose out of the water and did his best not to imagine what that would look like. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be swimming out here.”
She didn’t yell, though her voice held an extra edge he suspected was more fluster than outrage. “Are you sure you weren’t just finally trying to check if I was hiding a prosthetic under my skirts?”
He laughed, relieved she was reacting with such equanimity. “It wouldn’t matter to me either way, so, no.”
“Then you admit you just wanted to see me naked.”
He couldn’t honestly deny that, but it wasn’t like he had set out to spy on her. “I didn’t expect you to be swimming! Or naked. Why aren’t you at least wearing your chemise?”
This time she laughed. “Right, because that bit of thin white cotton would really have protected my modesty.” Another splash, this time closer to him. “I already have to sacrifice a petticoat to drying off, I wasn’t about to be stuck in a wet chemise, too.”
Nicholas leaned forward, thunking his head against the ward and berated himself for the images her words summoned.
Apparently, he really liked the idea of seeing Sadie in a wet chemise, the transparent cloth molding to her every dip and curve.
Since he had just seen her in the water, his mind had no difficulty coming up with what that view would look like.
“What are you doing?” Sadie’s voice cut through his thoughts, not putting a damper on them at all. “Are you knocking, hoping I’ll tell you to drop the ward and come in?”
“No,” he groaned and stepped away from the ward. “I’m trying to knock some decency into myself.”
“The solid ward is rather decent. Though it would be more so if my clothes were on my side of it.”
Nicholas looked over at the pile of fabric that he had not deliberately cut Sadie off from. He erected a new ward, this time between him and the clothes, and dropped the first. “I apologize. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I made the ward.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking clearly when I decided to go for a swim, so I suppose I can forgive you.
” She paused, and he tried not to listen for the rustle of fabric.
Tried not to imagine the glide of cloth over smooth, soft skin.
She continued talking, and he latched onto the distraction.
“Were you actually telling the truth about the spring being your favorite spot? I assumed you were messing with me.”
“It is one of my favorite spots. But I came out here now specifically because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“Sadie, you know why.”
“No, I don’t. You’ve been avoiding me for days, Nicholas. So why are you chasing me down today?”
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Sadie fought her way into her clothes, thankful that she had least worn one of her own dresses today and could don them without a maid, though being damp didn’t help.
Then again, if she’d been wearing one of the dowager’s dresses, she wouldn’t have been able to take it off to go for a swim, and perhaps that would have been for the best.
Nicholas was silent for so long, she wondered if he was going to ignore her question. Not that she’d let him.
She knew he hadn’t purposefully stumbled across her swimming.
She also knew he had gotten an eyeful, and his thoughts had been enough to make her cheeks flush and her core clench before she cut them off with her amulet.
The fact that he didn’t trust her didn’t seem to matter in his imagination.
But they had to interact in the real world.
Just when she was about to repeat the question he sighed. “Because I can’t keep away. You’ve infiltrated my thoughts, Sadie.”
She grimaced. If he ever learned just how much she infiltrated his thoughts, he’d want nothing to do with her.
With her arms twisted up behind her, she did up the final buttons of her frock and faced the glowing blue barrier between them. “You can drop the ward.”
It flickered out of existence, leaving her facing Nicholas with no walls but her own secrets between them. He took a step forward, and she held up a hand. He stopped immediately.
“Does it still bother you that I’m keeping secrets?”
He frowned. “Of course it bothers me.”
“Then you should continue to keep your distance.”
He took a single step closer. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Sadie. I don’t think I can.”
“Are you going to continue asking questions?”
“Of course I am. I can’t just ignore that you are hiding from someone or something.”
He thought she was hiding from something? Well, she supposed she was. Hiding from discovery. But nothing was hunting her. She didn’t need to hide from her past, she had already escaped it. She should protect her future, though.
Sadie had always known she couldn’t indulge in a serious relationship because of her need to hide her power, but she realized that even with a time limit, things between her and Nicholas had gone too far.
He couldn’t ignore her secrets, she couldn’t share them, and pretending they could have a physical relationship without that getting in the way was folly.
“It’s a bad idea. I won’t confide in you, Nicholas. You’ll get mad that I’m willing to trust you with my body, but not my secrets. I’ll feel bad that you assumed I’d change my mind, when I know I never will. We’ll both realize it would have been better to never even kiss.”
He snorted. “Nothing you could say or do would make me wish I had never kissed you.”
Her jaw dropped. “You regretted it the moment it was over!”
“I feared it was a mistake, but even if it were the biggest mistake of my life, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t choose to repeat it again and again.”
Sadie threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t understand you!”
He ran a hand through his red hair, blowing out a breath. “That’s fair. I don’t understand myself when I’m around you.”
“Such flattery.”
“You want flattery, Sadie? You are the most intriguing person I’ve ever met.
Not because of your secrets, but because of who you are, how you approach the world.
Your sense of humor and refusal to be cowed by rank.
The way you could be hiding the biggest secret ever, and yet you are still the most genuine person.
” He smiled ruefully. “And because you are gorgeous and I will cherish the image of you naked in that spring until the day I die.”
“You could at least pretend you hadn’t seen anything,” she muttered, too overcome by the rest of what he had said to respond to it.
“Is that really what you want? For me to pretend? I could pretend that I’m not curious about who you are, that I don’t care about keeping you safe, but it wouldn’t change the truth.”
Sadie shook her head. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore.
“It’s a bad idea,” she said as much to herself as to him.
“But is ignoring this—” he gestured between them “—any better?”
Unable to face the question, Sadie shook her head. “I need to get back to the manor and dry my hair before supper.”
Nicholas stepped to the side, but that still meant she had to walk right past him, the path narrow here. He waited until her skirts brushed over his feet and leaned close enough that the sleeve of his jacket slid over her arm. “Think it over, Sadie. You know what my answer is now.”