Chapter 17
Seventeen
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Sadie wasn’t sure she actually understood any of the rules of chess by the time they started a game.
It had nothing to do with the complexity or Nicholas’s ability to teach.
She simply couldn’t concentrate on anything beyond the fact that, according to Nicholas, all witches had to learn how not to use their power.
Sadie’s family—everyone in her home village—had told her that her power was aberrant. That she needed to use the charms her grandmother made because it was the only way to respect people’s privacy. That if she had normal magic, things would be different. Better.
Instead of teaching her to control her power, her family had forced her to suppress it. And she had gladly used the charms, excited when her grandmother found a new glyph that worked even better, because she thought it was the only way to quiet the thoughts of those around her.
How different would her life have been if she could control her telepathy?
Could she have sat through supper tonight and not been overwhelmed? Able to push away the thoughts bombarding her with an effort of will?
“Diagonals,” Nicholas reminded her when she picked up a piece and hesitated before moving it.
She chose a spot and set the carved ebony down, then slowly drew back her hand, her fingers curling inward. “Are we still warded against eavesdropping?” she blurted.
Nicholas picked up one of his own pieces and captured the one she had just placed. “Yes.”
“How do you learn control?” she asked in a rush, the words tumbling over each other before she could regret saying them at all.
“Practice. Lots and lots of practice.”
“That tells me nothing!”
“It depends on your power.”
“I’m not telling you that.” It was bad enough that she had tacitly admitted to having one.
“Then I can’t really offer specific help.
But in general, the first step is to get comfortable using your magic.
Only then can you get a feel for how not to use it.
So when my power manifested, I spent hours and hours crafting wards.
I learned how to change their color, to make some block physical objects, others sound, others light.
Eventually manipulating the power led to understanding how not to call on it. ”
“So you walked around surrounded by wards until then?” Sadie didn’t believe it for a minute. She’d have noticed if all witches went through a phase like that as they learned their powers.
“Not constantly. Like I said before, the power is instinctive, and my instincts didn’t always call for protections. Plus, wards are stationary, so I couldn’t move if I had one around myself. I slept with a ward around my bed every night for months, though.”
“And you learned to not use your power by first getting comfortable using it.”
“Exactly.”
Sadie could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had deliberately tried to use her power, and most of them had been since coming to Marstede.
If that was the first step to learning control, then she had a long way to go.
She wasn’t sure it was a path she wanted to take.
There was a reason no one wanted to spend time around a telepath. Thoughts were supposed to be private.
But maybe, in certain situations, listening to surface thoughts wouldn’t be that much of an invasion?
Sadie had caught snippets from Nicholas on the other evenings as he played chess, his thoughts concentrated on the moves in the game and possible strategies.
He hadn’t had room in his thoughts for anything truly private.
And if practicing could lead to control, wouldn’t that be better in the long run?
She began collecting the ebony pieces sitting along the side of the board. “All right, I think I have an idea of how to play. Let’s start a real game.”
???
Nicholas would have sworn that Sadie hadn’t taken in a word he had said while explaining the game.
If he was understanding what she hadn’t said correctly, she was a witch who had never learned to control her power, and he’d been the first person to tell her that all witches had to learn control.
It was no wonder that she hadn’t cared about the rules of a game after a revelation like that.
Then again, he was probably completely wrong in his conclusions.
It made no sense. She wouldn’t be able to hide it if she constantly allowed instinct to control the magic.
Unless her power was something so obscure it didn’t come up in normal life.
But he’d wager another month with a houseful of guests that wasn’t the case.
Once they started their game, she was suddenly hyper-focused. She needed a prompt or two before she remembered how to move certain pieces at first, but with each turn, she grew more confident. He set aside the mystery of her power and allowed himself to get lost in the intricacies of the game.
Sadie turned out to be his strongest opponent in a long time.
She might not have known how each piece could move, but she grasped the strategy better than many seasoned players.
She anticipated his every gambit, countering them with the worst possible action for him before he had a chance to try.
His turns took longer and longer as he mentally worked through several moves, trying to see the best path to victory.
In response, Sadie seemed to know how to move her pieces almost before he set his down.
It was the most frustrating game of chess he had played since first learning how.
He loved it.
Nicholas knocked over his king, conceding defeat before Sadie could gleefully trap his king with her queen. He propped his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers, and considered Sadie. “You lied about not knowing how to play, didn’t you?”
“According to you, I lie about everything.”
“Not everything. I’m fairly certain your name really is Sadie, though not Sadie Pentry.” He laced his fingers together and propped his chin on his hands. “You like swimming, too. Oh, and you did walk to Marstede, though there was never a carriage that broke down.”
She leaned back. So long as he didn’t mention magic, she seemed quite relaxed about him uncovering her lies. “Three things? You believe there are only three truthful things about me? It’s a wonder you haven’t thrown me out of the manor.”
“No, I believe you have said three truthful things about yourself. Your actions are far more honest than your words.”
“And you assume that a kiss equals a desire for marriage?”
“No,” he said slowly. He had panicked after kissing her, but after several days to consider it, he had accepted that Sadie not only wouldn’t try to entrap him, she wouldn’t take advantage of him either.
He owed her an explanation for his reaction.
“My fears that afternoon weren’t really about you.
I lashed out because I felt trapped by this entire situation, not you.
I apologize for acting like you would behave like … well, like Abigail.”
Sadie cocked her head to the side. “So, if you could guarantee it wouldn’t lead to a marriage, would you kiss Abigail?”
“What? No!” Nicholas straightened, dropping his hands into his lap. “I have no interest in kissing Abigail. Even without the threat of marriage hanging over my interactions with her, I don’t want to spend time with her. I certainly don’t want to sleep with her.”
He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. Sadie, on the other hand, seemed perfectly comfortable. “What you are saying is that your physical desires are not divorced from personality.”
“Exactly.”
“Then why,” Sadie asked, suddenly leaning forward and hitting him with an intense stare, “would you panic that I am the type of person who would expect marriage after a single kiss, when you only kissed me because I am not that type of person?”
In the deepest reaches of his mind, Nicholas squashed the thought that maybe he had kissed her because he did want her to demand marriage.
He wanted to spend more time with her, that was all.
It was only his mother—and women like Abigail—who’d assume that meant he was secretly dreaming of marriage.
“I wasn’t thinking about it that logically at the time.
I wanted to kiss you, Sadie, that was the only thing going through my mind at that moment.
Afterward, all I could think was that you’d misinterpret my actions. ”
“I don’t care that you warned me that kissing didn’t change your views on matrimony. That wasn’t the issue, Nicholas. I appreciate that you were upfront about that, actually. But then you acted like I was an Abigail.”
“I never should have treated you like you would use that kiss as leverage, I’ve admitted that.
You jumbled my thoughts, Sadie.” He expected her to preen at knowing her kiss had left him so flummoxed, but she winced instead.
“I’m not trying to say it is your fault.
It wasn’t. The fault is mine, I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t thinking clearly.
I’d never have said what I did if I had taken a moment to consider it first.”
As ridiculous as it was, given how many lies he knew she had told him, he trusted her.
“Why?” she whispered.
“I didn’t plan on being attracted to any of the women my mother invited. I reacted poorly when I realized your presence makes this entire month something other than I anticipated.”
She shook her head. “No. Why do you trust me? You’ve said it yourself, I’m lying to you. I’m keeping secrets. How can you be sure I’m not really like Abigail?”
“Abigails can’t hide. And you aren’t hiding, you are protecting yourself. I understand the difference, even if I am still determined to uncover your secret. I can help you, Sadie. If you let me.”
Her hand rose and pressed against her chest, rather than closing around the amulet at her throat as she so often did. Nicholas wondered if the charm he had given her was still in her bodice.
“I don’t need help.”
“You don’t have to need it to accept it.”
Sadie dropped her hand to her lap and cocked her head to the side. “Do you need your mother’s help to find a wife?”
Nicholas narrowed his eyes, knowing exactly where she was going with that question. “It is hardly the same thing. If I were actually looking for a wife—which I’m not—”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear.” She rolled her eyes.
He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “If I were looking for a wife, I’d accept Mother’s help even though I don’t need it.
Her interference is not helpful.” Nicholas glanced over at where his mother and Abigail sat engrossed in conversation.
“Though I am quite surprised that she isn’t interfering right this second.
She has surely noticed we finished our game by now, yet she hasn’t interrupted to make me divide my time between you and Abigail. ”
“I’m not surprised at all.”
Nicholas turned his attention back to Sadie. “What part of your acquaintance with my mother has convinced you that she’d let things play out naturally?”
Sadie waved her hand through the air, a gesture he recognized from how often his mother used it.
“The only other potential bride in the room is Abigail. Madeleine knows when to cut her losses. She wants you amenable to marriage, not terrified into hiding in the forest for the rest of the month. The surprising fact is that Abigail herself hasn’t interrupted—I wouldn’t have expected her to even wait for our game to end.
Your mother must be telling her some very interesting things to keep her occupied. ”
His gaze snapped back to the women on the divan. “Damn it. I recognize that smile. Mother is telling stories about my childhood.”
Sadie twisted around and looked. When she turned back, her brown eyes were bright with amusement. “Given how engrossed Abigail is, your childhood must have been very interesting. But, look on the bright side, you could probably slip away right now without needing to talk to Abigail at all.”
“If I do that, you’ll join them and demand to hear all the most embarrassing stories.”
She smirked. “Don’t worry, I’ll do that even if you don’t make your escape.”
She stood, and he reached for her, not touching but silently asking her to wait. “Sadie, I mean it when I say I want to help.”
She shook her head. “I appreciate the thought, but, just like your mother’s attempts to marry you off, in this case, any interference is not actually helpful.”