Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
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Nicholas couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was in a strange room, because he knew Abigail was snooping around his room, though she’d only activated one of the wards around the peas so far, the storm raging outside, or if it was just one of those nights.
Whatever the reason for his insomnia, not being in his suite didn’t help.
He couldn’t pick up one of the books he kept on hand for when he wasn’t tired.
Nor could he tinker with the bowl of stones and handful of engraving tools he kept ready for the moments when a random idea of how certain runes could be combined into a new glyph occurred to him at the oddest hours of the night.
Being in the guest bedroom was stifling.
So he left.
Without really thinking about it, he turned the direction of Sadie’s room when he stepped into the hall.
He wasn’t about to knock on her door at midnight, of course, but he had to walk in some direction, why not that one?
When he was only a few paces away and her door swung open, his heart beat faster.
Instead of just not being able to sleep, he was suddenly wide awake.
But it was only Pippa stepping out into the hallway.
She stopped short when she saw him. “What are you doing prowling the hall so late at night, Lord Marstede?”
Though he was disappointed she wasn’t Sadie, Nicholas tried not to let it show.
He’d always liked Pippa. Apart from addressing him by his title, she had treated him the same as any other customer in her parents’ tavern.
He might not have reciprocated the friendliness and teasing over the years, but he’d appreciated it all the same.
Tonight, he decided to answer her the same as he would have Sadie, with no prevarication. “I couldn’t sleep. Did Sadie tell you about this latest ploy of my mother’s? I’m stuck in a guest room in my own manor.”
Pippa smirked. “Sadie didn’t have to tell me, I already knew. Maisie told me about it this morning.”
Of course his mother’s maid had known. Probably every servant in Marstede had known before Nicholas. He studied Pippa. “Is there anything I can offer that would convince you to give me adequate warning before my mother pulls whatever stunt she has planned next?”
“And ruin the fun? Not a chance.”
He sighed. “That’s what I thought.” He inclined his head. “Good night, Pippa.”
She stopped him before he took a single step. “That’s it?”
Nicholas turned back to face her, his brow furrowed. “I don’t follow.”
“You aren’t going to ask me questions about Sadie?”
“Would you answer them?”
“No, but you should still be asking!”
He shook his head. “No. I know enough. The questions I still have are things only Sadie can answer.”
Pippa huffed. “That’s actually a decent answer.
” Her eyes narrowed and she wagged a finger at him.
“Just be sure you don’t break her heart, Lord Marstede.
I don’t care if you are a baron, if you hurt her I’ll turn your entire staff against you and you’ll never have another comfortable day or night again. ”
The threat should have given Nicholas pause—Pippa could, and would, do it.
But hearing Sadie’s friend imply that he could break her heart instead buoyed him.
He didn’t want to be the only one with that particular organ at risk.
So, instead of quaking in fear as Pippa no doubt hoped he would, Nicholas smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She nodded once. “You do that.”
Then she turned the opposite direction from him and they each went their own way. At the end of the hall, Nicholas ran into another maid. She was one of the lady’s maids who had come with the guests, not a servant he knew. He nodded at her.
“Oh, Lord Marstede, I’m so glad I found you.”
“Is there a problem?” What sort of problem would a maid seek him out to solve? Especially at this time of night?
“My mistress needs your help, my lord.”
Well, that was suspiciously vague. Nicholas had an inkling he knew which guest was this maid’s mistress.
And it wasn’t one he wanted to see in the middle of the night.
Or the middle of the day, or any other time.
But there wasn’t a polite way to refuse to go with the woman as she urged him down the hall toward his own bedroom.
He looked back the way he had come, wishing some escape would occur to him, and spotted Pippa. She had stopped at the far end of the hallway and had clearly seen Abigail’s maid talking to him. He mouthed the word “help” at her, then let himself be led away.
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Sadie had just crawled under the covers after Pippa left, ready to let the sound of rain and rumbles of thunder lull her to sleep, when her friend barreled into her bedroom.
“Wake up, wake up!”
“I’m awake,” Sadie said, throwing back the blankets. “What’s wrong?”
Pippa grabbed the dressing gown hanging by the foot of the bed and tossed it at Sadie. “Put that on. Quick!”
Sadie reacted to her friend’s urgency, wishing that the infusion of power Nicholas had added to her amulet wasn’t quite so strong.
It would be nice to know why Pippa was so frantic.
As it was, Sadie found herself wrapped in the silk dressing gown and pushed out of her room without any idea what was going on.
Once in the hall, Pippa gave her a shove between the shoulder blades. “Quickly!”
Sadie staggered forward a step, then caught herself and spun back. “What is going on, Pippa?”
“You need to go to the end of the hall and turn left. Now. You’ll see when you get there.”
Standing around arguing wasn’t going to accomplish anything, so Sadie started walking.
What was to the left in the next hallway?
If Sadie recalled correctly, that was the direction of the family suites.
Was Pippa trying to make her visit Nicholas in the middle of the night?
No, he was staying in a guest room tonight.
She walked a little faster, and made it to the corner.
Nicholas was at the end of the hall, standing outside his own door.
He had no jacket or waistcoat on, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up his arms. Even with half the glow-glyphs lining the halls extinguished at this hour, Sadie could see the strong lines of his back, the strength of his shoulders, through the thin silk shirt.
She was so distracted thinking about running her hands over that expanse, then slipping them under the shirt and feeling the warmth of his skin directly, that it took her several heartbeats to notice the door was open, and Nicholas wasn’t alone.
When she realized he was talking to Abigail, she almost backed away, her stomach in knots. That wasn’t something she wanted to see. But then it occurred to her that those lovely muscles she’d just been admiring were all tense. He didn’t want to be there.
Of course he didn’t want to be there. She knew he couldn’t stand Abigail.
She took a step forward.
“—need you to show me,” Abigail was saying, her hand on Nicholas’s forearm.
He shifted, and Sadie got her first glimpse of Abigail.
A flash of lightning brightened the hall for an instant, searing the scene into Sadie’s mind.
The other woman had already dressed for bed but she hadn’t grabbed a dressing gown to wear over her nightgown.
And that garment was not one meant to be worn outside of an intimate setting.
But Abigail clearly felt no shame standing in the doorway in her sheer nightgown, trying to convince Nicholas to enter the room with her.
The baron, for his part, very obviously was not looking at the body on display for his benefit. He kept his head up, angled too high for him to even be looking at her face.
Sadie couldn’t really stomp in her bare feet on the soft rugs that ran down the center of the halls, so she waited for the rumble of thunder to pass and yawned—loudly—instead.
Nicholas whipped around, and the relief he felt when he spotted her was obvious. “Sadie, what are you doing up at this hour?”
She didn’t need her magic to know that what he really meant was “Sadie, thank the spirits you are up at this hour.”
She crossed the remaining distance between them. “I thought to go get a mug of chamomile tea from the kitchen; the storm is keeping me awake.” She stopped at his side and smiled at Abigail. “Oh, that fabric is so fine! I wish I could afford a nightgown that expensive.”
She pretended there was nothing out of the ordinary about walking up on a practically naked woman talking to the lord of the manor in the middle of the night.
If Abigail couldn’t seduce Nicholas, her next goal would be to cause enough of a commotion that people would see him talking to her and assume something improper was going on.
Sadie’s complete lack of reaction would throw her.
Though she kept her attention on Abigail, Sadie noticed Nicholas shifting. He didn’t step away, but somehow he was now behind Sadie. Not fully, of course, but enough that she was pretty sure she was being used as a shield against Abigail.
She didn’t blame him. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had also erected an invisible ward between himself and the seductress trying to trap him.
Abigail wasn’t flustered at being caught. She turned her attention to Sadie and glared. For a moment, Sadie imagined she had seen a rim of red around the other woman’s pupils. Oh yes, Abigail was enraged by the interruption.
The sultry tones were gone in an instant, all pretense forgotten as if Nicholas were no longer standing right there. “It wouldn’t do you any good to have clothes like this. No one would care to look at you.”
That insult might have hurt more if Sadie couldn’t still remember the look in Nicholas’s eyes when he saw her in the spring. It did take her off guard, however. She had expected subtler insults from Abigail.