“Provocative,” he murmured, drawing her free hand to his lips.
Peter could sensehis assistant vibrating with impatience behind him, so eager was she to get out of the house. He waited for her final brew to glow green before turning on her.
“Do you have a judgment problem, Miss Harper?”
This seemed to wrong-foot her—she fell back a step, eyes wary—but her response was swift. “I certainly misjudged you.”
“And now you’re making the same mistake with Wizard Garrett, I see.”
Her “what?” was barely audible.
“Your dreams aremydreams.”
He watched her cheeks bloom scarlet. She must have forgotten all about its contents—Garrett waltzing with her in a forest clearing, then kissing her—when she woke in the morning.
“Has it occurred to you that he’s stringing you along in hopes of getting something other than your hand in marriage?” he said.
Her reply was as dry as a bleached bone. “That occurs to all women.”
Nowhewas blushing, damn it. “Information. About me.”
“He knows how I feel about you. I doubt he’d see the need to offer more incentive than the possibility of not having to work for you ever again.”
“Certain about that, are you?”
If he’d had any reason to wonder whether she truly hated him, her scowl would have erased his final doubts. “May I leave, Omnimancer?”
“Unpin your hair,” he said, deliberately leaving off the “please.”
She freed it with violent jerks, as if she wanted to pull it all out. He looked at it more closely than normal, now that he knew Garrett might at any time be pawing through it—hair the shade he took his coffee, with hints of her mother’s auburn.
“What are you doing here?” she asked bitterly. “Why did you come back to Ellicott Mills?”
“To serve the town, of course.”
“Why did you leave your job?”
“Stress.”
She made a disgusted sound. “What’s the point in lying to me when you’ve ensured I can’t repeat a word you say?”
“Those aren’t all my reasons,” he said, “but they’re true. Besides—the Vow can’t make me trust you again.”
“No, it’s very good at killing trust. Respect, too.”
He’d reached out a hand to gather her hair so he could lift it and check the underside, and his fingers brushed the nape of her neck just as she finished delivering this insult. She flinched.
That, more than the words, pushed him over the edge.
“It also allows me to order you to tell Wizard Garrett that he should take his attentions elsewhere,” he said.
She gasped. Low though her opinion of him was, she had not, apparently, thought him capable of that.
“To allay any suspicions, you’d have to give a little speech about how you’re simply too different and your sister would never forgive you,” he said, dropping her hair and stalking around to face her.
Her mouth worked open and closed without a sound escaping.
“Icould, but I won’t.” He crossed his arms. “Remember that, would you, the next time you tally my faults.”
