She lurched away from him, wiping the tears off her cheek and out of her eyes with harsh swipes. “You!” She swung at his chest with a fist. “You come here with your jokes and your grins and your nonsense but with nothing that can help!” She took another swing at him, hurting her knuckles more than him, though he did wince. Probably to help save her pride. An act, nothing more.
“Get it all out,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
She shoved at his shoulders, and he barely moved. “Marry me, I say, and you say no, though I’d like to. Don’t risk your life on Christmas Eve, I beg, and you shrug off my concerns.” She hit his shoulder. “What I want matters. It matters! Though no one thinks it does. Not a damn living soul thinks it does because I am no one, and I am nothing. Metal doesn’t leap at my touch, and potions have never passed from my fingers. I can conjure no glamour. I cannot even conjure someone to love me!”
She jumped from the bed and paced across the room, anger burning through her limbs. “I may be small and useless, but I have desires.” She beat her own chest this time. God, it felt good to scream her rage, to show the world what it didn’t want fromher, what it wanted from no woman—his disappointment, her disillusionment, her anger.
Nico sat on the edge of the bed. He’d not moved since crossing his arms over his chest. Except for his eyes. Those followed her. Something in their blue depths calmed her. Not entirely, but… curiosity bloomed where thoughtless anger had swelled unchecked before.
“Why have you come here?” she demanded.
After a moment of consideration, he stood and made for the door. He must have closed it behind him when he came in, but he opened it now.
One of the guards stood in the frame, his back to her room. She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.
The guard must have heard. He looked over his shoulder at her, scowling. “Sir Nicholas told me you was fine with him visiting. If yer not, I’ll toss him right out.”
He must have heard her every word. Her cheeks were so hot. There wasn’t even a fire in the grate. She resisted the urge to hide her face in her hands and licked her lips. “No, he was right. He and I have things to discuss.”
“I wouldn’t have let him in, but… you were—” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing and his cheeks flushing. Crying. She’d been crying, and she’d embarrassed him as well as herself. “Anyways, I’m right here if you need me, Miss Dean.” He patted the handle of the gun holstered at his hip. A warning to Nico, no doubt.
Nico placed a hand on his heart. “Mr. Kringle, I give you my solemn word I will not harm this virtuous lady. I pledge my life to her as her knight.”
“Yes, well, I have to return to my position,” the guard—Mr. Kringle, apparently—said. “I’ll be back in an hour when we shift positions again.”
“Good man.” Nico closed the door without a sound. He rested his back against it, and when his gaze hit her, a fire roared to life in her chest, burning away most of the night’s other emotions—despair, shame, rage. They all bowed before something greater—desire.
Not that she would let him see. Enough of the other feelings still clung to her bones to make her wary. “Why are you here?”
“A myriad of reasons.” He stepped away from the door. He was bigger than he’d been this afternoon in the garden, broader, his eyes shining silver.
“Have you been working?”
“Yes, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“You should not be here.”
“I know.”
“Especially like”—she waved at his massive frame—“this.” His coat was open, and he wore no jacket beneath that, only an unbuttoned waistcoat and a linen shirt open at the throat. “Where have you been? You disappeared then did not return.”
“Miss me?” A sliver of a grin.
She snorted. “I had hoped you would remain missing until after Christmas.” He could remain alive that way. But… “Have you charmed the guards?”
His grin widened. “Begun to. All part of my plan.”
“Your plans.” She sniffed, turned toward the window, and held her arms around her waist. Dark sky, bright snow. Why was it so hot in here when it should not be?
She knew he was right behind her not because she heard his footsteps—she didn’t—but because she felt his heat.
“You’re not useless,” he said.
Her shoulders stiffened. She did not need teasing or platitudes. She did not need coddling.
“I’ll prove it to you.” He sounded so very certain.
She whipped around to face him. “Prove it, then.”
