“I told you it wouldn’t work.” Sadie smirked.
Nicholas leaned in and kissed her on the lips. When he pulled back, he looked genuinely happy, despite being at a social event. “Well, I’ve committed now.”
Sadie rolled her eyes and turned back to Beatrice. “Have you seen Helen or Jane?”
“Helen hasn’t arrived yet, and Jane is hiding in the retiring room.”
“Hiding?”
Beatrice nodded. “Her parents are pushing her at every eligible bachelor here.”
Sadie looked around. “Where is the retiring room?”
As she scanned the parlor, trying to guess which of the three doors she should head toward, a ripple in the crowd caught her attention. The mental echo of surface thoughts, just outside her shields, felt a lot like what had happened when Nicholas had kissed her. She turned, searching for the physical cues that would tell her what had caused the ripple. “Nick, I think someone else is planning to out-scandal you.”
With his slight height advantage, Nicholas spotted what—or rather who—was causing the commotion first. “It’s the Duke of Demencia.”
Beatrice’s face betrayed utter disgust for a split second before she smoothed it over. “Thank the spirits I’m engaged. I hope Jane doesn’t dare peek out of the retiring room. He’s on the hunt for wife number six, I heard.”
“A sixth wife?” Sadie asked.
Beatrice shuddered. “Yes. His wives never seem to live past the age of thirty. Meanwhile, he has to be in at least his eighties and is using his title to pressure men his son’s age to marry off their daughters who are his granddaughter’s age to him. Everyone suspects he’s been killing off his wives, yet he can always acquire a new one.”
“I think,” Nicholas said in a choked voice, “he’s already found wife number six.”
The crowd split just enough and Sadie glimpsed an old man with a hunched back and a knobbly hand clenching his cane. A young woman held onto his other arm, her skin as smooth as his was wrinkled.
“Is that Abigail?” Beatrice whispered.
It was. It absolutely was Abigail.
Madeleine had made it a point to inform Sadie and Nicholas that Abigail’s child had been adopted by the Duke of Kinseran’s steward and his wife, the child’s origins completely obscured, though the prince had been convinced to provide materially for her. They both suspected Madeleine was responsible for most, if not all, of that turn of events. That had to have been a month or so earlier.
Madeleine had said nothing about Abigail being in attendance tonight.
“You know,” Nicholas said almost conversationally, “I think Demencia might have finally met the wife who is going to outlive him.”And if he weren’t a lecherous blot on humanity that even my mother has a personal horror story about and who has quite possibly murdered several women, I might have warned him.
Do you think Abigail still has any of the poison the demon brewed when it possessed Jane?Sadie asked.
I think we’ll find out shortly after the wedding.
“Well.” Beatrice stopped after that one word, clearly at a loss. “Well. I think your scandalous behavior will be entirely forgotten if Demencia is announcing an engagement.”
“I think you are right. I also think no one will notice how long we stay,” Sadie looked from Beatrice to Nicholas and back. “Beatrice, if you want to leave, we’ll tell Madeleine that you came. Nick, I want to talk to Jane, then we can leave, too.”I’d rather not run into Abigail if we can avoid it.
“Thank you. I think I will do just that.” Beatrice looked in the direction of Abigail and the duke, then went for the door farthest from them, though it wasn’t the one closest to the main exit.
“Come on, I think the ladies’ retiring room is this way,” Nicholas told Sadie. “You can find Jane, offer to let her come to Marstede to learn potion making with you, and then we can go home.”
“How did you—”
Nicholas kissed her once more. “She’s hiding because she’s miserable, and you know exactly how miserable hiding can make people. Of course you want to offer her a sanctuary. Learning from a baroness is probably the only way her family will let her practice her witchcraft.”
“Are you certain you aren’t the one—”with the ability to read minds?
Nicholas’s lips quirked up. “I can just read you, Sadie.”
“You aren’t mad that I want to invite another person into our home?”
