Her words were enough to make him pull back his imagination—before he betrayed the exact nature of his thoughts any more than he already had. He wasn’t thinking about kissing, suddenly, but he was very focused on Sadie. “You like Marstede? Most people consider my estate unrefined. Rustic.”
“It is a little wild, but that only makes the comforts all the more cozy.”
It shouldn’t surprise him to hear she appreciated the wildness. She had led him directly into the forest for their walk, after all. And yet, he was so used to defending his love of Marstede, that her voicing of his own views took him completely by surprise.
“You’d actually enjoy staying in Marstede for longer than a month?” The fern-lined path they were on branched, and this time Nicholas chose the direction they took, leading them down the narrower path that curved between the trees to the right.He wanted to show Sadie a particular spot in the forest. She’d appreciate the spring, with its clear waters and the blooming hydrangeas flourishing right up to its edge.
“Careful,” Sadie chided with a smile, “or I’m going to start thinking you want me to stay.”
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to beg her to stay. His mother might have been right about him denying that he was at times lonely. Marriage, he still believed, was not the answer, but Sadie might be. At least temporarily.
It was the mystery of who she really was and what she was hiding. That was all. Which reminded Nicholas of the charm in his pocket, the one he wasn’t sure how to offer her.
“I’m not going to expel you from the manor, despite your secrets,” he started. Her smile disappeared as if it had never been, and he knew he had taken the wrong tack. She’d argued so readily about her secrets before that he had forgotten how nervous he’d made her when he realized she was a witch. Her magic must be tied to the true secret, the one that had nothing to do with whatever game his mother was playing by inviting Sadie to stay.
The path bent, and the spring came into view. Nicholas stopped, staring over the water and hoping the scene brought as much peace to Sadie as it always did him. The clear water gave a perfect view of the multi-colored pebbles lining the bottom, more beautiful than the flowers, in his opinion, for they remained year round. The breeze passing over the water smelled richer, purer.
He breathed it in. “What I mean to say is you are safe here. Secrets and all. You can trust me, but I realize that my saying as much is hardly enough to secure such trust.” He pulled the amethyst out of his pocket. “Since I don’t know what you are hiding—or hiding from—this may not be exactly helpful, but itwon’t hurt. And if you told me more, I could make a protection that was more targeted.”
Sadie stared at the gemstone in his hand, her dark eyes wide, and he tried to think what else he could say to convince her to take it.
Twelve
???
Sadie gaped atthe small purple stone in Nicholas’s hand, not quite daring to reach out and touch it. “You made a protection charm for me?”
“I know you said your amulet is more sentimental than anything, but I’ve noticed that you often try to feed power into it, despite the fact that earth is not your affinity. Even if it were, though, that glyph isn’t powerful enough to offer any sort of true protection.”
“I’m not in danger.” Not the sort that could be defended against with protective glyphs. Sadie’s only danger was betraying herself.
He raised a brow. “And your name is Sadie Pentry, and you came from Algimon in a carriage with a maid and trunks.”
Put that way, it did make sense that he wouldn’t believe her when she claimed not to need a protection charm. “I told you, my maid went home sick, and the carriage broke down.”
“And your trunks?”
She looked away from the amethyst and out over the water of the spring where they had stopped. The path led directly to the nearest bank, the only spot where it was possible to approach the water without getting tangled in the hydrangea bushes dripping with indigo blooms. She wanted to take the final steps to the spring, pull off her ankle boots and stockings, and dip her toesinto the refreshing coolness. She didn’t care that the act wouldn’t be ladylike, but it felt too intimate all the same. She looked back at Nicholas. “Obviously, I didn’t carry them when I walked the last bit after the axle broke.”
“But they would have been delivered by now.” He looked her up and down.Aha, that’s why the dress looks familiar.“You wouldn’t be wearing my mother’s clothes.”
So much for Madeleine’s insistence that he wouldn’t recognize the dresses. Sadie lifted her chin in the air. “That has nothing to do with a lack of clothes of my own. Your mother took pity on me and spared me the embarrassment of making public the quality of my own wardrobe compared to everyone else’s.”
“You don’t sound embarrassed. And I’d think having me recognize my mother’s clothes on you would be worse.”
Sadie fell into the argument with relish. This lie was safe. “Nicholas, how I dress is not influenced by your opinions. You are but a man. It is the women in your home whom I must armor myself against in silks.”
“But we are all to be friends this month, aren’t we? Mother declared it so the first day.”
Sadie snorted. “Not even Madeleine believes such a thing is possible, despite what she said.”
“My mother is capable of grand delusions. This entire endeavor is proof of that.”
“She isn’t delusional, merely optimistic.”
“Deludedly optimistic. In what possible way could she have ever thought that inviting Abigail to Marstede would make me more inclined to marry?”
“To be fair, I do think she’s realized inviting Abigail was a mistake.” It was why the dowager had extended the invitation to Sadie after all, because she had miscalculated and needed extra contrast. Not that Sadie thought there was anything she could do to make Abigail a more appealing potential wife to Nicholas.But Madeleine wasn’t hoping for Abigail as a daughter-in-law, so that hardly mattered.
