They’ll pay for treating me this way.
The vitriolic thought was immediately followed by another, this one darker and more malicious in a way Sadie couldn’t name but recognized instinctively as evil.
Oh yes, we’ll make them all pay.
???
A few minutesafter his uncomfortable encounter with Abigail, Nicholas found himself in the kitchen with Sadie and Pippa, brewing a pot of tea for all three of them.
“When I asked you for help, I didn’t expect you to drag Sadie from bed,” he told Pippa, who had spied on them from around the corner but never ventured where Abigail might see her.
“You asked her for help?” Sadie looked between them, as if she’d see their past interactions if she stared hard enough.
“I knew better than to let Abigail’s maid drag me to see her in the middle of the night without enlisting some sort of aid. I’m just glad Pippa opted to help. Who knows what might have happened if she hadn’t sent you out to find me.”
Sadie snorted. “I think we all know exactly what would have happened. The question is why is Abigail so determined when you’ve made your lack of interest clear?”
The kettle began to whistle over the heat-glyph, and Nicholas pulled it off and poured the water into the prepared teapot. “I don’t think my lack of interest was ever a factor. She doesn’t care if I’m interested, so long as she can secure a proposal.”
Sadie snorted again. “She cares. The fact that you aren’t interested is an insult she isn’t going to get over any time soon.”
“She probably still doesn’t believe that you don’t want her,” Pippa added. “She’s the type to be convinced of her own irresistibility.”
Nicholas waved his hand through the air, a gesture he had picked up from his mother, though it never worked as well for him. “My point is that all she cares about is marrying me, and that makes no sense. She is young, determined, and has social connections. She shouldn’t be interested in settling for a mere baron.”
Sadie leaned forward, smirking. “You forgot to mention how beautiful and willing to use her body to secure her goals she is.”
He glared at her, not about to agree, and knowing he couldn’t disagree either. “Not the point, Sadie.”
Pippa’s eyes went wide. “What if that was exactly the point?”
“I don’t follow.”
He might not understand what Pippa meant, but evidently Sadie did. She gasped. “Do you really think—?”
“It would explain a few things. I could probably ask Alice, her maid, a few careful questions to know for sure.”
Nicholas poured tea as the two friends continued talking with a complete lack of finished thoughts. He added Sadie’s customary splash of cream to her cup, two lumps of sugar to his own, and then pushed both the cream and sugar toward Pippa to use as she preferred.
Sadie looked down at her milky tea in surprise. She took a sip, her eyes flew to his, and he knew he had gotten the exact right amount.
He sipped his own tea, then set the cup down. “Care to explain what it is you two are plotting?”
“We want to confirm our suspicions. It’s not like we’ll do anything mean with the knowledge if we are right.” Sadie huffed.
“Yes, but it is what you hope to confirm that I’m still not following.”
“If she’s pregnant, of course,” Pippa said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “If she really was the prince’s lover and got pregnant, and then he wouldn’t marry her, it would make sense why she is so desperate to snag you. She doesn’t have time to wait for the next social season in Linzen, she needs to get engaged before she starts showing.”
“She was Prince Benedict’s lover?” The prince had to be a few years older than him, and to the best of Nicholas’s knowledge, not a very pleasant person to spend time with. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Abigail would do just about anything to snag the title of princess as her own.
Pippa shrugged. “According to the hints Alice keeps dropping.”
“Tonight might have been about more than just seducing you,” Sadie added. “If she is already pregnant and trying to hide it, she will want to get in your bed sooner rather than later to make it plausible that the child is yours.”
Nicholas snorted. “Well, she is in my bed right now, but she doesn’t have a chance of convincing me of that.”
“Still, it would be good to know if that is her motivation. I’ll ask Alice a few careful questions tomorrow.” Pippa drained her cup, hopped to her feet and grinned at Sadie. “I’ll see you in the morning!”
