He dropped the ward, ready to follow her anywhere. He paused to tuck himself away and button his trousers, and in that moment she slipped out of the kitchen.
When he reached the hall, she was nowhere in sight.
Twenty-Three
???
Entering the brewingroom, Sadie thanked every spirit she knew that Madeleine had decided that whoever had slept in Nicholas’s room should have a private breakfast with him and the dowager the next morning.
She trailed her fingers over the smooth workbench and the cold, rough iron of the cauldron, and told herself that she was grateful she hadn’t needed to face him with only the barrier of a teapot and toast that morning. The silent breakfast with only Helen as a companion had been a reprieve.
She hadn’t needed to confront what she had done the night before, when every brush of his fingers had sent heat spooling through her until she’d had to act. It wasn’t that she regretted her choice. How could she regret watching Nicholas unravel like that? Knowing that it wasn’t just what she had done, but the fact that it was her doing it that had sent him over the edge?
But even if she didn’t regret it, she knew it had been a mistake all the same. She had thought to take control and instead had lost control herself. Because she hadn’t strengthened her charm, she had accidentally projected her own thoughts at him, urging him to give in. Thank the spirits he’d been too lost in the moment to notice that the thoughts hadn’t been his own.
The incident in the kitchen proved that her earlier resolution to avoid him had been the right choice. If only she’d stuck with it and left the moment they were out of Abigail’s sight instead of going to the kitchen with him.
She couldn’t maintain her barriers around him. He’d push harder for her trust, now. She had to fight herself more and more to remember why confiding in him would be a mistake.
She couldn’t tell him.
She wouldn’t.
So, it was for the best that she had a day to herself to try to re-armor herself against his tenderness.
Today was Jane’s day to choose an activity with the baron, and she had opted to visit Lamsdel in search of potion ingredients. Which meant Sadie had the brewing room to herself, and she didn’t have to talk to Nicholas to know that he would arrange for Jane to be distracted enough in the small village to keep her out of the manor all day. He had a bet to pay off, after all.
Sadie allowed herself simply to breathe in the earthy scent of the brewing room for a few minutes, as though she hadn’t been visiting it every day for over a week. Today was different. Today, she would uncork jars and stir ingredients herself instead of watching Jane.
She studied the shelves of herbs, dried plants, and other bits of magically significant materials. The Huxleys had amassed a decent collection over the years, and while some would no longer be potent, the rarer ingredients still tempted her. Many were in jars with a red band around the center, proclaiming their dangerous nature.
None of the potions Sadie knew that incorporated them could be finished in a single day, though, so she skipped over them and pulled an assortment of more common items out. Sheactivated the heat-glyph under the cauldron, poured a careful measure of water into the iron vessel, and began mixing.
The world and all her worries faded away as she crushed dried rue into fine powder and infused a dram of wine with cotton root bark. She had to focus on the magic as she prepped every ingredient, pulling the ambient power into every part of her potion. The liquid in the cauldron began to bubble, and more magic flowed in. Finally, she dropped seven wild carrot seeds into the cauldron, stirred it three times with a mint leaf, and began to count. When she reached five-hundred, she pulled the cauldron off the heat-rune and set it aside to cool.
She had let instinct guide her, making a potion she had brewed countless times before with the available ingredients. She hadn’t even thought about what she was making, not caring so long as she finally had the chance to let loose her magic in the one form that didn’t curse her. So, it was only as the mixture cooled that she even thought about what, exactly, she had made.
She had let more influence her than the collection of ingredients available.
Sadie knew scores of potion recipes, dozens of which she could make in a single day with the ingredients on hand. Yet she had made a contraceptive brew.
The peace from finally brewing again after so long dissolved, and Sadie sank into the chair where she had spent so many hours pursuing grimoires. She hid her face in her hands, and even she couldn’t have said if she was crying or laughing.
A contraceptive potion.
She glanced over at the cauldron. Not just a single potion. She had made a batch large enough to fill over a dozen vials.
Unable to stop herself, Sadie burst into giggles. If her subconscious was telling her something, then the remainder of her time at Marstede Manor was going to be very busy. Then, as abruptly as the laughter had come, it stopped.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t give in to the pull between her and Nicholas. She was the one who had essentially said it could just be sex, but she knew better. Even with a time limit, a set date for her to leave, everything between them was too intense. She already wanted to tell him about her magic, to not have that secret looming between them. If she allowed him any closer, she’d forget all the lessons she had learned over the years and hope that this time could be different.
But it never was different.
She had to remind herself that telling Nicholas that she was a telepath wouldn’t only kill any desire he had for her. She wouldn’t be able to remain in Lamsdel, the safety of anonymity stripped away.
What she had done the night before was as close as she could come, and even that had only been safe because she had run away afterward.
She’d bottle up her potions and find an excuse to give them to Pippa.
