Except that life no longer held any appeal.
She laughed. “No, I was completely wrong. You are a romantic, Lord Marstede. You always would have been disappointed with me.”
Beatrice left, and a few minutes later Nicholas made his own way out of the sitting room and toward his study, her assessment of his personality swirling through his thoughts. He’d never considered himself a romantic. He approached liaisons with practicality… and, if he was honest with himself, had always been disappointed in the outcomes.
Nothing that happened with Sadie was a disappointment. There had been no sense of apathy in the moment after physical release, no wondering if the fleeting physical pleasure had been worth the hassle. Just breathing the same air as Sadie was a sensation to be treasured.
Well, damn, Nicholas thought,Beatrice is right, I am a romantic.
He settled behind his desk, grinning broadly. Knowing that—accepting it—gave him an idea. He didn’t need to seduce Sadie. Their physical attraction wasn’t in doubt. But instead of trying to wear her down to trusting him, he realized that what he should be doing was wooing her. Not just flirting and teasing, but romancing.
It was time to show her that he wanted forever.
Twenty-Six
???
Sadie’s feet carriedher to the brewing room before she consciously decided what she wanted to do.
No, the problem was that she knew what she wanted to do, but that was exactly what she couldn’t do. Pulling Nicholas into the nearest private room wasn’t an option. Being near him, knowing she couldn’t have this life, hurt. Spending the day in the brewing room caused a similar pang, but the eventual—inevitable—loss of access to ingredients and a cauldron was an ache Sadie had long ago learned to live with.
Just as she’d learn to live without Nicholas, but it would be easier if she was never truly with him to start with.
Luckily for Sadie, the old grimoires that she read while Jane brewed were fascinating. Once she managed to lose herself in the theoretical hypotheses about ingredients and brewing procedures, she forgot the real world. At least for a little while.
A shiver overcame Sadie, though the room was warm, and she looked up from a passage about the differences boiling versus simmering made in the effects of potion bases. She’d probably been sitting still for too long and needed to move a little. Stretching her neck, she glanced over at Jane and saw her scooping a powder into her current brew from a jar with a red line painted all around the outside.
She put down her book and leaped to her feet. “What are you doing?”
Jane glared, her usual hesitation gone. “Brewing a potion.”
Sadie admitted that her question had come out sharp—with good reason—but Jane’s snappish reply still took her aback. Snugged in her bodice, the charm Nicholas had carved grew warm. Sadie pressed against her chest. What sort of protections had he placed on it?
She gentled her tone. “But what are you adding to it?”
“The ingredients.”
If the charm grew any hotter, it was going to burn her. What sort of protection was that? Since she didn’t want to fish around for it, Sadie did her best to ignore the charm. She moved around the table to look at the grimoire on the stand at one end. It was still open to the pages for the simple headache potion she had located for Jane earlier. A potion that did not require any dangerous ingredients, which all the ones in the jars with red bands were.
She read the label on the open jar and blanched. “This potion doesn’t call for any foxglove, Jane.”
Sadie reached for the lid, and as her hand brushed against Jane’s, a spark flared between them, a familiar shimmery blue. Apparently, the charm did something besides heat up.
“What are you doing?” Jane asked, and this time she spoke hesitantly. Diffidently.
The charm cooled. Sadie looked over and saw the other woman’s clear confusion as she glanced between where Sadie now stood and the stool where she had been reading earlier. Sadie touched the back of Jane’s hand. No spark. “I’m putting this away. The jars with red bands are all dangerous ingredients. You shouldn’t make anything with them without the supervision of an experienced brewer.”
Jane’s brow furrowed as she looked at the array of jars on the table. “I didn’t… the last thing I remember is simmering the base for the potion.”
The potion was well beyond that stage. Sadie looked closer at the other jars spread out over the work surface. They were not the ingredients for a headache potion. Many were innocuous in and of themselves—nothing else was as dangerous as the foxglove—but taken all together? “Jane, I think we should neutralize what you have in the cauldron. It isn’t safe to use potions made by a distracted witch.”
Jane gulped. “You’re right. I don’t know what came over me. I must have been thinking too hard about other things. How do I neutralize a potion?”
Sadie wasn’t sure distraction could really account for the way Jane had pulled together ingredients for a deadly potion, but her amulet was still holding all others’ thoughts at bay since Nicholas had infused it with more power. She didn’t know what Jane had been thinking about or if her confusion now was genuine.
But the protection charm that had reacted so strongly before was quiescent now, so she gave the younger woman the benefit of the doubt. Something strange was going on, but she didn’t think Jane was at fault.
Sadie shared the steps for cleansing magic from a brew, thankful that Jane was too anxious after what had happened to wonder why she knew such a thing.
