???
Nicholas honestly didn’tknow how he ended up seated across from Sadie with a chessboard between them. Had his mother nudged her in that direction while Beatrice distracted Abigail?
If so, then he owed them both his thanks. Despite sitting next to Sadie through all of supper, he felt that he hadn’t had any time with her. Her attention had been elsewhere, her answers monosyllabic. He suspected she had been using her magic, trying to discover the demon. He just wasn’t sure what power would be able to do such a thing.
Nicholas wouldn’t ask. Not tonight.
Tonight, he wanted to enjoy the way she played as if she could read his mind. Enjoy her.
He reached for a pawn and moved it. “How do you think everyone would react if I suggested a trip to the spring to swim instead of visiting one of the local villages again?”
Sadie gave him a look that was probably supposed to be quelling rather than seductive. Too bad every look of hers seduced him. A sentiment he wasn’t hiding very well, based on the way her cheeks turned pink.
“The spring isn’t big enough for that many swimmers,” she told him as she moved her own piece.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Fine, I’ll play. Your mother wouldn’t roll her eyes, because she is Madeleine Huxley, Dowager Baroness of Marstede, but you’d know it was what she wanted to do. Helen would shrink in on herself and hope someone would offer her an excuse not to go.”
“Beatrice would complain that her books are too likely to get splashed,” Nicholas added. “Jane would ask if any potion ingredients grow in the water. And Abigail…”
Sadie laughed, then glanced over her shoulder toward the other women. No one reacted to her laughter, and she looked back at Nicholas. “Did you put an aural ward around us?”
“Of course. I want our conversation to remain private.”
“Then why trail off before stating what Abigail would do?”
He shuddered ostentatiously and moved his knight. “I simply didn’t want to contemplate her reaction.”
“But you know exactly what she would do. She’d be the first one at the spring and she’d strip down to her skin without hesitation to go swimming with you.”
He shuddered again.
“Be honest, you can’t hate the sight of her that much.”
“I absolutely can.” He let his eyes wander over Sadie, not ogling, but appreciating the view she made in the silk evening gown. “Your bare shoulders do more for me than seeing any part of Abigail.”
And the memory of her swimming was one he’d always treasure, though he knew he should feel guilty.
Sadie’s cheeks turned a brighter shade. “Attention on the game, Nicholas,” she chided him.
Her tone told him she knew exactly what he was thinking about… and that she didn’t truly mind.
“Shouldn’t you be celebrating my distraction?” Honestly, it wouldn’t astound him if she tried to distract him that way inorder to ensure her victory. All she’d have to do was lean forward a little, and he’d be hard pressed to even look at the chessboard.
Instead, she straightened her spine. Bewildered, but taking the hint, Nicholas focused his attention back on the game. A few seconds later, Sadie made her move, the exact one he’d been thinking would be the worst thing she could do to block his gambit.
That had happened constantly in their last game, too. Not too surprising, since Sadie was clearly a talented chess player, despite her claim of never having played before coming to Marstede. But still somewhat surprising. Nicholas was playing with an entirely different strategy than he had employed in their last game, and she couldn’t know that after so few moves. She should have moved her bishop if she expected him to play the same way he had last time.
But she always seemed to know exactly what he had planned.
Exactly what he was thinking.
He studied her again, his hand hovering over his knight. Could she literally read his thoughts? It would explain why she didn’t try to distract him as they played. She relied on his thoughts to know how to move.
He moved his knight without worrying whether the new placement was any better than the old, and didn’t look at the board. Then Nicholas let loose the thoughts he usually pushed away until he was in the privacy of his own bedroom or bath.
Sadie, naked, walking out of the spring and directly to him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him. Her on her knees once more, but not in the kitchen, in his bedroom. He pushed open her dressing gown to find her wearing nothing beneath it. Instead of coming in her mouth, he tossed her on the bed, threw wards over her wrists and ankles to keep her in place, and climbed over her.
