He opened his workroom and gestured Sadie inside ahead of him. “Yes?”
“Are we—” She stopped, not sure how she wanted to finish her question. She tried again. “How discreet are we being?”
He moved to a table covered in stones of various sizes and colors and picked up an ordinary-looking gray one about the size of a robin’s egg, turning it over in his hands. “I’m not going to announce you will be the next Lady Marstede in order to draw out the demon if it is working with Abigail, but apart from that, I’m not much of one for secrets. I figure my preferences haven’t been hidden up until this point, so short of announcing an engagement, there isn’t an increased threat to you if we are as open as we want.” He set the stone down on a clear workbench and looked up at Sadie. “It is up to you, of course. I know women are always judged more harshly for liaisons than men. I don’t think it is possible for me to hide what I feel for you, but how discreet we are regarding our physical relationship is your decision.”
Sadie wanted to argue that he was perfectly capable of hiding what he felt, for even after everything they had done and the freedom with which he had shared his thoughts, she still didn’t know. There was tenderness that went beyond physical attraction, certainly, but Nicholas was, at his core, an inherently empathic, considerate man.
If it was more than that, if it was even halfway to the feeling Sadie had felt creeping up on her, wouldn’t she have heardsomething in his thoughts? Love was too big of a word to hide, wasn’t it?
But no, she wasn’t sure what he felt at all. He’d mentioned an engagement, but that had only been a reference to how they could bait the demon into revealing itself, not anything to do with what he really wanted. He’d said it so easily, he must not have been thinking of it in real terms, only as a ploy.
It was better this way, Sadie decided. She might have fallen for the baron, but even if he returned her feelings, they couldn’t very well have a future together. His mother had only invited Sadie to stay at Marstede to make the other ladies look good in comparison. As kind as Madeleine had been so far, she wouldn’t want Sadie as a daughter-in-law. Nor would Nicholas want to tie himself to a telepath.
Sadie believed that he accepted her power, but he hadn’t lived through the distrust and ostracism that came with having her secret uncovered, and it always came out eventually. Sadie Winsel could disappear when that happened and start over. The Baroness of Marstede could not.
Not that Nicholas actually wanted to marry her. He didn’t want to marry at all, and she wasn’t fool enough to think a night with her had changed his mind.
“Sadie?”
She shook her head, realizing she had lost herself in thought and hadn’t responded to his implied question. “I’m not worried about my reputation. I don’t particularly want to announce that I am sleeping with you over supper, but otherwise I don’t feel the need to hide.”
So long as she had him, Sadie had no desire to waste time sneaking around.
“Does that mean I’m allowed to do this—” He stepped close and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “—in front of others, or would that count as announcing things?”
She curled her fingers into his jacket and chased his lips with hers, claiming a slightly longer, though still sweet, kiss. “I will never say no to a kiss. I don’t care if people know I’m sleeping with you; I just don’t want to announce it to your mother.”
He raised a brow. “She’d probably throw a celebration if you did.”
“She would not. Madeleine would probably banish me from the manor. She invited me to make the other ladies look better.”
Nicholas shook his head and reached for one of the tools he had scattered around the room. “Is that what she told you?”
“More or less. She said your introductions to the ladies hadn’t gone well, and that she wanted me to stay and pretend to be a lady while still behaving the way I had when we first met. Her thoughts were all about how I’d be the perfect contrast to everyone else. I’d make them look better.”
“Sadie, I’m not sure exactly what you heard in my mother’s mind, but I guarantee you she never expected nor wanted you to make the others look better. She invited you to stay because she knew I didn’t have a chance of resisting you.”
He was wrong, but Sadie didn’t feel like arguing about how much his mother wanted him to marry one of the ladies she had invited. She changed the subject with no subtlety whatsoever, nodding at the tool he now held poised over the gray stone. “What are you doing?”
“Modifying the glyph that alerted you to the demon before into something that will hopefully give us warning of the demon’s presence, even if there is no immediate threat.”
He started carving, his movements sure and steady, and Sadie gave herself permission simply to enjoy being there with him, watching him. Admiring him. He didn’t hesitate as he worked, nor did he need to reference a grimoire, though from what Sadie could see the glyph he was engraving was quite complicated. The only sign that his work wasn’t easy was theintense way he concentrated, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, the impatient flick of his head when a lock of red hair fell over his eye.
Engraving was very different from brewing. When Sadie wanted to make a potion, she had to go through myriad small steps and assemble dozens of components. Piecing runes together in just the right way to create a glyph was probably similar to selecting the right ingredients and methods of brewing, but the actual act of carving the charm looked far more tedious. Sadie could watch a cauldron simmer for hours because she had to prepare other ingredients at the same time. Just engraving the same lines over and over until magic infused a stone would bore her.
Though she wasn’t bored watching Nicholas do just that. The key there, however, was Nicholas, not the engraving.
He came out of the almost trance he’d been in after an hour of working on the charm, looked up and spotted Sadie and smiled. Then the smile slipped. “I apologize. That must have been tedious for you. I suppose you didn’t really need to stay with me, though I’d also prefer you didn’t leave my sight so long as there is a demon on the loose.”
“It’s fine,” Sadie assured him. “I found it interesting. And it confirmed that I am very glad that my affinity is for water and not earth.”
His lips quirked up. “I’m not sure how anyone could prefer juggling all the precise timing and multiple moving parts in brewing over the simple focus of engraving.”
“It’s more exciting.”
“So youwerebored.”
She shook her head. “I truly wasn’t. I just wouldn’t want to engrave charms myself. Watching you, on the other hand, is pleasant.”
