Abigail watched it all and seethed, but no one except Sadie was paying any mind to her in the furor. And now that the threathad been neutralized, Sadie looked away before she accidentally brought attention to the woman who had decided to work with a demon to get what she wanted. Sadie had to pretend—outwardly, at least—that everything was normal, robbing the demon of any extra chances to sow chaos and fear.
“Sorry, Madeleine,” Sadie finally answered the dowager. “I was thinking about something and needed to finish the thought before I got distracted.”
Madeleine considered Sadie, then studied her son with a speculative look in her eyes. When she turned back to Sadie, the slant of her eyebrow said clearly that they would discuss what had actually just happened when they weren’t surrounded by others at the dinner table.
Or maybe that was a hint of what Madeleine was thinking, trickling into Sadie’s awareness.
“Of course, my dear. But now that I have your attention, we have much to discuss.”
Sadie’s trepidation grew. She tried to keep her power focused on Abigail and the demon, monitoring for any more outbursts—besides the demon’s utter rage at the wine spilling—while still participating in the conversation with the dowager. “We do?”
“Of course. The month is a little more than half over. We’re running out of time to talk expectations.”
Monitoring the demon did not leave much room in Sadie’s mind for following what Madeleine was saying. “Expectations?”
“Indeed.”
Nicholas’s mother detailed her expectations, or maybe she quizzed Sadie on her own; Sadie couldn’t be sure. She managed to respond with nods at what seemed to be appropriate intervals, and at one point found herself saying, “I hadn’t thought about it.”
Overall, Sadie had no idea what she actually discussed with Madeleine. She didn’t have time to worry about the dowager’s expectations while the demon was loose. She’d deal with the fallout of not doing her job of making Nicholas want to marry one of the other women later.
After the meal ended, Madeleine didn’t suggest everyone gather in the parlor, which was both a relief and the start to a brand new worry. If Abigail and the demon weren’t with everyone else, what might they get up to? Sadie couldn’t monitor them constantly.
What she could do, however, was make sure Jane wasn’t in the brewing room alone.
I’m going with Jane, she told Nicholas as everyone made their way out of the dining room.Last night when I couldn’t sense the demon because I was focusing on Abigail, it might have possessed her. She was in the brewing room after supper and could have made whatever was in the wine tonight.
Be careful.
I would say the same to you. The demon is in Abigail currently; don’t let her get you alone.
Nicholas held the door open for her as he had each of the women, but as she walked past, his fingers brushed the back of her hand. “I’ll see you later this evening?” he asked softly.
Sadie nodded.Your room. I’ll just have to survive a conversation with Pippa first.
Thirty-Three
???
Nicholas returned tohis workroom after supper. His demon-detecting charm still wasn’t working. He also needed to think about what sort of protective charms he could place around the manor. They needed to banish the demon fast.
It hadn’t escaped his notice that Abigail had expected Sadie to sit where Helen had been at supper that evening, though Sadie hadn’t mentioned as much when she warned him of the poisoned wine. So long as the demon and Abigail were working together, none of his guests were safe, but Sadie was in the most danger of all.
At least she had warning. Keeping the entire matter a secret from everyone else perhaps wasn’t the wisest course. But no one else could sense the demon’s intentions like Sadie could. The inevitable panic could very well outweigh the benefits of forewarning.
There were no good choices when a demon was involved.
He pulled the malfunctioning charm out of his pocket and tossed it onto his workbench. Rather than modifying the glyph, he would start over on a new stone. Before he could even choose which to use, though, the door of his workroom swung open.
Nicholas threw a physical ward between himself and the intruder in a blink. He was still erecting the new ward he had practiced that afternoon to stop demons when he realized itwasn’t Abigail who had followed him into the workroom, but his mother.
He finished the ward against demons, making it invisible and as close to himself as possible, then dropped the obvious ward.
His mother waited for the blue wall to disappear, stepped into the room and closed the door behind herself. “All right, Nicholas, tell me. What has you so jumpy?”
He sighed. His mother not noticing that something was going on really would have required a miracle. Like Beatrice, however, he trusted her not to panic. Plus, she wouldn’t leave until satisfied with his answer.
“I need to do one thing before I tell you. Give me five minutes?”
