He was actually worried she wouldn’t like it, so she managed to produce a smile to reassure him. “It’s beautiful,” she told him honestly. “Like no house I’ve ever seen.”
“Like a cottage compared to a castle,” he agreed.
“Not that so much, but itiscompletely indefensible,” she pointed out, worrying about war more than ever.
“We’re not sitting ducks exactly,” he replied with a smile. “Look, they’ve sighted our approach.” He pointed to a banner rising on a center pole from the roof. The House Phel crest—a silver moon shining on still water, set on a deep-green background, the same shade as the foliage around the house—fluttered in the golden afternoon light. Increased activity showed on the porch and lawn, people streaming out, clearly arranging a reception.
“I need to stop and fix myself up,” Nic told Gabriel. “Indulge my vanity, please.”
“You look beautiful,” he said, “but I understand the desire to make a good first impression. We’ll find a place for you to dismount and fix up.”
“Something with dry ground to stand on,” she specified, only half in jest.
He grinned at her so broadly that she realized he’d been enjoying yanking her chain over this. “You forget who you’re with.” He waved a hand at a marshy patch beside them, the water sifting away to reveal a hummock of grassy earth. “I promise to always provide you with dry ground,” he said, holding her gaze, and it ended up coming out like a solemn vow, the moment humming between them.
Nic broke the tension first, guiding her mare to the freshly dry spot and dismounting. Gabriel dismounted too, stretching his legs while she rummaged through her bags in the sled for her cosmetics and the precious grooming imp. Narlis still slept, so Nic left her in peace. Setting the imp to work on her hair, she checked her makeup in the mirror that had come with the kit. One thing about grooming imps was that, unless you had a wizard to direct them, they tended to exhibit a sense of humor with cosmetics. It was wiser to do them yourself.
“All right, that’s as good as it’s going to get,” she declared, belying her words by dabbing a bit more concealer on the bruises at her throat and collarbones. They were better, but still regrettably ugly. And impossible to miss.
“You’re not hot in that velvet riding dress?” Gabriel frowned dubiously. He’d changed into a clean shirt, crisp and white, and left off the leather vest and cloak. The shirt lay open, revealing the silver glint of chest hair against his darker skin. She’d love to taste him just there, in the hollow of his throat. “I bought you some lighter gowns to wear.”
She had to drag her thoughts from the fantasy of licking him up like chocolate. “Those gowns would be much cooler, but one is linen and the other silk,” she explained, “which means they’re dreadfully wrinkled.”
“Get one out,” he urged with a mischievous smile. “The purple one.”
“There isn’t a purple one,” she argued, knowing exactly which one he meant and digging for it. “It’s mauve.”
“It should be pretty with your eyes, whatever color it is,” he said, turning his back while she undressed.
It definitely felt cooler to don the mauve linen, which immediately molded itself to her figure. The full skirts were as horribly wrinkled, as she’d feared, however. “You can look now,” she told him. “It’s lovely—thank you for it—but as I feared, the wrinkles are—” She broke off on a gasp as the wrinkles vanished, a faint hint of steam wafting through the air. “Well, that’s a handy trick.”
“I have a few,” he replied with a slight smile, though his expression was tight with some suppressed emotion, his eyes dark with it, his magic a keen-edged heated silver, lingering still. His dark eyes dipped to her generously displayed bosom before he wrenched his gaze to her face again. “You looked lovely before, but now you’re dazzlingly beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She searched his face, wanting to say something but not sure what it would be. Ever since he’d laid out his terms on not using her for magic or sex, he’d seemed to be waiting for her to make some kind of decision. But she didn’t know what she could say that she’d hadn’t already said.
“Ready to cross the finish line?” he asked.
She nodded and mounted her mare. “Is the steam another self-taught spell?” she asked, choosing a safe topic of conversation.
“Not really. It’s a standard trick, just another version of wicking water in and out of household objects. Most everyone in Meresin can do it to some extent. No one thinks of it as magic.”
“Though itismagic.”
“I know that now,” he answered wryly.
“That’s why you remained oblivious to your magic for so long,” she realized. “You were probably moving water away from you out of habit for a long time, as so many here do.”
He nodded. “We almost never need to make waterappear, so that ability came as a major shock.”
“I’ll bet you were a good farmer,” she speculated. “Your fields always getting the right amount of moisture.”
“Yes.” He sounded introspective, almost sad. “I thought I had a talent for it.”
“In point of fact, you did.”
His lips quirked in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Not the same thing. But yes, it took a drought to wake me up to what I really was. Even then, it took a while to reconcile myself to it.”
“You don’t like being a wizard?”