~10~
It was evenstranger than he’d anticipated, seeing Nic in his parents’ small cottage where he’d grown up expecting nothing more than to become a farmer someday, to live a similarly humble life. The boy he’d been could never have guessed that someday his wife, a glamorous, high-born noblewoman, boldly beautiful and shimmering with rich magic, would be sitting at the plain wooden table where they took their meals.
And yet, oddly enough, Nic fit right in. She’d brought her lists and had them on the table in the cleared corner between her place and his mom’s. The both of them had their heads together over it, discussing guest lists and flowers, the merits of a buffet versus having meals served, as if Nic were any Meresin girl he’d found to marry.
The sweet young woman who grows oranges and feeds the geese, who’d be your loving wife and companion in all things. Who would bed you with sweet affection and bear you children that you could raise together, until they gave you apple-cheeked grandchildren to dandle on your knee. Someone who would never even think of wanting to kneel for you, who wouldn’t crave the silver chains of your arcanium.Gabriel flushed at the echo of Nic’s scathing words—and at the equally searing memory of her mouth on him, milking him with exquisite erotic pleasure. Not something he wanted in his mind at his parents’ table.
“This rain doesn’t bode well for the levee,” his father observed, and Gabriel gratefully put his mind on that. The fact that he’d rather think about the prospect of additional flooding ruining the orchards they’d been so carefully nurturing than about the puzzle that was his wife spoke volumes.
“Sorry we didn’t make it out there today.” Gabriel shook his head. He’d frankly forgotten about it. After he and Nic finally ate, quite late in the day, they’d had to deal with a second round of messages in response to the flurry they’d sent that morning. Then they’d argued, again, about what to do about the house. He hadn’t realized that so many of the wizards she’d arranged for would be arriving so soon, and now they had no suitable housing for them. By that point, they’d had to saddle the horses to ride over to his parents’ for dinner. Farmer’s hours, he’d explained to a puzzled Nic, and she’d cheerfully noted that would leave them plenty of time later in the evening. She had very carefully—and very obviously—omitted what she had in mind, but he knew she thought they should visit the arcanium to build power for another try at raising the arcade and possibly the north wing.
She also very carefully hadn’t said anything about the fact that the hunters had caught him flat heeled and nearly out of magic. If he hadn’t been able to break that stasis spell and fight manually, things could’ve gone very differently.
He didn’t want to think about any of it.
“Eh,” his father grunted. “The levee, she’ll hold or she won’t. You can’t be everywhere.”
“You’re a good boy,” Narlis said, beaming at him as she handed him a basket of rolls, freshly baked and still warm from the oven. When he took the basket from her, she patted his cheek, then turned back to the baking counter. Taking a roll, he buttered it and bit in, moaning at the way the soft bread melted in his mouth. He had to concede that Nic had been right, yet again, about the merits of them going to the hot food. She had a gift for hedonism that he should stop resisting, as he always ended up enjoying the results of her arrangements.
“Narlis is such a help,” his mother said, “and has a gift for baking. Perhaps you’d like to have her help in the kitchen at the manse?”
Gabriel and Nic exchanged a glance. “It would be best,” Nic said, “to keep her out of sight for a while. She’s safer here.”
“Safe from what?” his mother asked with a perplexed frown. “Out of sight from whom?”
“You never know,” Nic replied breezily, sliding him a look. Yeah, it was a tangled web of lies and the omission of truths. “And Narlis is still rebuilding her health. What do you think about flowers? If we have the wedding in midsummer, won’t they all wilt?”
Daisy launched into an enthusiastic discussion of the merits of various flowers, thoroughly distracted. Gabriel smiled at Nic in admiration, though she ignored him.
“Heard you raised the old arcade,” his father said.
“Did you also hear that it sank again?” Gabriel asked, stabbing a piece of meat. Nic glanced up, shooting him an inscrutable green glance before replying to something his mother said.
“I did, as a matter of fact.” His father laughed drily. “Perhaps the whole thing is best left sunk,” his father continued, shaking his head. “There’s a reason she sank in the first place, after all.”
“Because there were no longer any wizards in the family to maintain it,” Nic put in, proving she’d been listening closely even while carrying on another conversation. She took the buttered roll Gabriel handed her, giving him a warm smile in exchange, and he set to buttering another for himself. “The physical aspect of House Phel is important symbolically as a representation of the metaphorical reincarnation of House Phel,” she explained, looking seriously from Daisy to GF. “I absolutely support Gabriel’s decision to restore the manse. He’s a powerful enough wizard to do it—you should be immensely proud of him—and this project will announce to the Convocation that Lord Phel is a wizard to be reckoned with.”
Gabriel wrestled with the twin burns of pride at his parents’ pleased expressions and chagrin at the lie. He’d failed embarrassingly and utterly that day, something that Nic continued to blithely ignore.
“I see the symbolism, dear,” Daisy said thoughtfully, “but who in the Convocation will ever know? It’s not as if any of them visit Meresin.”
“They will when we have the wedding at House Phel,” Nic assured her with sunny optimism. Her bland glance to him was the only warning he got. “And we’ll have visitors starting very soon.”
“We will?” Daisy looked to him, and Nic raised a questioning brow, a hint of knowing accusation in her eyes.
He cleared his throat. “We’re bringing people in. Wizards specializing in other kinds of magic, and also in water magic, to supplement what Nic and I can do. It will help me with the not being able to be everywhere at once,” he commented to his father, who nodded judiciously.
“What other kinds of magic?” his mother wanted to know. “And when are they arriving? You didn’t tell me about this, Gabriel.”
Nic watched him, eyes jewellike and amused at his predicament. He didn’t know when, exactly, he was to have filled in his parents on their flood of plans. “The first arrives tomorrow,” he admitted.
“Tomorrow?” his mother echoed, aghast, looking to Nic for corroboration. “Wherever will we put him?”
“They could be a woman,” Nic corrected gently, patting Daisy’s hand. “A House Refoel wizard, so you’ll be very glad to have them here, and we’ll figure something out for accommodations. We made it clear that we’re in a rebuilding phase, and they will have volunteered for the position.”
“Refoel,” GF echoed. “I know that’s a High House, but what’s the significance? What magic can this wizard do that my son can’t?” He laid a proud hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “As you say yourself, Gabriel is a powerful wizard. He can do anything he sets his mind to.”
The smile Nic gave him was smug, and he knew exactly what she was thinking.That is why you fail.Charming. “Healing,” Nic explained to them. “House Refoel specializes in healing, which I think will be most welcome here.”