AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes,” she hastened to reply, kicking herself.You need to sharpen up, girl, or this wizard will eat you alive. Perhaps literally.“Allow me to fix you a plate.”
She took up one of the dainty ceramic plates—so fine you could see light through them—delicately painted in gold leaf with the House Elal crest. As she began selecting from the tray, she became aware that he was again copying her, taking up a plate and adding the same exact tidbits she’d placed on the one she held. With some exasperation, she paused, waiting for him to glance up. “It seems you’d prefer to prepare your own plate?”
“No, indeed,” he answered, smoothly polite, but his eyebrow twitched as if longing to arch in that sardonic style. “I’m simply returning the favor by preparingyoua plate. Equal footing,” he reminded her when she couldn’t muster a response.
Nic set her teeth. Whatever game he was playing, she was losing. With determined focus, she picked all of her favorite foods, watching him follow suit across the table. When she’d loaded it sufficiently, she handed it to him, receiving the plate he’d fixed in turn.
They looked identical. Staring at it in consternation, she shook her head. She wasn’t even hungry, having planned on not eating. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered.
“How so?” he inquired silkily, holding his plate and not eating either. Of course he wasn’t eating, since she hadn’t touched hers yet.
“Aren’t you hungry after your long journey?” she inquired in the same tone. She knew full well he hadn’t stopped in the half day since Elal’s guardian spirits had him riding through the Knifeblades.
“Famished,” he conceded, glancing at the plate. “This looks as delicious as the wine.”
“Maman will be pleased to hear it. She goes to some pains to impress my suitors.”
Lord Phel raised his brows, a half smile ghosting over his full lips. “A spontaneously offered personal detail,” he said lightly. “Not about you, but I feel this is progress.”
He still held his plate, and Nic was tempted to dash it out of his hands. “Eat,” she ground out, past politeness, “if you’re so hungry.”
“When you do,” he replied. Not angrily, but making it clear he wouldn’t be moved.
She set her plate down. “Then you’ll go all night because I’m not hungry.”
“No?” He set his plate down also. Of course. “Do you not typically eat an evening meal?”
She’d had about enough of thiscongenial conversation. “Are we going to bed or do you plan to interview me all night?” It just figured that he’d pushed her into hurryinghimalong. It turned out that drawn-out apprehension was more fraught than the over-and-done-with approach.
He sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. Watching her. “We have a lot of time to do both,” he noted. “Sunset to sunrise lasts a good fourteen hours in the dead of winter like this. We have wine, a cheerful fire, a cozy room out of the winds. Good food,” he added pointedly.
“Please eat,” she said on a sigh. “I promise it’s not poisoned. I’m just not hungry.”
“I know it’s not poisoned,” he reminded her, making no motion to take up his plate. “Why aren’t you hungry—is it nerves about what’s to come?”
Her knotted stomach agreed, but she kept the telltale reaction from her expression and scoffed. “Hardly. You’re not my first suitor.”
“No,” he agreed slowly. “Number four in the lottery for a daughter of House Elal, I believe.”
Nic felt the bitter twist of her lips before she valiantly pressed them into a pretty smile. “What a delightful way of phrasing it. Thank you.”
He didn’t take the bait, considering her solemnly. “Euphemisms may try to gild an ugly truth, but too often fail.”
“If this tradition is so distasteful, why are you here?” she shot back.
His turn to grimace. “Desperation.” Because he was watching her face, he nodded to himself at whatever he saw there. “I was warned, you know, that House Elal has the best spies—spirits and elementals, I’m sure, are excellent for that—and that you’d know everything about me. I figured it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.”
He leaned forward, an abrupt and urgent movement, propped his elbows on his knees, and rested his chin on steepled fingers. “I am a house of one wizard, Lady Veronica, and many dependents. I need you to give House Phel a future. Will you marry me, be my lady wife, familiar, and mother of my children?”
~3~
Her stunned expressionmight’ve been comical if it hadn’t been so uncomplimentary. Oh, she swiftly replaced the initial appalled disgust with serene, even regal contempt—but he’d shocked Lady Veronica Elal all right. At least, Gabriel congratulated himself, he’d managed to elicit an honest reaction out of her rather than the prickly façade she’d presented so far.
“Your proposal is entirely out of order,” she finally said, tipping up that pointed chin in a haughty gesture he’d already grown perversely fond of.
“It seems,” he pointed out, very reasonably, he thought, “that if we plan to have sex and attempt to make a child—and later marry if we succeed—then you should agree to all of that first.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” She twirled a finger at the round tower room. “Believe me, I wouldn’t be spending a year locked up in here if I hadn’t agreed to the Trials.”
