Page 47 of Potions and Proposals
“What now?” he asked as she put away the ingredients and he washed out the cauldron.
“All we can do is wait. It only took a few hours before we felt the effects last time.” She opened the door to make sure the way was clear. Luckily, Grams was a heavy sleeper. “I think by tomorrow morning we should have our answer.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“We’ll try the curse--stripping potion, but it’ll take time for me to find the ingredients,” she said, hoping they wouldn’t have to use it. He nodded, looking equally uneasy at the prospect. “Or, we wait until after the binding and see what happens.”
“I should go before it gets any later,” Benedict said, heading for the stairs.
“Are you crazy?” Lucy grabbed him before he stepped on one of the creaky floorboards.“You’ll wake the whole house. There’s no way you can use the front door. Someone could see you, and what would I tell my family, or worse, the neighbours, if you were seen leaving the house in the middle of the night?” The thought alone made her shudder.
“Weareengaged. Being alone together is hardly scandalous,” he drawled, closing the gap between them.
“Don’t try to be cute.” The cool glow of her element in his body felt like a balm to the heat emanating from her own.
He opened his mouth in mock outrage. “I’d never! How am I supposed to leave, then, or is this you inviting me to stay?”
Lucy smiled. “You can go the way you came.”
He groaned, following her back to the attic without argument.
“What if we’re wrong?” he asked eventually.
“About what?” She stilled in the middle of opening the balcony door.
He leaned against the doorframe. “What if the spell worked, and our element swapped to show us that maybe we’re meant to be bound?”
“Are you messing with me?” she chuckled. “Doyouthink we’re meant to be together?”
“Don’t make it sound like a life sentence.” There was no trace of humour in his gaze.
“It isn’t.”
He frowned, straightening his posture.
“Technically, it’s a soul sentence. We’d be bound in this lifeandthe next.”
“Funny,” he said flatly.
Lucy followed him out onto the balcony. He was so tense that she felt relaxed in comparison. “You’ll get frown lines if you don’t lighten up,” she teased. “Do you think our elements swapping wasn’t a mistake?”
“Don’t you think it would be simpler if it wasn’t a mistake? If maybe our elements could have seen something we’ve been missing.” He flexed his hands as they rested on the balcony railing.
Lucy didn’t know what to say. She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Ignore me; it’s late.”
“Tomorrow everything might be back to normal. No one will ever know about our elements, and we can make it to the end of the month in relative peace,” she said tentatively.
“About that… Peter came to the manor to congratulate me on our binding. Your uncle told him about our being bound,” he admitted, fidgeting with a splinter of loose wood.
“Oh gods, he knows about our switched elements?” Lucy guessed.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Lucy dropped her head into her hands, feeling a headache coming on.
“I didn’t plan to tell him, but he was waiting for me after we had our little storm in the garden. He spotted the matches in my room –something our family has never had any use for. If I wanted to stop him from asking around, I figured it was best to tell him,” Benedict reasoned. “You don’t need to worry about him telling anyone, and your family don’t know it backfired. We just need to make sure the new professor doesn’t find out… which might be tricky, considering how he was looking at you.”
