Page 55 of Potions and Proposals
Benedict cleared his throat. “I’m decent; you can look now. I take it you’re here to talk about trying another spell or potion?”
“We can try the curse-stripping potion. It’ll just take me a while to order some of the ingredients from Myrtle’s,” Lucy said quickly. The ingredients were far more complicated than what was usually stocked in town.
“If we don’t figure out something between now and then, we can give it a go,” he agreed mildly.
Confusion delayed her response. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t giving her more of a hard time.
“You’re not angry?” she asked, lowering her hands from her eyes. He was still in just the towel wrapped around his middle. “I thought you said you were decent.”
“What’s the point in getting mad? We tried, and we can keep trying. More importantly, I was taking a bath in the privacy of my own home. It’d be rather strange to wear clothes while bathing.” Benedict began to dry his hair with another towel.
Lucy tried to focus her attention on the decor and not how good he looked soaking wet. His hair –just long enough to run your hands through– was wavy and wet, giving him a far more relaxed appearance than usual. He also had the Matherson sigil tattooed on his chest: the ivy vines from his back wrapped around a Gothic ‘M’.
He raised his eyebrows as he caught her staring, then gave her a smug grin. It seemed he was enjoying this, now that the surprise had worn off.
“I thought of you as more of a shower guy. The bubble bath was a surprise,” she said, not wanting to admit she’d been staring. She’d seen the tattoo before, when he rolled up his shirt sleeves, but she hadn’t known how expansive it was.
“Do you think about me in the shower a lot?” He tossed the hair towel back in the bathroom and closed the door.
Lucy didn’t dignify that with a response.
He inhaled deeply. “It helps me relax– something I’ve struggled with since we got engaged. If I remember correctly, you did tell me to use your element, or it would get too strong.”
Her eyes went wide.“My element – it must’ve pulled me here! Did you use my water to fill the entire tub?”
“You told me to use it!” he repeated.
She waved that away. “I’m not accusing you– you didn’t know.”
He frowned.“Why are you smiling?”
“Because this means we’re still connected to our elements. They must call to us when they’re used in volume,” she said, getting a little too close in her eagerness to explain. Feeling the warmth emanating from his body, she tried to step back, but he followed her. Heat rose up the sides of her neck, but she didn’t try to move away again.
“I suppose that’s a good thing. Means we haven’t lost them entirely.” He sat on the trunk at the end of his poster bed, pushing his wet hair back from his face. “But if your element brought you here…”
“Then… we need to refrain from using each other’s element to prevent this from happening again,” she finished, and he nodded.
“Luckily,Idon’t need to use fire in any state of undress,” she teased, trying to make light of the situation.
He rolled his eyes, but he seemed deep in thought.“What were you doing before you came here?”
“Talking with my mum.” She avoided his gaze, studying the expansive poster bed and all the candles of varying lengths.He has his candles and fire, and I’ve got my water and flowers,she thought. His home felt medieval compared to hers, but somehow still cosy.
“About what? If I might ask.” He followed her out of his bedroom.
“Emerson. She was showing him the town,” Lucy said eventually, leaving out the matchmaking part.
“And then?” he asked, close to her back, as she paused by the couch.
“I don’t know. It felt like my insides were burning. My blood started boiling, but I wasn’t angry,” she explained. Remembering the sensation made her queasy.
“What if my element was defending itself?” he mused.
Frowning, she turned to face him. “You’re not thinking your element was jealous of Emerson?” It sounded ridiculous, but there was no hint of humour in his dark eyes.
“My element could’ve perceived what Wilhelmina was saying as a threat to our binding. If our elements are trying to make sure the binding happens, it’d make sense that you’d be pulled away from him and brought…” He hesitated, his chest rising and falling. “To me.” It was so quiet she barely caught the words.
Why was it that whenever he got this close, her heart tried to escape her chest? It didn’t feel healthy to be drawn to someone who’d hurt her so much in the past.
