“It might. It certainly seems to drown out everything else. You might only need to use the null spell when more than one of you leaves the house.” Finishing the egg, she rummaged through the groceries. “Oh man, you didn’t buy coffee? Who doesn’t buy coffee?”

“I bought more tea,” he pointed out as he slipped packages into the fridge.

“Tea isn’t the same. At all.” She rubbed her face. “Ugh. This is why you ask somebody what they want when you’re buying groceries. Didn’t anybody train you right?”

“My training didn’t involve running household errands,” he said dryly. As she watched, he paused to shrug. Once he had removed the sword harness from between his shoulders, the cloaking spell eased and it came into view. He set it in one corner.

“No, I suppose it didn’t,” she muttered, staring at the sword in its sheath. “I’ll go into town tomorrow to buy some. I promised to stop by the pub to see Maggie and Arran anyway.” She glanced at him. “What was it like in town?”

“Subdued. People have started putting black ribbons in their windows. The butcher said it was to remember those who were killed.”

Her appetite disappeared, and she offered the second Scotch egg to the monkey, who snatched at it. Nikolas watched her movements, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and opened it. Pouring wine into a tumbler, he handed it to her.

Instantly she forgave him the lack of coffee as she took a large swallow of the rich, ruby red liquid and sighed.

He poured more wine into another tumbler, set it on the counter, and lit the bulky, alien-looking stove. “I bought a steak and kidney pie for supper. It’s already cooked, but it will taste better warmed up. Do you want a salad to go with it?”

She drank more wine as she watched him. He did everything with the same lethal, seamless grace as he fought, and it was mesmerizing. If she wasn’t careful, she could fall into a trance and merely watch him, like looking at the graceful flow of a river, for hours on end.

They were drinking wine—well, at the moment, at least she was anyway. Sharing the simple chore of putting groceries away. Talking together about making supper as if they were friends. What on earth was going on here?

Realizing she had paused for too long, she said, “Sure, I’ll make it.”

Setting aside her glass, she gathered up lettuce and fresh vegetables to wash at the kitchen sink. Glancing out the window at the deepening evening, she looked at the darkened manor house.

Her house. The thrill at saying those words wasn’t going to get old.

That reminded her. Abandoning her task, she strode quickly into the sitting room where she had left her phone and opened her email account. Scrolling through the messages, she saw an email from Rodrigo but left it unopened to read later.

She found a new message from Kathryn, with a PDF attachment, and clicked on it. It was the letter Kathryn had promised to send to Paul. Warmth spread through her, along with giddy delight.

“What is it?” Nikolas said from the doorway.

She turned, smiling. “Kathryn emailed the letter to the solicitor in Shrewsbury. It’s official. This land, and everything on it, is mine.”

Strolling over to her side, he angled his head to study the small screen. “Congratulations. When you go into town tomorrow, you can open a checking account, and I’ll transfer your first month’s rent into it.” Then as she opened her mouth to argue, he told her, “Hush. The building itself might be uncomfortable and lacking in amenities, but it more than makes up for it in other ways. It’s a fair exchange.”

She scowled. “Here’s another thing you don’t seem to grasp. Seeing as I’m not five years old any longer, I’m not about to hush just because you tell me to.”

His expression heated, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. Sliding an arm around her, he pulled her against his torso. “Do I need to resort to the one technique I have for shutting you up?”

The intensity of his expression warmed her to her toes. Tilting her head, she focused her eyes on one of his shirt buttons. His black shirt was open at the throat, exposing the long graceful line of his tanned neck.

She fiddled with the button. “I didn’t want to embarrass you, but to be honest, your technique could use some practice.”

Standing flush against him, she could feel his torso shake in a silent laugh. “You’re a truly dreadful woman.”

She widened her eyes. “Naturally, you would think so.” Waving the fingers of one hand at her own head, she told him, “It’s because I have all these modern, newfangled ideas, you know. Things like, I know how to speak my own mind. I’m a perfectly capable, autonomous person in my own right. I deserve to get all the pleasure I can from someone else’s technique, and I have the right to crit—Mmph.”

He lowered his head, and her last words got mashed against his lips as he took her mouth. His hot, hardened lips moved across hers, while he slid a hand around the nape of her neck, tilting her head back.

The first time he had kissed her had been an odd, shocking pleasure. The next few times, she had grown a little more accustomed to the idea. This time her body knew what was coming and welcomed it eagerly.

The shocking pleasure hadn’t lessened. If anything, it had increased as she left the doubts and disbelief behind and concentrated solely on the sensual experience of his mouth moving over hers with such wicked expertise it sent pulses of pleasure spreading throughout her body.