Page 50 of Pawns of Fate

NICHOLAS

R ose leaned her head on Nicholas’s shoulder.

Using a carriage to travel to the Robson estate took far longer than just riding on horseback because carriages couldn’t handle the shortcuts through the rugged terrain.

They had to follow the main roads that wound slowly through the Onanish mountains.

It tested his patience, but how else was a heavily pregnant woman supposed to travel?

A satisfied smile crossed Nicholas’s face, and he put a hand over his wife’s rounded stomach. She was seven months along, so the pregnancy showed quite a bit. It looked like she was hiding a cabbage under her dress.

Nicholas gently nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek, breathing in her floral and vanilla scent. His favorite scent.

“Stop it.” Rose giggled. “You’ll mess up my hair.”

Nicholas huffed in feigned annoyance. He bent down to kiss her lips.

It started as a chaste peck but turned into something more heated.

Nicholas plunged his tongue into her mouth, and Rose responded sweetly, gently sucking on it while resting her hands on his biceps.

Heat rushed to the lower half of Nicholas’s body.

His attraction to Rose only seemed to increase with time, and her pregnancy made her even more desirable in his eyes.

When they finally broke the kiss, both of them were utterly breathless.

Nicholas grabbed Rose by the hips and sat her in his lap, adjusting the fabric of her full skirts so that it didn’t completely flood their seats.

He started kissing her neck and exploring the curves of her body that pregnancy had made even more generous.

“Not in the carriage, Nicholas!” Rose gasped. “What if the driver hears?” Her cheeks pinkened with embarrassment. Rose had developed too much concern for the staff’s opinions when she’d learned that she and Nicholas had replaced Ava and York as the most amorous couple at Castle Sharp.

Nicholas pulled the shoulder of her dress down and gave her a small love bite. Personally, he couldn’t be more proud of the rumor. Thoughts of taking Rose on his desk or in the garden flooded his mind, and he had to adjust himself.

“Not here,” Rose said with a faux pout.

“Why not?” he huffed.

“We’ll bounce around everywhere.” Rose’s cheeks went from pink to red as she realized the double meaning of her words.

It made Nicholas want to mess with her more, but he settled for a gentle teasing, “Isn’t that the point?” They were almost at their destination.

He had unfinished business with Hector Robson and needed to stay focused.

Nicholas pulled the shoulder of his wife’s dress up so that no one could see the marks of his physical love for her. He smirked again when he thought her pregnancy was already enough proof of that.

“Do you know, Nicholas, I haven’t seen my uncle’s family since we were married? It’s been almost a year.”

“Really? Has it been that long?”

“I think it will be good to see them,” Rose mumbled unenthusiastically. “They’ve made a tidy sum from the star crystal mines, and none of that would have been possible without our marriage.” She relaxed her body further into Nicholas’s chest. “They should be happy to see us.”

It had been almost a year since the swamp campaign.

The monsters had dispersed after the mages had deactivated the control spell, leaving the viscount free to build the largest star crystal mine in Albion.

Hector had already turned a sizable profit on the whole venture, and he’d only scratched the surface of the rich deposits.

Rose was right that he should be happy to see the niece who had enabled his family to grow immensely wealthy.

But Nicholas had something up his sleeve that would undoubtedly dampen the viscount’s mood. He couldn’t wait for Rose to see it.

ROSE

When the carriage finally rolled to a stop in front of her uncle’s estate, Rose wished that Ava and York had joined them.

It wasn’t that she found Nicholas’s company to be inadequate.

It was just that the more allies she had when interacting with Albion’s high society, the more relaxed she could be.

Officially, she and Nicholas were here to celebrate her cousin Hermes’s twentieth birthday.

York, Ava, and even the marquess had been invited to the grand celebration.

Rose felt nostalgic when she remembered how she’d first met Nicholas during her cousin Luanna’s coming-of-age party.

Things had been so different then. She’d spent most of that party running errands for her aunt and tending to her cousin’s needs.

Now, she could enjoy the party as a guest.

Nicholas helped her out of the carriage, which was no small feat given how far along she was in her pregnancy and how formal her attire was. Even without a corset, her dress restricted movement and made balancing on the carriage steps a precarious activity.

Rose’s jaw almost hit the floor when she turned her eyes up to look at Castle Robson.

Her uncle and aunt had never shied away from luxury or been truly frugal, but when Rose lived with them, they’d at least managed to keep a restrained eye on their spending due to their modest budget. That was clearly no longer the case.

If Luanna’s party had been an elaborate garden of color, then this party was an entire forest of it.

The extravagance overwhelmed Rose’s senses.

Bright performers, fire-breathers, and minstrels entertained partygoers in their rich dress.

Servants, all dressed in a rosy pink to honor the Robson family, dashed about like an army of ants.

Exotic animals made of magical light danced through the air in a graceful choreography, an entertaining spell that held quite a few people enthralled.

Not to mention all the hues of the flower garden, which must have doubled in size since Rose had last seen it.

“Well, it seems that your uncle and aunt are enjoying their share of the profits from the mines,” Nicholas said with a fox-like grin.

Over the course of their marriage, Nicholas’s opinion of her uncle and his family had only deteriorated.

Her husband was much more concerned about the injustices of her childhood than Rose thought she could ever be.

She’d found happiness in Onanish. She didn’t mind if her aunt and uncle did the same.

“Ava will be sad that she missed all of this,” Rose replied calmly. “It really is a far cry from how things were when I lived here.”

“Morning sickness would have made her miserable during the carriage ride,” Nicholas responded gently.

It was true. Ava wasn’t nearly as far along in her pregnancy as Rose, but she was suffering from very intense morning sickness and usually spent most of the day in bed. York, of course, wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of leaving her side to accompany Rose and Nicholas to this party.

“Still, Ava enjoys parties more than I do,” Rose chided her husband as they walked toward the entrance.

She thought about all the gatherings Ava and Ms. Peridot had hosted since they’d promised Kreystallia they’d show her jewelry to Albion’s high society.

It had worked; the business had taken off immensely over the past few months.

Rose even spotted a few of Kreystallia’s pieces on the ladies at this party.

It filled her with joy to see trade that was only possible because of the improved relations between the Ojoh and the rest of Albion—the months she and Ava had spent in Uddedin had already yielded fruit.

A maidservant wearing an impractical, fluffy pink dress guided them to their assigned table.

Rose barely kept herself from staring at the girl in an attempt to reason out how she walked under so much cotton-candy-like fabric.

The servant seated them in the area reserved for the most important guests, right next to an elegant, yet empty, table.

Rose guessed that her uncle’s family would fill the seats whenever they deigned to sit down.

Nicholas gently nudged her shoulder. When he had her attention, he directed it across the party to a table where a tall man with a mane of ruby-red hair chatted with a few other partygoers. The man looked familiar, somehow, but Rose couldn’t quite place him.

“Your uncle has climbed the social ladder if Talbot is here,” Nicholas said dryly. So that was who the man was. Rose hadn’t seen Duke Talbot since their wedding.

“We should probably talk to him,” Rose replied, sipping some tea and ignoring Nicholas’s sarcastic tone. He’d been in an odd mood all day.

Just as they were about to make their way over to the duke, the party hosts made their dramatic appearance.

Clad in ostentatious gold outfits and surrounded by spells of fireworks that looked like blooming pink roses, the four Robsons made for a sight that Rose would never forget, even if she did have to stifle a laugh.

She glanced over at her husband and worried that his eyeballs might continue to roll forever if any more annoyance wormed its way into his body. It was funny to her that Nicholas was so resentful of her uncle’s show of wealth. He’d played such an integral part in creating it.

“Next, they’ll have a magician give them diamond wings so they can fly over all of us with their money,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Let it go, Nicholas. The Sharps profit from all of this, too.”

“Not a chance. ”

This time, it was Rose’s turn to restrain an eye roll. She didn’t know what had gotten into her husband today.

Rose found the party pleasant once its initial gaudiness wore off. She enjoyed the food, especially the cake. Nicholas swept her off her feet for a few dances. She chatted with friends and introduced herself to a few acquaintances.

Luanna had greeted her with a short ‘hello’ and ‘congratulations on the pregnancy,’ but flitted away from Rose and Nicholas as soon as the opportunity presented itself.