Chapter EIGHT
Even as that sharp word burst from her lips, Luna’s hands caught hold of him so tight and wrenched so hard, Nigel lost his footing in the dark. He staggered, trying to catch his balance, but the space was small, and his feet tangled with hers. There was a moment of confusion, a collision of bodies, and then they fell against the door.
Her in front of him, crushed against his chest.
His elbow pressed into the slats beside her head.
His other hand resting on her very bare shoulder.
It was too dark to see anything. Though his sorcerer’s eyes were adapted to peering into the Dire, they could make nothing of these impenetrable shadows. But he felt her. Even as he drew back, breathing hard, creating a little space between them, he felt the shape of her body against his. Her fingers gripped the front of his tuxedo jacket with a powerful force which even that rough jostling could not dislodge. Her breath emitted in short little gasps, soft on his face.
And that skin of hers, under his palm . . . like living silk . . .
“Miss Talbot,“
Nigel whispered, struggling to find his voice. He pressed into his elbow, trying to push away farther. But her grip intensified, dragged him closer to her, and, truth be told, he didn’t offer much resistance. His senses jumbled. He could not clear his head, could not form a coherent thought. All consideration of wardsmen and magic sensors and drunken lords in hallways fled his brain. Everything in him hyper-fixated on the awareness of her, clad in that scanty black bustier. Though the darkness was almost absolute, in his mind’s eye he remembered too clearly how she looked, with her pale skin against the dark sequins. Like something out of a dream so elicit, his imagination had never dared venture in.
But this was no dream. She was here. Pulling him close. And her panting breaths excited him in ways he could not ignore, a rising urgency in his blood.
He cleared his throat and tried again to speak. “I think we should—”
Her right hand uncurled from his jacket, slid up the front of his chest to his shoulder, around to the back of his neck. He felt her fingers curling against the base of his skull, twining in his hair. She trembled, but her grip was firm, and she dragged his head down, down, until his forehead pressed against hers.
Nigel closed his eyes. It made no difference, but somehow he had to. Fire burned in his body, starting from that place where her fingers met his flesh, and spreading out through his veins. His breath shuddered through parted lips. He moved his hand from her shoulder, let it glide gently down her arm. It came to rest at last on her waist, holding her there, as though trying to steady himself. His knees felt weak. It took everything he had not to give in to her pull, to fall against her once more and crush her back against that door.
“Miss Talbot,“
he said again, his voice a rough rasp he hardly recognized. He tipped his head a little, and his nose brushed against hers. How close were her lips now to his? Less than an inch away in the darkness. And her hand was tight on the back of his neck, drawing him, urging him. An invitation? Without seeing her face, how could he know? He was a man on the brink of the precipice. If he took the next step, he would either fly or fall to his death. The risk was tremendous, and yet the chance, the hope . . .
He allowed his nose to bump hers again, a gentle nuzzle. The pressure from her hand increased. “Are you sure?“
he whispered. “Is this what you—”
That was when he heard her whimper.
It was not a sensual sound. Very much not. It was the sound of a child. A frightened, terrified, desperate child, trapped in the dark.
Suddenly, that pressure on the back of his neck wasn’t so irresistible. Nigel jerked back, eyes flaring open to stare unseeing into the dark. But he didn’t need to see to recognize what he ought to have recognized from the get-go. Luna was trembling. Hard. Her breath caught on little choking sobs.
“Oh,“
he breathed in an abrupt rush of understanding. “Oh, no.“
Memory broke through his brain: Luna’s panicked expression when they rode together in the fete wheel carriage at the Saint Jollify Fair. The fear and tension in her body, the way she’d held his hand for support, for courage. And that wasn’t a closed-in space like this. There were windows then.
“Miss Talbot,“
he said, taking a step back but still holding onto her waist. “Are you all right? Talk to me.”
She sucked in a sharp, high sound. When she exhaled, a thin voice emerged from her throat. “Mama!“
A moment of horrific silence. Then: “Mama! Mama! Mama said . . . Mama said, stay quiet. Mama said she would come back. Mama said . . . Mama said . . .”
She staggered forward, hands clutching at Nigel’s chest again just before she sank. Nigel reached to catch her, to keep her from collapsing completely. It was a difficult feat to manage respectfully in the pitch darkness, difficult to know where to place his hands. He seemed to have caught her under the arms, and he eased her down to the ground until they were both kneeling. She held onto his front, and he inhaled the scent of her hair as she tucked her face against his chest.
“I want out!“
she keened. “I want out, I want out! Oh, please! Please, don’t leave me in here! Mama said—Mama said—Oh, Mama! They’re hurting her! They’re hurting Mama!”
“It’s all right, Miss Talbot,“
Nigel said, trying to get an arm around her. In her panic, she pulled him off-balance, and he landed heavily with his shoulder against something hard and protruding. He still didn’t have a clear sense of where exactly they crouched. All he knew for certain was there wasn’t much space, not for two fully-grown adults. “I’m here,“
he said, speaking into her hair. “I’ve got you.”
She moved, changing her angle. Arms wrapped around his neck, and he felt bare skin under his chin and jaw. She had him in a strangle hold, and her hands clawed at his shoulders. “I can’t breathe!“
she said, her voice tight and close to his ear. “I—I can’t—I can’t breathe!”
Nigel swallowed hard. He could hear the distress in her voice, the struggle in her chest. Panic had her firmly in its grasp now. She wasn’t aware of anything she said or did. He must be careful. More careful than ever before.
“My father had a trick,“
he said, more to himself than to her. “A Green Magic trick. When I was small, I suffered from asthma. Sometimes it got bad and . . . and fear would take hold. That made it worse. Infinitely worse. Dad would help me then.“
He swallowed again, painfully. “I am no hedge wizard, but I think I can replicate it. I can help you breathe. May I try, Miss Talbot? Do I have your permission?”
For a moment, she only clung harder and gasped out those thin, horrible, struggling breaths. He wasn’t certain she could even hear him, much less understand what he asked. Then he felt her head nodding against his shoulder. Good enough.
“All right,“
he said and gently pried her arms from around his neck. She tried to cling harder, but he managed to dislodge her and push her back from him slightly. “I’m going to place my hand on your heart. Do you understand? I am placing my hand on your heart now.”
His fingers found her face first in the darkness, gliding along the soft curve of her cheek. He slid them gently, slowly down her throat to her collarbone. No sudden moves, nothing that might frighten her. He rested his palm then against her exposed chest, trying not to think about fringing lace and sequins and whale bone. Not now, not while her breathing was so agonized in his ears.
He closed his eyes again. Doing so made no difference in his perceptions, but he thought it might help him concentrate. Her heart raced under his palm, though he couldn’t, in that moment, decide if it raced any faster than his. Which would make it difficult to perform this particular trick.
“Breathe with me now,“
he said. “Breathe with me. Out for a count of six. Hold for a count of six. In for a count of six.”
She couldn’t do it. Not at first. So he did it for her, breathing and counting. As he did so, he felt the beat of her heart under his palm, drew that beat into himself. It wasn’t something he knew how to do on a conscious level—not like sorcery, with its sigils and its dark words and its careful rules. Green Magic wasn’t like that. Green Magic was innate, born from some understanding within. A deep wellspring of selfhood, which Nigel never could comprehend. But he had to try. Now. For Luna’s sake.
“Breathe out,“
he murmured. “Breathe in.”
With each breath, he began to feel the little knot of warmth down in his chest, just as he had felt it long ago, as a boy, when his father awakened it. A power, an energy. Bigger than it seemed, but perceived only in part. He drew it up, slowly, painstakingly, and channeled that warmth through his palm. He envisioned it, green and glowing, passing from his skin to hers, sinking down inside her.
“Breathe out for six,“
he said again. And this time, he thought perhaps she did. He heard her breath expel, steadier than it was before. Long and gusting. She held it then, as he held his. Drew an inhale in time with his. Her racing heart began to calm under his hand. “I’m with you,“
he said with the next exhale. “I’m here. You’re not alone.”
Maybe what Old Mister Grimm used to say was true after all. Maybe everyone had a bit of Green Magic in them, if they could just be bothered to notice it.
A few more breaths, and her fingers unhooked from the front of his tuxedo jacket. She let out a much longer, fuller exhale than all the others and sank away from his hand, sagging back against the door. Feeling as though his palm was on fire, Nigel withdrew and curled his fingers into a tight fist. “Are you all right?“
he asked, speaking blindly into the shadows.
“I—I think so.“
Her voice sounded faint, but no longer childlike. A moment later, she added, “I’m cold.”
Hastily, Nigel shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her. It was awkward going, considering he couldn’t see her at all, but they managed. He felt her shoulders slump gratefully under the warm folds of fabric. Settling back again, he tried to find a less awkward angle for his knees. Her legs were entwined with his, and there wasn’t room enough to maneuver so that they wouldn’t touch. In the end, he gave up trying. It was less embarrassing that way.
“What is this place?“
Luna asked after a moment. While he could still hear the tears in her voice, he didn’t think they were actively falling anymore.
“Some sort of undercroft. Housing Lord Bruxley’s more exclusive collection of spirits, I suspect,“
Nigel answered.
“By exclusive, do you mean illegal?”
“Probably.”
“Oh.”
She was silent again for a little while. Then, very softly: “I’m sorry about that. Just now, I mean. I . . . I have this thing with . . . with closed-in places.”
Nigel nodded, though she couldn’t see it. He heard in her voice all the things she wasn’t saying. All those unspoken things, which fit in with his own suspicions. He thought of the Thorpewillow family, Jastira’s kin, back at the height of the Shadowbane Lady’s reign. Rival sorcerers hunted them down over the years, desperate to stop Jastira in her tracks as she pursued ever-darker magic. And those whom the rival sorcerers did not find, Jastira herself took into the dark depths of Nocturnus Tower, and . . .
But Nigel didn’t like thinking about that. He didn’t like to remember those discoveries. Those things which he should have guessed long before he did. Those things to which he turned a blind eye for far too long.
He clenched and unclenched his fist. How old did Luna say she was when she first came to live with her aunties? About seven. Which made her younger still on that evil night when her mother urged her into hiding in some dark bolt-hole, prepared in advance for that purpose, no doubt. He could almost see it, like a scried vision of the past. The little girl, crouched in the darkness underneath her own living room rug. Listening to the sound of sorcerers knocking, of forced entrance, of screams.
Dire Matter, erupting in the chamber above.
Anti-glitter particles making their way through cracks in the floorboards.
What had Luna heard? What had she . . . smelled? And how long did she remain in hiding after the fact, until someone came to look for her? Or had she eventually crawled out on her own? He hoped the sorcerers were thorough, at least. He hoped they’d left nothing for that innocent little girl to discover in their wake.
If only he could ask her. If only she would trust him enough to tell him. But how could she, when he himself was a sorcerer?
“It’s all right, Miss Talbot,“
Nigel said at last, filling the too-long silence. “We’re not trapped in here, you know. I can knock the door down with a bit of spellwork. Only there can’t be any wardsmen with sensors around when I do it.”
“That’s . . . yes. Good to know.”
She shifted, and he felt the shape of her silk-clad calf rub up against his trousers. He ground his teeth and tried not to think about the moment when that other dancer had yanked at Luna’s skirt, and it had split open in the front, exposing her leg all the way to that lace garter at her thigh. Only the more he tried not to think about it, the more it seemed to burn across his brain.
Nigel cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you,“
Luna retorted sharply. He could just picture the stubborn set of her chin, the flash of her eye. “And wearing that monkey suit, no less!”
“I don’t know that you have room to comment on my apparel.“
He started to shift again, then felt the pressure of her knee against his inner thigh, and paused. On second thought, it was probably best if he held absolutely still. “I came after you, of course,“
he said. “I . . . I saw you from the window. Saw you come back from Nettleton and turn onto Pembroke. Knowing how upset you were about the engagement between Lord Bruxley and the countess, I . . . well . . .”
“You have a suspicious mind, Mr. Grimm. Did you know that?”
“Perhaps. And yet, here we are.”
“So you crashed the party as a guest?”
“It seemed the simplest approach.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I got in easily enough. Only I was supposed to fill in for Mary, but they swapped me out for Kate at the last minute.”
This made no sense to Nigel, no matter how he turned it over. As further explanation didn’t seem to be forthcoming, however, he ventured, “That was an, erm, interesting exhibition. Of your talents.”
“Do I detect a note of sarcasm?“
Luna shifted in the dark, and he heard her soft snort. “Don’t think I can make it as a Rowdy House girl, do you?”
What answer could he possibly give to that? Truth be told, he’d not registered the other girls or their dancing skills, whether good or bad. Because, from the instant she was pulled onto the floor, shoved between two posing beauties, her eyes wide as saucers, her mouth gaping in shock, he’d not been able to take his eyes off Luna. Not for a second, while she stumbled about, yelping, gasping, placing her hand on her heart in horror. And when that other girl had yanked off her blouse—
Nigel drew a sharp breath through his teeth, even as that image flashed through his brain. Her figure was so prominently displayed in that supremely uplifting and supportive garment. He could spend the rest of his life trying to scrub away that memory and doubted very much that he would ever succeed.
He bit the inside of his cheek so hard, he tasted blood. Then, in the driest voice he could summon: “I had not realized you were so dissatisfied with your work at the shop.”
Luna laughed. It was a bit tight and nervous, but still a laugh. After the panic he’d just heard knifing up her throat, that sweet, golden tone was pure relief to his ears. “I really was a beast to you today,“
she said, sheepishly. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”
He shrugged. Then, realizing she couldn’t see it, added, “We all have our off days.“
After a moment: “I wasn’t going to fire you over it, you know. So no need to pursue this sudden career change.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Something tells me Kate is going to want her bustier back.”
A little silence lingered between them, during which Nigel worked very hard not to concentrate on the word “bustier.”
In the end, Luna spoke again, her voice a little softer than before. “Thanks for coming to my assistance, by the way. With Lord Bruxley. Though I don’t know that it was necessary. That man was on the verge of toppling before the party had begun!”
Nigel’s fingers slowly curled into fists again. When he’d come around that bend and found Lord Bruxley looming over Luna like that, a blind rage had come over him. If Luna hadn’t grabbed his arm and pulled him back, he would even now be under arrest for murder. And they’d still be scraping little pieces of Archibald Bruxley off the wallpaper days from now.
Maybe the Dark Sorcerer side of him wasn’t so wholly quashed after all.
“Do you think he’ll remember anything?“
Luna mused. “About that little encounter, I mean?”
“I doubt it. He looked halfway pickled to me.”
She snickered softly. “I guess he needed more liquid courage than usual to face his bride-to-be.“
She was silent a moment before adding, “I just wanted a chance to speak to Countess d’Ackerley, you know. She deserves better than Lord Bruxley.“
Another silence, followed by an indignant, “What sort of man hires a show like that for his engagement party? In front of all those people! I saw the look on the countess’s face. She was humiliated!”
“One would think,“
Nigel ventured, “she has all the information she needs to back out of this bad decision.”
“Yes, but . . . but maybe she’s worried about the social embarrassment? It would be quite a scandal for her to break it off now. That being said, if she knew real happiness was possible—”
“None of us can ever know that for certain. At some point, you simply have to take risks for happiness or deal with the consequences of your own cowardice.”
The air in that tight little space suddenly felt very still. Had he really just said that out loud? Perhaps not. Perhaps he’d merely thought it. In this darkness, who could really say what was real and what wasn’t?
His mouth moved soundlessly. He felt words rising to his tongue, words he should not say, and yet which felt strangely more possible here and now. Maybe it was the too-close air, making him lightheaded. Or the fact that he couldn’t see her. Maybe he was still feeling the strangely thrilling sensation of Luna’s nose brushing against his (who would have thought noses could be so keenly erotic)? Maybe the adrenaline of the chase was still in his veins, or maybe he was just a bloody fool.
Either way, a rush of pure madness seemed to take hold of him suddenly, and he heard his own voice saying, “Miss Talbot, there’s something I need to—”
Just then the sound of footsteps clattering on the stairs erupted in his ears, followed by a distant but imperious female voice saying, “Oi, Paxton! His lordship said to send up the special year for his mates. Fetch it while you’re down there, won’t you?”
“Where’s that?“
the presumed Paxton hollered back.
“In the undercroft, you dolt!”
“Right y’are, missus.”
Nigel scrambled to his feet, trying his best not to kick Luna in the process. She managed to get upright as well, pressed flush against him in that tight space. “Get behind me,“
he said. His hands found her hips in the dark as he angled her around. Then he turned protectively, facing the door, and she gripped his arm, leaning into him. He felt the round softness of her bosom against his back, her breath against his ear, and could hardly concentrate on anything else, not even the sound of footfalls approaching their door.
Light spilled under the crack at the floor. The next moment came the sound of a bolt being drawn. Nigel caught his breath—then nearly choked on it when Luna suddenly grabbed his hand with both of hers. That touch shot an electric jolt up his arm, and his head whirled, and—
The door opened.
Nigel found himself blinking into the face of an extremely bored-looking footman. Long of cheek, short of brow, bereft of chin. This man’s pale eyes took in the sight of Nigel in his tux, before glancing to the scantily-clad young lady behind him. His expression registered no surprise.
“Hmmm,“
he said. Followed by, “I need to get something what’s behind you.”
“Yes. Of course. Erm.“
Nigel shuffled out of the undercroft, drawing Luna after him. The footman took a step back and waited. Then went about his business without comment. They were probably not the only Rowdy House dancer and gentleman caught somewhere random about the house in the last hour. Nigel’s ears burned at the thought.
But Luna was still holding onto his hand. Which made everything worthwhile.
“Shall we go?“
he whispered. She nodded, and he led her quickly to the stairs. These were too narrow to ascend together, which inevitably meant the hand-holding was brought to an end. Nigel tried not to feel disappointed as he led the way and peered out into the hall above, checking for signs of SSSD officers. “All clear,” he said.
She followed him out into the passage, lit by a single, too-harsh thaumatic bulb. After the darkness in which they had crouched, it felt very bright, and his eyes began to ache.
Nigel took a step toward the kitchens, but Luna stopped. “Wait,” she said.
He looked back. She appeared smaller than usual, wrapped in his tuxedo jacket, which was too large on her small shoulders. The thaumatic light revealed her pale face, blotchy from the tears she had wept. Her eyes were a bit hollow, but her expression was typical Luna—fiercely determined. Stubborn. “I can’t leave yet,” she said.
“What? No, we’ve got to go now, while the coast is clear.”
She shook her head. “I can’t leave without my own clothes. I don’t have blouses and skirts to spare, you know. Plus my new boots! Here.”
Before Nigel could react, she slung the tuxedo jacket off her shoulders, once more displaying that bustier and all the attributes it emphasized to his unprepared eyes. He gulped and hastily averted his gaze to the ceiling, even as she shoved the jacket into his hands. “You go on,“
she said. “Back to the shop. I’ll be fine now. I’ll fetch my things and nip out in a trice. See you tomorrow, Mr. Grimm!”
With that she turned and darted back up the hall, making for some destination he did not know. “Wait, Miss Talbot!“
Nigel called after her.
But she was already gone.