Chapter ELEVEN
“I hope you’re proud of yourself, Luna Talbot. Finding a tea I like on only your second attempt?“
Ward leaned toward her, grinning with dimples on full blast. “Never thought I’d be so easy to please, now did you?”
For once, Luna felt less inclined to let that smile work its magic on her. She planted a hand on her hip and gave the officer a stern look. “Ward,“
she said with a snort, “that’s Limpty’s you’re drinking!”
He raised his eyebrows in an “am I missing something?“
expression.
Luna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. But only just. “I am a tea witch. Born and bred! I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years honing my craft, developing my flavors, perfecting my blends.“
She waved her hand at the cup even now poised in Ward’s large hand. “And you’re going to sit there and rave about a Limpty’s tea? To my face?”
Ward looked down into the cup in front of him. Then flicked his green-eyed gaze back up to meet hers. “I’m sure the noble Limpty takes as much pride in his work as any other tea witch.”
“Out!“
Luna declared, laughing despite herself. She swung the teapot in her hand toward the door. “At once, sir! Away with you! I’ll not stand by and listen to such sacrilege spoken in my presence!”
“What, don’t I get my future read?”
“Certainly not. No one wants a Limpty’s future anyway.”
Ward sighed heavily, pushed back his chair, and rose. “You do realize,“
he said, taking up his hat and setting it on his head, hiding that bouncing curl, “you’ve made a grave tactical error, don’t you?”
Luna raised a brow. “Oh, have I?”
“You have. Because, despite your best efforts, I enjoyed my tea. Very much, in fact! Which means,“
he added, inclining his head toward her and flashing those dimples yet again, “I’ll be back for more. Sooner rather than later.”
Luna felt a blush rising followed by the most ridiculous, girlish giggle. She never could manage to keep her cool in front of this man, could she? “I’ll find a worthy tea for you next time,“
she vowed, pulling her face back into serious lines.
“We shall see,“
Ward said, then added a wink for good measure. Just because he hadn’t flustered her enough yet. “Happy Year’s End, Luna Talbot. See you next year.”
With that, he strode for the door, leaving Luna gawping in his wake. She’d all but forgotten what day it was. The week-and-a-bit which followed Green Yule was always such a smudgy blur, Year’s End tended to catch one unawares. But here they were, poised on the brink of the world’s great turning from one year to the next. The pleasant warmth brought on by Ward’s wink filtered away. Luna felt her heart sinking. Another year spent on the run. Far from home. With no hope of returning anytime soon. Another year of this vagabond existence.
A cluster of Silly Young Things were just arriving under the awning as Ward made his exit. He paused to hold the door for them, and Luna watched how they all erupted in blushes and giggles. And who was she to judge? She’d just done the same, hadn’t she? They filed in, one pretty face after another, then crowded at the shop window to watch Ward stride away, and Luna couldn’t blame them for that either. When a figure of Ward’s impressive proportions came into view, it was akin to seeing a parade elephant appear suddenly by magic and stroll casually down a busy street. One simply couldn’t help but stop and stare; it would be tantamount to a crime not to.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,“
she called to the Silly Young Things as they peeled away from the window at last and approached the counter. “Specials are posted on the board. I’ll just pop on the kettle.”
“Take your time, Miss Witch!“
they replied, using the nickname they’d bestowed upon her in tones of great fondness. The pretty young misses gathered around the blackboard, discussing their choices, while Luna slipped back to the kitchen with Ward’s cup and the Whittlewedge teapot. She placed the cup in the sink, rinsed and washed the pot free of all traces of Limpty’s, dried it thoroughly. She put on the kettle, gathered teacups for the Silly Young Things, checked to make certain her sugar jar was full.
Then, these tasks complete, she grabbed hold of the edge of the counter, bent over nearly double, and squeezed her eyes as tightly shut as she could get them.
“Dratted hecks!“
she hissed.
A wild flush of heat roiled from her head down to her gut where it proceeded to churn her innards like butter.
It wasn’t fair.
It simply wasn’t fair.
After spending the entire morning very purposefully avoiding her, giving her the coldest of cold shoulders . . . why did Mr. Grimm have to come strolling in from Garden looking like that?
She blew out a sharp breath through tight lips. But no matter how hard she squeezed her eyes, she couldn’t squeeze out that image of him, emblazoned across her memory. With his undershirt all fitted to his frame, hugging his shoulders. And his arms bare, displaying well-toned, whipcord muscle. And his hair, floppy over his forehead, with no trace of pomade, and sweat streaking the hard lines of his face, and oh! The musk of him. All that manly sweat and earthy greenness, mixed enticingly with the perpetual sandalwood-and-cinnamon cologne, which clung to him always.
It was more shocking even than the sight of him wearing a tuxedo last night. Because, flower shop owner and tradesman though he might be, Mr. Grimm was every inch the gentleman. A tuxedo suited him exactly, emphasized his fine features, his elegance, his dignified presence.
But this version of Mr. Grimm? This was an altogether different story.
That streak of dirt, smeared across his temple.
That wild impulse to reach out, brush it away with her fingertips.
To let her hands wander up into his hair, twine in those disheveled locks, tug him toward her, and—
“Dratted, dratted hecks!“
she cursed again.
Then, standing up straight, she pounded the countertop with one fist. Her hand smarted, but she exhaled slowly and pushed hair back from her face, simultaneously fixing a demure expression onto her features. “I wasn’t prepared,“
she muttered. “That’s all. It was a shock. But I’m better now. It’s fine.“
She lowered her hands, smoothed the front of her apron. “Get it together, Luna. You’ve got work today.”
Mr. Grimm had entrusted her with managing the shop on her own. She couldn’t let him down. No doubt his business in Garden was very pressing. That, or he simply couldn’t bear to look at her following her foolishness of last night. She’d spent the better part of this morning in a state of dread. Forcing herself to return to the shop took every ounce of courage she could summon, and it was almost a relief to find Mr. Grimm actively avoiding her.
Maybe it would be all right. Maybe they’d make the turn into the New Year without disaster. But not if she couldn’t figure out a way to get back onto some sort of normal footing with her boss. And quickly.
“Which means you can’t go surprising me like that, Mr. Grimm,“
she muttered.
Heaving up the tea tray, Luna set her chin, drew in a sharp little breath, and marched from the kitchen. By the time she reached the Silly Young Things and began to take their orders, her smile was firmly in place. Time to get on with business as usual.
She was halfway through reading tea leaves in six Whittlewedge cups when Mr. Grimm emerged from the stairwell. Coiffed and buttoned, polished and serene. No sign of the musky man of earth and action to be seen in his demeanor. He donned his shop apron and set to work wrapping flower orders for Silly Young Things, nodding politely and murmuring appropriate comments in response to their giggles and remarks. He was quiet, unobtrusive, barely-there.
Nevertheless, Luna found it nearly impossible to concentrate on her scrying.
“And—and—and.“
She blinked several times, staring into the dregs of a cup, desperate to make some sense of the confusion whirling before her Sight. “And you should definitely wear that little pink number of yours, Miss Peabody.“
She blinked again and turned the cup around. “Or rather, you shouldn’t. Yes, that’s it. You shouldn’t wear it. Wear something else. Anything but pink.”
The doll-faced Miss Peabody frowned prettily. “Oh, but I bought the pink just for Year’s End!”
“Wear it for some other occasion,“
Luna urged, setting the cup down firmly. “Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.”
She managed to get through the last couple of readings well enough, then slipped out from behind the counter to walk the Silly Young Things and their bundles of flowers to the door, seeing them off with smiles, promises of future meetings, and well-wishes for their Year’s End soirees that evening. “Don’t forget about the pink!“
she added to Miss Peabody. “Any other occasion but tonight!”
“Thank you ever-so, Miss Witch,“
the lovely Miss Peabody sighed and followed her chums out onto the sidewalk. “Happy Year’s End!“
she called over her shoulder.
Just before Luna shut the door, the postboy trotted up and ducked under the awning of The Arcane Bouquet. Luna waited, keeping the door open despite the cold chill blowing down Addle Street. The boy had been known to dump his mail in the nearest snowdrift rather than be bothered to slip it through the slot. “Here, I’ll have that,“
she said, holding out her hand.
“Right you are, miss,“
the postboy said, depositing a handful of bills, fliers, and junk pamphlets. He touched a finger to the middle-brim of his cap. “Happy Year’s End,“
he said, then ducked away, not waiting for Luna to reciprocate.
She stepped back into the shop, closing the door in a tinkle of brass bells. Turning on heel, she made her way slowly down the center aisle, aware of Mr. Grimm at the counter but taking care not to look at him. Despite not looking, she could tell that he was not looking at her either. So there was plenty of mutual not looking going on. Good. Fine. What did she care?
She dumped the mail pile on the counter and swiftly shuffled through it, sorting the bills from the ad fliers. Colorful proclamations met her gaze: “Come simmer down with us at Simmer Down Deli!“
or “Experience the mystery and become part of the history at Old Bally Castle Keep!“
or “In a pickle with the law? Hire Bill Pickle, solicitor. He’s the real dill!”
That last one inspired a curl of the lip. But Luna’s searching eye did not find that for which she sought—a familiar, chicken-scratch handwriting and maybe a pretty pink envelope with a floral border. It was Year’s End, after all. There was always a chance . . .
But no. Not this year, apparently.
She sighed.
“Were you expecting something, Miss Talbot?”
Luna glanced up to find Mr. Grimm’s gaze upon her even as he thoughtfully straightened the tissue paper and floral wire behind the counter. She looked away again quickly and shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe.”
He didn’t speak. But she saw from the corner of her eye how his brow wrinkled in silent question.
She half-shrugged. “I . . . maybe have forwarded the shop address to my aunties. Mrs. Boggs, you see, can be a bit intrusive about mail.”
“I can well imagine that,“
he answered dryly. “But . . . was there some particular reason you thought the aunties would write to you? For Year’s End, perhaps?”
She looked down at the mail in front of her. Solicitor Bill Pickle leered up at her from a black-and-white portrait, and she flipped him over and covered him with the Simmer Down Deli advert. “Ever since I left home,“
she admitted, “they’ve always managed somehow to send a card to wherever I am, for . . .”
“Yes, Miss Talbot?”
She bit her lip. Then: “You see, tomorrow is my birthday.”
“What?”
“Yes.“
She grimaced. “I’m sorry, I hope that’s all right?”
Mr. Grimm blinked, the lines of his brow deepening. “Sorry for . . . having a birthday?“
He shook his head. “Most people do, you know. Have birthdays.”
Luna laughed and hastily picked up the stack of pamphlets, straightening out their edges. “No, I mean, I don’t plan to make any sort of to do about it. It’s not important or anything.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, of course not. As you said, everyone has birthdays! It’s not like it’s special.”
His gaze was a little too much, so she turned her face away, looking at the Wolf Brittlebum, which stood in a vase beside the cash register, proud in its ugly magnificence. The sight made her smile a little. She’d told Garden about her birthday once, while she was out on a tea-harvesting jaunt. Just one of the many, one-sided conversations she’d had with that great, sprawling semi-sentient plot of ground. But it was nice to know it had remembered.
“According to family legend, I was born on the stroke of midnight, New Year’s Day,“
she said, addressing the Wolf Brittlebum rather than the man behind the counter, but very aware of her employer’s attention. “So the aunties always threw me a party on the evening of Year’s End. They made such a silly fuss! Auntie Apolonia baked her spice cake, which . . . I mean, you’ve never had Auntie Apolonia’s spice cake, but believe me, whenever she pulled out that yellow, dog-eared little recipe card, you knew a Proper Occasion was At Hand.“
She emphasized the capitals with a smile. “Auntie would smother it with lemon-flavored icing and decorate it with little curlicues and dried tea flowers. And we’d stay up all night, playing games and eating cake, waiting for midnight. Because a New Year’s birthday is that important, they said, and I must be kissed promptly on the stroke of twelve or bad luck would follow me for the next twelve months. So, at midnight, they each would kiss me on the cheek, one after the other. I always felt I couldn’t have a very lucky year without those kisses!”
Her smile drooped then, suddenly no longer comfortable on her face. “I’ve not had any birthday kisses for two years running now. And they haven’t been terribly lucky years, either.“
Then, with a shake of her head and a straightening of her shoulders, she added, “No spice cake, either! But the aunties have always managed to send me a card. Auntie Apolonia tucks in a little envelope of her spice blend, and Auntie Aurora writes out some holy scripture on a slip of paper, and Auntie Arabella presses flowers, and . . . it’s like a taste of home. Once a year.”
To her surprise, a tear escaped and raced down her cheek. Thankfully, it was the cheek turned away from Mr. Grimm, and she dashed it off quickly, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “It’s probably best if they don’t bother, of course,“
she muttered, pushing away from the counter. “Only I thought they might—”
Just then, the shop bells tinkled. Luna turned to see an older gentleman with stooped shoulders stepping through and shaking the snow from his boots. She recognized him at once as one of her regulars. “Duty calls,“
she murmured, and hastily doused all teary-ness with smiles. “Welcome back to The Arcane Bouquet, Mr. Meadowcroft!“
she called out, gliding across the shop to greet him. “What can I help you with today?”
And if she was keenly aware of Mr. Grimm’s eyes following her from behind, she didn’t embarrass herself by looking back.