Chapter 33 #2
Rising, Nigel tightened his dressing gown belt, then pushed back the curtain.
All was clear. Now was his chance to flee upstairs.
He took a few steps, but paused and looked beyond the counter to the vibrant assortment of flowers.
How happy they all looked, particularly the double-delight!
They too felt the restorative benefits of Miss Luna Talbot’s return.
Everything was swept, the annuals had been deadheaded, the bouquets were freshened.
There was a strong, earthy scent of plant food mingling with the perfume of various teas, and all felt very much as it should be.
Nigel released a shaky breath. He’d not realized it until just this moment, but he’d been so .
. . afraid. Afraid things would be too different.
After that night spent with her in his arms. After those foolish, imbecilic confessions in the darkness just before midnight.
After hearing her declare to her roommate that she thought of him as nothing more than a brother.
He’d feared everything would change, that the goodness they’d enjoyed, the little bubble of peace and comfort, which enveloped The Arcane Bouquet so long as she was present, would be gone forever.
That he’d ruined it by letting his feelings get out of hand.
But she was here. She was back. Bringing with her that goodness, that sweetness, that warmth which made his world a better place. And every living soul in that shop—plant and animal alike—felt it.
Nigel leaned heavily against the counter, suddenly a bit weak in the knees.
He licked his dry lips then bit down hard, squeezing his eyes shut.
Gods, what a fool he was! Luna was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
If he lost her because he couldn’t appreciate the friendship she offered, because he asked for more than she was willing to give .
. . well, then he deserved to be cast into the darkest pit of Dire oblivion.
“Brother,” he whispered fiercely, his scratchy throat tight around the word. “She wants a brother.”
And that’s what he would be. If it meant keeping her around a little longer, that’s what he would be, all he would be. He could do it. For her sake. For the sake of the flowers and the shop and Garden and Debbie. For his own sake too.
Luna appeared from the back passage, carrying in her hands the nice Royal Bastian teapot.
“Oh!” she said, stopping short at the sight of him standing there behind the counter.
“Mr. Grimm, you gave me a fright! Why don’t you sit down and have this nice tea?
Then, by the looks of you, best get yourself back up to bed. ”
“Wh—what are you doing here, Miss Talbot?” Nigel asked, trying to ignore the way his heart pounded in a most unbrotherly fashion against his breastbone.
Her lips curved in a grin. “Why, I’m here to work, Mr. Grimm. As usual.”
“Did Dr. Bucket say it was all right?”
She snorted softly and lifted the hinged portion of the counter to step through. “Dr. Bucket would prefer to keep me wrapped in cotton for the foreseeable future. But he’s not unreasonable—he knows I’ve got to earn my keep. So he preached caution and signed off on a clean-ish bill of health.”
Nigel would have liked to preach a cautious sermon of his own, only he didn’t seem to have the lung-capacity at the moment.
At Luna’s urging, he allowed himself to be drawn back to the cane chair, despite every instinct to flee and hide his disheveledness from her sight.
Luna set down the teapot in its cozy, then slipped out from behind the counter, hastening across the shop floor.
She locked the front door and flipped the sign to CLOSED.
“Just for tea,” she explained. “Something tells me it wouldn’t be good for business if our regulars were to see you like this.
Of course, we can’t stop the Silly Young Things from spreading tales.
But in their circles, the possibility of glimpsing a handsome lunatic will only drive more of them our way.
They’re very into reading gothic novels these days. ”
Nigel’s ear caught on the word “handsome.” With an effort, he wrenched it back again in bloody tatters.
Because what she meant by handsome was most definitely not what he wanted her to mean by handsome, and he wasn’t about to let himself start getting ideas and, oh, gods! Was that tea ready yet or not?
Luna ventured to the kitchen and returned moments later with two teacups and saucers. She poured from the Royal Bastian pot and handed Nigel his cup. Lifting it to his nose, he inhaled a powerful blast of ginger that put tears in his eyes.
“I never get sick, you know,” he said in shameless contradiction of the obvious truth.
“Are you quite sure about that, Mr. Grimm?” Luna asked with a tipped eyebrow.
“Never. Not a day in my life.”
Her other eyebrow rose to join the first.
“My father didn’t believe in sickness,” Nigel continued, staring down at the brew in his cup. “Which meant, therefore, neither of his sons could be sick. It simply wasn’t acceptable.”
Luna considered this as she stirred a bit of honey into her own cup. “You do realize,” she said gently, “that sickness isn’t a moral failing, don’t you?”
“Try telling my old man that.”
She took a sip of her tea, held it on her tongue for a few moments before swallowing. Then: “It seems to me as though your father expected rather a lot of you.”
“In point of fact,” Nigel said, still watching how his tea whirled in his cup, “my father expected very little of me. And generally got what he expected.” He paused a moment, lifting the cup from its saucer and raising it to his lips. “I fear I was a disappointing son.”
He took a sip. Spicy ginger and sweet honey mingled on his palate, slid down his raw throat. There was a sort of magic to it. Green Magic, wrought by Luna herself. Perhaps not as potent as Dr. Bucket’s poultices and nasty, bitter medicines, but far more pleasant.
Still looking into his cup, he found his voice unexpectedly loosened.
“Dad wanted me to pursue the study of Green Magic, you know. Not in any academic capacity—the old man had no use for academia. But it was almost as though, the more he pushed me away from it, the more enamored I grew with the idea of sorcery. At first, if I’m honest, it was just because of Fabian and the crowd he ran with, but .
. . in time, it became more than that. Much more. ”
Why was he talking like this? Perhaps he still had a touch of fever. Perhaps he ought to gulp down the rest of his tea and go to bed. But Luna was watching him, her dark eyes solemn as she took small sips of her tea. And he felt strangely compelled to continue.
“When I first began to dabble in those initial, low-level spells, it was as though . . . as though something unlocked inside me. Some version of myself I’d never known existed, who had power and agency and terrible potential.
It was that, more than anything, which drew me.
The idea that maybe I’d found a way to be something.
Something more than a perpetual disappointment.
” He took another sip, closing his eyes as the warm liquid soothed his throat.
“When I received a full-ride scholarship for undergrad, I thought it might get through to Dad, somehow. Force him to see that I was worth the food he’d fed me, the roof he’d sheltered me under, the effort and inconvenience of my presence and being. That I was worth . . .”
He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t say what he really meant: “Worth the death of my mother, bringing me into this world.” But the words hung in the air, almost as though they were spoken out loud.
And when he dared glance up and catch Luna’s watchful gaze, he couldn’t help thinking that she’d heard them too, somehow. Heard them and understood.
Luna was no longer drinking her tea. She held the still-steaming cup in front of her, her face very solemn, her body very still.
“Well, never mind,” Nigel said at last, staring into his own cup.
“In the end, Dad was only ever more and more disappointed.” He shrugged.
“Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if I’d pursued Green Magic, like he wanted me to.
But I have no aptitude for it, and that would have disappointed him just as much, if not more so.
In some ways, it was easier choosing sorcery.
Easier to pursue the path I knew would anger the old man.
Better to disappoint him on purpose than to try to please him and fail. ”
He felt Luna’s gaze upon him. He didn’t have to look at her directly to notice the familiar stern line which had settled across her brow.
Nigel ran a hand down his face, then set the remainder of his tea aside on a little table. “Gods,” he murmured, shaking his head. “This is why I shouldn’t ever be sick. Blathering on like this. Please, forgive me, Miss Talbot.”
A moment of silence passed, during which Nigel found himself unexpectedly fascinated by the subtle celestial pattern embroidered into his silk dressing gown—the swirl of stars and moons and planets and other, stranger heavenly bodies, all picked out with needle and thread.
He traced the pad of his finger along the tail of a shooting star, idly wondering if it would ever make contact with the nearby moon and cause a sartorial cataclysm.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder.
Nigel caught his breath. Only a few thin layers of dressing gown and striped pajamas separated her skin from his, and yet he felt the barrier most keenly. But it could not stop the shock of electricity racing straight from her palm to his core.
“It seems to me,” Luna said softly, “that it must be quite a burden to go through life trying to please a man who does not wish to be pleased.”