Chapter 33 #3
Nigel tried to speak. But his sick brain couldn’t seem to invent the words needed, even if he could force them out past the lump of his heart jammed in his throat. He turned his head, stared at the sight of those slim, white fingers, sharply contrasted against blue silk.
“But you know what I think is worse?” she continued softly, still without removing her hand.
“What?” Nigel managed to whisper.
“To be a father so incapable of seeing his own son clearly.”
“Oh.” Nigel closed his eyes, his head bowing. The muscle in his jaw tensed to the point of pain. “My father saw me clearly enough, I fear. Better than I saw myself.”
“And just how clearly do you see yourself, Mr. Grimm?”
He eased a slow breath through his nostrils. “Unfortunately, life has forced me to take a good, long, hard look at myself in a very dark mirror.” He paused a moment before adding, “The revelations which followed will haunt me for a lifetime.”
He rose then. Her hand slipped away from his shoulder, which he felt like a physical wrenching. But it was just as well. He couldn’t let himself indulge in even that simple comfort. He could grow to depend on it, might learn to read into it. And that wasn’t fair. To either of them.
He picked up his tea, finished it in a gulp, then handed cup and saucer to Luna. “Don’t bother looking into my future, Miss Talbot,” he said. “I already have a pretty good idea what it holds.”
Luna’s gaze flicked briefly down into his cup then away again, respecting his stated wish for privacy.
“Your immediate future,” she said, looking into his eyes with an expression of calm practicality, “ought to be your dose. Mrs. Goddard left it measured out for you on the nightstand and told me to remind you. Then sleep. I’ll keep the shop running through the afternoon, no worries. ”
Nigel hesitated. Something about Luna bidding him to bed was doing something to his innards which it really oughtn’t to be doing under these specific circumstances, but . . . his innards seemed to have a mind of their own.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed yourself?” he asked. Then, realizing the possible implication of the words, hastily added, “At home, I mean. In your bed. That is . . .” He forced himself to maintain a perfectly professional eye-contact. “You’re still recovering, after all.”
Luna lifted one shoulder. “If I start to feel tired, I’ll close up early. Truth is, I can’t bear to sit in that garret room any longer! I’d much rather be here, if it’s all the same to you.”
He would much rather she was here as well. Always. Forever. If he could prevent her from returning to Mrs. Boggs’s Boardinghouse for Young Women of Good Character, if he could wrap her up in his arms and keep her with him, he would.
Resisting temptation, he put both arms behind his back, left hand clasping his right wrist firmly. “Very well,” he said, “but only on the condition that you will allow me to call you a taxi after closing. We can’t have you walking back all that way in this weather.”
Her mouth tried but failed to repress a little grin. The skin around her eyes crinkled. “You drive a mean bargain, Mr. Grimm.”
“Well, you know me. Hardnosed, intractable.”
“That’s what all your employees say about you, yes.”
“Do they?”
“All the time. Behind your back.”
“Gossipy bunch, aren’t they?”
“They just call it like they see it.”
“I should fire half of them to maintain order.”
“Good idea. Put the fear of god right to the heart of them. Display the iron fist of the master and all that.”
“Or possibly sponsor a company tea party?”
“Hmmm, a more subtle tactic. But your employees have been known to perform well for tea.”
Nigel couldn’t quite maintain a straight face at this.
He snorted. Then Luna broke character entirely and laughed outright, that golden laugh of hers, which made his heart execute a series of loop-de-loops in his chest. It was all he could do not to reach for her, to pull her close, to hold onto that warmth and sweetness which emanated from her soul and which he craved more than sunlight and air.
Hands still behind his back, he squeezed the bones of his right wrist to the point of breaking, desperate to keep from doing something disastrously foolish—
“Never mind!” Debbie croaked ominously from her skull-pot, startling them both.
The next instant, a knock sounded at the door.
Luna turned. Her eyes widened. A little, “Oh!” sprang to her lips.
Nigel didn’t have to look. Somehow, he already knew, before he even turned his head, who he would find standing at the door of The Arcane Bouquet.
It was like destiny—an inescapable fate to which he probably ought to resign himself.
If he’d peered into his teacup moments ago, he probably could have seen it foretold in the dregs.
But this knowledge in no way eased the sudden eruption of roiling hot wrath in his gut.
Nigel swiveled his gaze sideways, forced himself to look.
There, leaning his forehead against the glass of the shop door window, one hand cupped around his handsome face to better see inside, dimples on full display, stood Ward the Wardsman.
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