Chapter 10 #3
“He’s a sorcerer,” she whispered. Why couldn’t she seem to get that thought through her head?
He wasn’t just any sorcerer either, but a Dark Sorcerer.
The last man in the world she ought to be having prickly-sick feelings over.
If he were to find out who she truly was, how quickly would the man she believed she knew vanish into that image of seven-foot-tall whorling power and terror?
Luna bit her lip hard. “He can’t do that now, though,” she reminded herself. “He pledged the Sovereign Troth. You’re safe. From him.”
That was no comfort, however. Because she didn’t want to need to be safe from him.
She wanted to trust him. Fully. Completely.
Because she had trusted him all this time.
Even when he’d revealed the secret of Garden, even when he’d opened the front of his shirt and showed her that ugly heptagram tattoo emblazoned on his chest. She’d known then that he was more than he appeared.
She’d known then that she should, by rights, fear him and flee.
But she hadn’t.
She just couldn’t fear Mr. Grimm. Not her Mr. Grimm.
“He’s not yours,” Luna reminded herself firmly, crumpling the handkerchief into a ball in her fist. “He’s hers.”
Deep in her mind, she heard again the timbre of his voice when, lying unconscious in her lap, he’d spoken that name.
“I’m sorry, Janet.”
How desperate he’d sounded. So desperate and so sad.
This, then, was the secret to that great sorrow which clung to his soul so profoundly.
Not the death of his father as Luna had always believed.
No. Janet. The woman he loved. Slain by the Shadowbane Lady.
She haunted him still and . . . and Luna knew that, even were she foolish enough to let herself feel certain things for her employer, it wouldn’t matter. His heart belonged elsewhere.
That’s why he hadn’t kissed her that night behind the counter.
That’s why he didn’t dance with her on her birthday.
That’s why every time she thought perhaps something drew them together, he always pushed her away again.
Janet. The woman he loved. And lost.
“You’ve got to stop this nonsense,” Luna whispered, spreading the crumpled handkerchief on her lap once more. “You’ve got to put him out of your mind.”
“Bootblack Alley, miss,” the cabbie said abruptly.
The taxi lurched to a stop. Like all the other cabbies, this one refused to actually turn down Bootblack and carry her to Mrs. Boggs’s doorstep.
Luna didn’t press the issue. “Thank you,” she murmured and scrambled out.
The taxi pulled away, and she began the hike down the dark street.
Hopefully none of the lowlifes lurking in the shadows decided to make a grab for her purse.
They’d be sorely disappointed if they did; there was nothing in it but lipstick.
Mr. Grimm’s handkerchief she kept knotted tight in her other hand.
“I’ll give it back to him. Tomorrow,” she said out loud as she stepped from slushy snow-pile to slushy snow-pile.
She wasn’t going to act like some sort of drippy heroine from one of Auntie Arabella’s silly romance novels, weeping over his hankie like he was her long-lost lover.
Because he wasn’t. He was just her boss. Nothing more.
Her sweet, kind, funny, considerate, gentlemanly boss.
Who usually remembered to add the dibble-dab to her pot of orange llarmi.
Weaving between snowdrifts, muck, and piles of garbage, Luna finally achieved Mrs. Boggs’s icy doorstep.
The door was unlocked; Mrs. Boggs was due to visit her invalid sister tonight and, though she always left strict command for regular curfew to be enforced, no one paid any attention.
Luna walked in to a chorus of yapping terriers.
“Shoo,” she told them, not wanting them to put runs in her one nice pair of stockings, practically the only item of this ensemble that was hers.
Lifting the edge of her emerald skirt, she hastened upstairs.
Jazzy music oozed from Suella’s portable radio on the third floor, and Luna recognized the all-too familiar strains of “A Rose in the Rain” on the lips of a mellow-voiced crooner.
“If only you’d see, beneath layers of time,
The love that I carry, a bittersweet rhyme.
But dreams slip away as night turns to dawn,
And I’m left here to mourn what was never my song.
Oh, love! Like a rose in the rain,
Each petal a sigh, each thorn a sweet pain.”
Gods. She was really starting to hate that song.
Upon reaching the third floor, Luna spied Myrna’s door propped open. Popping her head inside, she found Myrna herself with curlers in her hair, painting her nails a brilliant crimson and smoking a cigarette by the cracked window, heedless of the cold air. “I’m back, Myrna,” Luna said.
The blonde looked up and grinned around her cigarette. “So you are then. Have a good time?”
“Well, there was lobster. And dancing.”
“Sounds like a scream.”
“I suppose it was, rather. Thanks for the gown.”
“No problem. Looks better on you than it ever did on me anyway. You’ve got the shoulders for it.”
“Want me to leave it now?” Luna slipped out of the fur coat and reached for the side zipper. The girls were all pretty casual about modesty on the third floor, and there was no point in her running up and down the stairs more times than necessary.
“Oh, wait, before you do,” Myrna held up her nail polish wand, “can you take care of a little problem for us?”
“What problem is that?”
“One of Bryony’s blokes is in the parlor.”
Luna made a face. “Another one?”
“Yeah. This one’s sadder than most. A real pretty boy, but he’s got that whole whipped-puppy thing going strong. It quite breaks the heart!”
“And let me guess—Bryony’s out with someone else tonight. Leaving him high and dry.”
Myrna shook her head, trailing smoke. “It’s shameful how she treats ‘em. But they won’t learn, will they?
Edwina thought she might cheer him up, but that was a no-go.
He’s quite determined to be miserable. Do you think you could have a word with him, Luna?
You’ve got that wholesome vibe the gents always respond to, like you’re their sweet little sister or something.
Though mind,” she added with a tilt of one eyebrow, “you don’t look much like anyone’s little sister tonight! ”
“No worries,” Luna replied. She’d done it before.
Bryony’s string of beaus ran a whole range of characters, from besotted toffs, to namby drones, to hard-knuckled bruisers from the docks, all united in their passion for one irresistible redhead.
Luna had gotten pretty used to managing them. “I’ll take care of him, Myrna.”
So saying, she stepped across the hallway to the parlor door, which was partially open.
She heard movement inside—odd, rather frantic movement, like hastening footsteps.
Pushing the door a little farther, she peeked into the room.
Her gaze went first to the threadbare armchairs by the bookshelf.
Both of these were empty, however, save for a little bundle of marigolds left on the seat of one.
Luna frowned. For some reason, those marigolds looked familiar.
Did one of them just raise a leaf and wave at her?
A loud creak and rattle followed by a blast of cold air drew Luna’s attention to the far side of the parlor. There she spotted a gentleman in a nice linen suit in the process of climbing out the third story window into thin air.
She caught her breath.
Then: “Mr. Grimm!”