Chapter 23 #2
It wasn’t like it was a surprise, Luna’s preference for John Ward.
She’d made her feelings evident since Saint Jollify.
That might not even have been their first kiss, merely the first Nigel had witnessed.
It certainly wouldn’t be their last. Grimacing, he bowed his head and tangled his fingers in his hair, pulling at the roots.
What an absolute fool he was. To let himself be taken aback like this, when he knew—he knew, damn it—how much she liked the man.
But he’d just wanted so badly to lie to himself.
Slowly, he became aware of a presence standing behind him.
He didn’t turn to address her. Let her speak if she wished to.
Part of him expected her to utter a derisive sniff and turn her back on him once and for all, but to his surprise, a pair of sparkly heels stepped down from the curb into his line of sight, and a figure in a tight, gold gown plunked her bum down on the sidewalk beside him.
“This seat taken?” Bryony asked.
Nigel grunted.
“Geez, you really know how to make a girl feel welcome, don’t you?
” She tucked her fur wrap a little tighter around her body and shivered.
“Brrrr. Nasty out here tonight.” Tossing her bouncy curls over her shoulder, she turned a sharp gaze upon him.
He felt the intensity of that gaze on the side of his face, but didn’t look back.
He kept his head bowed, his fingers still gripping his hair.
Bryony uttered a long sigh. “You’re really dead gone on her, aren’t you?”
For the briefest possible moment, Nigel considered pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about. But what was the use? Bryony was nobody’s fool. “Is it that obvious?” he asked instead.
“Painfully obvious. And a bit pathetic, if you want to know.”
“Yes, I’d . . . pretty much come to that conclusion myself.”
With an expressive tsk, Bryony shivered again. “Why don’t you just ask her out if you’re so pining for her?”
Releasing his hair, Nigel sat up a little.
Elbows resting on knees, he let his hands hang slack from the wrists and studied the muddy ruts of snow and ice in the middle of the street.
An automagic mobile trundled by, belching thaumatic exhaust. Otherwise, all was oddly quiet on Seething Lane.
“It’s complicated,” he said at last. “There’s Ward, for one thing. ”
“Pish posh.” Bryony shrugged. “They’re not married, you know. Not even officially sweethearts as far as I can tell! So what if she kisses another fellow now and then? I kiss loads of chaps. Doesn’t stop the rest of them from asking me out! You did, didn’t you?”
Nigel couldn’t argue with this logic. “There’s also the fact that she’s my employee,” he added heavily.
“If I were to declare myself, and she didn’t feel the same, it could make it difficult for her to continue working for me.
I know jobs aren’t easy to come by in this town, and I wouldn’t want her to be put in a bad way, and . . .”
His voice trailed off. Bryony continued her study of him, but he did not meet her gaze. He could feel the way her expression tightened slowly into a narrow-eyed scowl. At last, she shrugged and shook her head. “That sounds like a whole lot of hogwash to me.”
With these words, she stood, brushing snow off her posterior, and adjusted the set of her wrap. “You needn’t bother seeing me home. I’ll find myself another friend tonight. And don’t call on me again, Mr. Grimm. I’m nobody’s consolation prize.”
Nigel tipped his head back, looking up at her. “No indeed, Miss Braithwait,” he said solemnly. “You are a fantastic person, and I’m sorry. You deserve better than what I gave you tonight.”
“Damn right, I do,” she sniffed.
With that, Bryony abandoned him to his frigid fate and sauntered back to the door, which Bert held open for her. For a moment, strains of jazz filled the sad, wintry street, and Nigel half-thought he caught a glimpse of Luna inside, dancing in Ward’s arms.
He turned away quickly. Then, since he couldn’t sit here like a lump for the rest of the night, waiting to freeze to death, he heaved himself up from the sidewalk and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets.
He probably ought to go back inside and figure out what had happened to his overcoat, but .
. . no. That was an ordeal beyond his courage to face.
Instead, he set out walking. He had some vague idea that Seething Lane eventually connected to Ingle Pie Avenue, which in turn led to Nettleton.
From there he ought to be able to find his way to Addle Street easily enough.
Perhaps a long hike in arctic conditions for which he was improperly dressed was just what he needed to get his mind back in order.
“At least,” he muttered to himself as he went, shoulders rounded against each fresh blast of cold air, “Luna will no longer need to be concerned about . . . about any attraction on my end.” In that respect, the date with Bryony had worked far above and beyond his expectations.
Surely glimpsing him in an amorous clinch with her roommate was just the thing to convince Luna that his feelings toward her were, indeed, the fraternal feelings she sought.
Yes—the evening was surely a success. And tomorrow, when she turned up for work, they would once more resume their easy friendship. Their 2 o’clock tea breaks, their inside jokes, the comforting atmosphere of companionship that was perfectly appropriate to be shared between employer and employee.
Nigel’s stomach roiled. The alcohol in his otherwise empty gut was making its displeasure known, and he staggered. Catching hold of a nearby streetlamp, he held himself upright with an effort, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. But that was no good.
Because he kept seeing Luna. Kissing Ward.
“Damn,” he growled and yanked his head back up.
Something moved on the edge of his vision.
Nigel turned his head sharply, staring hard at the entrance to an alley between a shabby-looking bar and a boarded-up barber shop.
The faintly pulsing thaumatescent glow from the bar sign cast a strange aura over the sidewalk, but in the deep shadows of that alley .
. . He frowned. Was that what he thought it was?
An undulating, not-quite natural figure swathed in rags?
An automagic car went by, then another, headlamps blinding, the roar of engines disorienting.
By the time they’d passed, the image was gone.
So completely gone, Nigel had to wonder if his alcohol-addled brain had invented it.
Because he’d taken care of the simulacrums, hadn’t he?
Destroyed them, utterly, not even a week ago.
Surely the sorcerer who constructed them couldn’t have propagated more in so short a while!
Unless there was more than one sorcerer.
And more than one set of simulacrums. Unless—
Footsteps approached behind him. Nigel whirled, convinced a simulacrum even now stalked him in the night. He let go of the lamppost, his hands moving to form sorcerous sigils, only to be struck all over by the realization that he could not use them. Not without Luna’s express permission.
Heart thudding wildly, he called out in a dark voice, “Who’s there?”
A figure drew near. A shadowy form, just beyond the light of the streetlamp.
Female—a tall silhouette, elegantly proportioned, boasting a large but well-cut coat with an enormous fur collar and a cunning hat that fit her regal head just so.
She stepped into the pool of light, which gleamed on exquisitely-crafted bleached ringlets framing a hard, beautiful face which, despite the advent of fifteen years, had not changed enough for Nigel to fail to recognize her in an instant.
“Why, Nigel Grimm,” the woman declared in mellifluous tones carefully honed by pure affluence and affectation. “As I live and breathe, is that really you?”