There you are! #3
“Can I drop you somewhere, Miss Talbot?” Mr. Grimm asked, breaking the silence at last as they approached the van.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Feeling warm, Luna slipped the knit cap from her head and tucked it into her coat pocket.
“I probably shouldn’t wander far. I’ve got to slip back to reclaim that violet at the end of the reception, so I might just while away the time in this neighborhood.
Bally Park isn’t far from here. Maybe a little stretch of my legs.
This Fool’s Spring weather is tempting.”
Mr. Grimm paused, his fingers on the handle of the passenger-side door. He glanced her way, then down at his feet. “You know,” he said, addressing the polished toes of his shoes, “Milo and Son’s is not far from here. They serve an excellent roast on Sundays.”
Luna’s heart gave a small hiccup inside.
Was he inviting her to lunch? Or merely making a suggestion for how she might pass her time alone?
It had been such a long time since they’d shared a meal together.
He continued to leave his breakfast for her every morning, of course, but their semi-regular luncheons had gone the way of the 2 o’clock tea breaks. And she missed them. Badly.
But she kept her face neutral and her voice in check when she answered only, “Oh?”
“My treat, of course,” he continued, before forcing his gaze to meet hers. “Call it a tip. For your efforts these last two weeks.”
And there her heart went again. A treacherous little pitter-pat, despite every effort to rein it in.
She should turn him down, of course. She couldn’t afford to indulge like this, to remember what it felt like to be at ease with him.
To be friendly and comfortable and . . .
and happy. Not with Wednesday looming large on the horizon of her life.
For weeks now, she’d fought to keep her feelings in check.
What disaster might a few short hours, spent in this man’s company, work?
This shy, sweet man. Who watched her even now with such a strange mingling of trepidation and hope from under his lashes.
In the end, she couldn’t resist.
“That sounds lovely, Mr. Grimm.” Did he hear the fragility in her voice? Luna hastily cleared her throat. “Perhaps afterwards we might take in the park together too. Feed the ducks.” She shrugged, not wanting to come across as overeager. “Or something.”
His brows rose. “Is there any particular reason why the ducks must be fed?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered at once. “They say it is one of life’s great pleasures, feeding the ducks of Bally Park. Once one has fed such ducks, the very fabric of one’s existence is forever altered.”
Mr. Grimm nodded seriously as he opened the van door for her. “But what if one can never be satisfied with feeding lesser ducks thereafter?”
Luna bit her lip. She couldn’t help it. She just enjoyed this so much. The way he always rose to her nonsense, giving equal, deadpan nonsense of his own in return. Never missing a beat, never making her feel silly along the way. She was going to miss that about him.
Oh gods. She was going to miss so much about him.
Stepping briskly toward the van, Luna took care to keep her tone light as she answered, “I suppose that’s a risk we will have to take for the sake of such rewards .
. .” Her words trailed away as she stared inside the cab of the van.
She froze, one foot inside, her hand gripping the frame.
Her mouth slowly dropped open. “Green Mother save me!”
“What’s wrong?” Mr. Grimm peered around the door.
Luna pointed. “That’s what’s wrong!”
An overlarge bundle of peonies, lilies, and lisianthus sat in the middle of the passenger seat. The peonies raised their dark leaves, waving cheerfully, without a care in the world, while the lisianthus yawned rudely, petals fluttering.
“What is that?” Mr. Grimm asked. “One of the table centers?”
Luna turned to him in round-eyed dismay. “No! It’s Miss Eugenia Lambert’s bridal bouquet!”
The next moment, she raced around to the back of the van and hauled it open.
Because there was something wrong with that bouquet—she spotted it at once, but needed confirmation.
Climbing into the back of the van, Luna searched through the debris left behind from carting all those arrangements across town.
And there, hidden behind a bit of ribbon and a wad of floral paper, she found them: the violets.
Meant to be part of the bouquet, but escaped from the rest and quivering timidly in hiding.
Luna scooped up the little blossoms and turned to face her employer, who stood at the back of the van, watching her. “I told Miss Eugenia violets weren’t a good idea,” she said. “I told her they would cause trouble. But she insisted that she wanted them, along with the lisianthus.”
“I don’t understand.” Mr. Grimm shook his head, his brow wrinkled. “We dropped off all the flowers for the wedding party before coming here to decorate. How could we have missed the bridal bouquet?”
“Don’t you see?” Luna’s hands trembled as she held the blossoms under his nose. “The violets must have talked the rest of the bouquet into hiding them. They’re so shy, and peonies can be very protective, you know.”
She hadn’t put violets in any of the bridesmaid’s bouquets, only Miss Eugenia’s.
And when she’d packed up the large box containing the stunning, handheld arrangements, she had made certain that Miss Eugenia’s far larger, more splendid display was right in the center.
But she’d not stopped to do a headcount when they’d stopped by Saint Agatha’s Cathedral early this morning to drop off bouquets and boutonnieres and to decorate the nave.
Why would she? One doesn’t expect one’s bouquets to skip out on the job!
Just in that moment, singing out from the distance above the sounds of street traffic and filtering down into the covered garage at the back the hotel, the bells of Saint Agatha’s rang out the hour: 1 o’clock.
“We can still get them to her,” Mr. Grimm said reassuringly. “It’s not that far. What time does the wedding start?”
“Now, Mr. Grimm. The wedding starts now.” Luna shook her head, staring down at the violets in her hands. “Oh, Mrs. Lambert is going to skewer us! She’ll leave a review in the Bally Daily. She’ll have us blackballed from all High Society events from now until kingdom come!”
The worried lines of her employer’s brow melted away, reforming his face into a hard, serious visage. His eyes flashed, and his jaw hardened into a granite edge. “Get in the front, Miss Talbot, and buckle your seatbelt,” he said in a voice of authority. “We are going to crash that wedding.”
“What’s the use?” Luna cried, despairing. “It’s already begun! Miss Eugenia’s got to be halfway up the aisle!”
But Mr. Grimm caught her eye. For a moment, Luna halfway thought she saw a glimpse of onyx in the depths of his pupils. “In a situation like this, there is only one solution to be had,” he said.
“What? What solution? What are you talking about?”
His teeth flashed in a dangerous grimace. “Sorcery.”