What about paint cans?
“Paint?” Tom Doorhandler scratched the back of his head.
“Yes. If I need to get a can of paint open. Can your can opener do the trick?
“What size of a paint can are we talking about?”
“Gallon.”
For an instant, the young entrepreneur looked truly stumped.
Nigel watched his eyes as they seemed to spin slightly, faced with the reality of a can which his invention might not, in fact, be able to open.
His jaw sagged, and his mouth moved a few times in an effort to summon speech that would not come. “Um . . .” he began.
Just in the nick of time, Luna manifested as though from thin air at his elbow. “Mr. Doorhandler!” she said. Tom jumped, swallowing a little yelp. Luna folded her arms and trained upon him a stare so stern, even Nigel felt the urge to wince. “Are you invited to this wedding, sir?” she demanded.
Tom ran his gaze up and down her slender figure, not without admiration. Nigel couldn’t blame him. She was a lovely sight, after all, even with her arms crossed over her bib apron and that spinster-auntie-coded expression on her face. “Who are you?” Tom demanded uneasily. “The bouncer?”
“I’m the florist,” Luna answered at once. She raised her head a little higher. “We both are.”
A warm something unfurled in Nigel’s chest at this declaration of mutuality. Which was foolish, yes, but he couldn’t help it.
Tom turned a confused look his way. “Why does a florist need a can opener?”
Nigel drew a blank. “Erm. Fertilizer?”
Tom opened his mouth, but Luna jumped in again, drawing his attention back to her. “If you’re here to see Miss Lambert, I was just with her. In the broom closet.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Hurry and you might catch her.”
The young man’s face flooded with sudden color. “Gee, thanks!” he gasped and took off at a gallop down the hall, making for the back passages of the cathedral. He vanished around a turn in a trice, the sound of his footsteps echoing softly in his wake.
Nigel glanced sideways at Luna. “Is Miss Lambert truly residing in a broom closet?”
“Not anymore.” Luna smirked. “But hopefully it’ll take him a hot minute to figure that out.”
“Where is the lady now then?”
Luna lifted both thin shoulders. “I’m not altogether certain.”
“Did you scry a future for her?”
“Maybe.”
“Did it help?”
She made a face.
Nigel nodded but didn’t press. He knew how helpless Luna felt sometimes, reading futures about which she could do so little.
Bad futures, good futures, or utterly mundane, she could only offer up what her Sight revealed.
Even when that revelation spelled disaster, any effort on her part to bring about a different outcome could result in greater disaster still. It was the curse of a tea witch.
Resisting the urge to reach out and take her hand, to give her fingers a comforting squeeze, Nigel slipped both hands into the front pockets of his apron. “Do you know, had I the funds, I’d be halfway tempted to invest in the Doorhandler can opener business.”
Luna rolled her head to one side, shooting him a look from under her brow. “Oh, Mr. Grimm.”
“Wait and see, Miss Talbot.” He shrugged and rocked on his heels. “Thaumatic can openers are the future!” He met her disappointed gaze then and offered a sympathetic half-smile. “Shall we be off?”
She nodded.
Turning, they started back up the passage together.
Sounds of mayhem met their ears long before they reached the narthex, all the frozen activity through which they’d passed now resumed at full throttle.
They stopped to peer out into a scene of much violet satin and scattered flower petals and confusion, all dominated by Mrs. Lambert’s loud voice, declaring for all to hear, “This is your fault! She gets her wishy washy temperament from you!” even as Mr. Lambert whimpered, “Now, now, dear . . .”
Suddenly, someone shouted, “Eugenia!”
And lo! There she was. The bride herself, appearing in the doorway, her massive gown silhouetted by the afternoon sun.
Her head was bowed, her veil was over her face, and she gave off an aura of contrition and resignation which even Nigel found undeniably pathetic.
If she was rumpled from her time spent in the broom closet, the dress was so massive, it was hard to tell any difference.
Mrs. Lambert’s voice rose in frenzy: “Go find the duke! Bring him back! He’s out searching for her! Find him, someone, quickly!”
“She has her bouquet at least,” Nigel murmured.
“That she does, Mr. Grimm,” Luna replied. “Mission accomplished.” But she didn’t sound too happy about it.
As Eugenia was dragged into the narthex and swiftly swallowed up in a bustle of bridesmaids, Luna sighed heavily.
Nigel wished he could erase that little line of tension between her brows.
Wished he dared reach out and smooth it with the pad of his thumb.
Then, perhaps, to trail his thumb down the soft curve of her cheek, tracing across the plumpness of her lip, and—
Luna’s dark eyes flicked to meet his. Nigel looked away quickly, heat flooding his cheeks. In doing so, however, he spied a certain door across the way, standing slightly ajar.
In the crowded narthex, militant Mrs. Lambert barked orders, getting everyone in line for the processional.
Someone signaled from the nave doorway, and a sudden blast of organ music sounded from within, belching out the traditional wedding march with such enthusiasm, the foundations of the cathedral shook.
“Would you like to attend this wedding, Miss Talbot?” Nigel asked, leaning in to speak into Luna’s ear in an effort to be heard over the din.
Her eyes brightened. “We’re not invited.”
“No,” he acknowledged, but indicated the little door across the way with a tilt of his head. “If I’m not much mistaken, that stairway over there leads to the choir boys’ loft. It should afford an excellent view.”
Luna’s brows rose. “Won’t it be full of choir boys?”
“No, they’re part of the processional. See?
” Nigel pointed out a cluster of grumpy-looking lads, all dressed up like cherubs, their voices raised in resentful chorus.
They shuffled from the narthex into the nave, followed by the absolutely enormous wedding party.
Someone seemed to have located the Duke of Woolfwood.
Flanked by two groomsmen, who hurried him along, he kept craning his head, trying to catch his bride’s eye.
Miss Eugenia stood beneath her veils, however, her gaze firmly fixed on her bouquet, and would not look at him or anyone.
Luna pursed her lips, considering. “All right,” she said at last. “Let’s do it.”
Nigel led the way in a quick dart across the open floor and up the spiral stairs.
It was a bit narrow and pokey, but old slit windows let in some daylight, so it wasn’t dark, at least. At the top of the stairs, they were met by a locked door.
Nigel turned a bit awkwardly to look back at Luna. “Have you a hairpin, Miss Talbot?”
Luna slipped a pin from her curls and handed it to him. “Don’t tell me you’re a cat burglar as well, Mr. Grimm.”
He snorted softly and slipped the pin into the lock. “I like to consider myself a man of dimensions,” he said. “Also, Great Aunt Galatea always kept her raspberry preserves under lock and key in her pantry. Have I mentioned that, as a boy, I was immensely fond of raspberry preserves?”
“You may have, Mr. Grimm. You may have, indeed.”
A bit of jangling, and the lock shifted. Nigel tried the handle, and the door swung open. Stepping aside, he swept a hand politely. “After you.”
Luna moved past him, taking back her hairpin as she went.
Nigel took care to shut the door behind them, and they stepped out into the loft, suspended above the nave.
The organ’s voice resounded with such holy noise up here, one could hardly string two thoughts together.
But Nigel followed Luna down to a wooden bench closest to the balcony rail and sat beside her.
They leaned forward, elbows on the rail, and watched the goings-on below.
Luna inclined her head toward Nigel, and he shivered with secret pleasure when she put her lips close to his ear in an attempt to be heard over the organ’s bellowing.
“That one’s Miss Tuttlemouse,” she said, pointing.
Nigel peered below at a particular bridesmaid in purple, walking the aisle on the arm of a spotty-faced groomsman.
He had absolutely no idea the significance of Miss Tuttlemouse.
She appeared to be a handsome specimen of womanhood, but she didn’t boast frizzy brown curls, a mole at the corner of her mouth, or dark, expressive eyes which sparkled with a mingling of mischief and nonsense.
So he didn’t find her all that interesting.
The organ droned on as bridesmaids and groomsmen lined up on either side of the altar. “They’ve got a veritable battalion down there, haven’t they?” Nigel observed.
Luna snickered and leaned to speak into his ear once more. “Do you think the ladies and gents are about to come to blows? Or are they preparing to join forces against some other invading wedding party?”
“Either outcome would make for a much more interesting wedding than any I’ve ever sat through.”
A little smirk on her lips, she jostled his elbow with hers.
Nigel felt a stupid grin of his own pulling at his mouth but hastily pushed it away.
He couldn’t let himself start grinning like a fool around her.
It was too much. Too vulnerable. So he cleared his throat and concentrated once more on the doings below.