Chapter 12 #3
“Sadly, dear Pearline has passed on as well. But her descendants, for sure.” Luna chuckled, setting her empty plate to one side.
“I know it’s not exactly traditional. But I would’ve liked a few of the traditional touches too.
The white gown, for one. Auntie Arabella had a picture of my mother and father on their wedding day, and I always thought Mother looked so pretty!
I should have liked to wear her gown, but . . . well . . .”
Her voice trailed away gently, and her gaze drifted back to the dance floor without seeming to see it.
Nigel watched her. And he wondered if her mother’s gown had been destroyed in whatever sorcerous altercation had taken her parents’ lives.
That little girl of so many years ago had lost everything in one fell swoop, even such simple mementos of her own family and history.
It was unfair. A cruel twist of fate that no child should ever be made to suffer.
He wished he might reach out to her, wished he might take her hand. But something always held him back. Possibly the knowledge that, if she truly knew who he was, she would recoil from him in abject horror. So he squeezed his hand into a fist, restraining the impulse.
Luna gave her head a little shake and sniffed. “Never mind. I don’t intend to marry in any case, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“You don’t?” Nigel frowned, surprised. “Why would you say—”
“And what about you, Mr. Grimm?” She turned to him abruptly, her expression masked in cheerful lines, what he could see of it in the shadows beneath the table. “Did you ever envision your wedding?”
Nigel blinked, taken aback by the abruptness of the question.
“I, erm.” He cleared his throat and pulled at his collar with one finger.
“I never really saw myself as the marrying sort. That being said, if I ever did end up on the receiving end of a matrimonial affair, there is one thing I know for absolute certain.”
“Yes?” Luna peered at him around the lyre spindles, eyes searching.
“This song will not be played.”
Even as he spoke, an all-too familiar trill of notes wailed out from a soulful saxophone. The crooner hired to serenade the wedding guests, cupped the thaumatic microphone tenderly in his hands, and poured out his heart in liquid-velvet tones:
“We shared secrets in the dark,
Every glance igniting sparks,
But now you’re lost in another's gaze,
While I’m drowning in this haze.
Oh, love! Like a rose in the rain,
Each petal a sigh, each thorn a sweet pain.”
Nigel rolled his eyes and groaned. “Gods, I hate this song.”
Luna gulped on a laugh that burst from her throat anyway. “It’s hardly appropriate for a wedding, is it?” she said, eyes sparkling.
“Well, perhaps for this particular wedding,” Nigel mused, “considering how things turned out.”
Another little burst of giggles, and Luna leaned her head against the lyre. “I can just hear Tom Doorhandler and the Duke of Woolfwood, singing these lyrics tonight through their tears!”
“Maybe a duet?”
“Oh, can’t you just picture it? The two of them, finding solace in the bonds of mutual disappointment?”
The image conjured was simply too ridiculous.
Nigel caught Luna’s eye, and that seemed to inspire a fresh flood of mirth from her.
She giggled ridiculously while the cowardly violets crowded around her, curious as to the cause of her amusement.
Nigel tried in vain to shush her for fear of drawing attention their way, but couldn’t suppress the little chuckles hiccupping in his own throat.
All the while, the crooner sang on:
“I watched you dance with someone new,
Heartbreak wrapped in shades of blue,
Every smile you give away,
Turns my dreams to shades of gray.”
“I don’t suppose you remember,” Nigel said when a little break in her giggles allowed opportunity, “but we, erm, we danced to this song. Once. Long ago.”
Her expression shifted. The light did not fully leave her eyes, but something in them shuttered slightly, as though she was suddenly uncertain of her footing. “I remember,” she said softly. “At Saint Jollify’s.”
Nigel nodded. “You clobbered a sailor.”
“I absolutely did not!”
“No, no, I remember it all quite vividly. That poor fellow. All bruised and battered. Writhing around on the dance floor.”
Luna twisted her lips in a valiant attempt to suppress another laugh and reached out to gently backhand his shoulder. “As I recall, you’re the one who ended up with the shiner!”
Grimacing, Nigel touched his cheek where he’d been struck by a flying apple. “Most unkind of you, Miss Talbot, bringing up a fellow’s traumas like that.”
She giggled again and leaned her head against the lyre, her curls bunching up against her shoulder. “It feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
It did. It also felt like only yesterday.
Her gaze was turned away from him, once more looking out from under the bunched-up tablecloth to the dance floor.
Nigel took the opportunity to study the delicate lines of her face.
The curve of her cheek, the bump on the bridge of her nose.
That full upper lip and the point of her chin.
He’d not enjoyed the luxury of such close observation in weeks now, and the sight made him feel oddly giddy, like little sparkling wine bubbles cavorting in his gut.
He couldn’t say where the impulse came from. It was upon him so suddenly, he didn’t even have time to register what was happening before his mouth opened, and he heard the words spilling from his lips: “Would you dance with me now?”
Luna blinked, her lashes fanning quickly as she turned her eyes his way. “Under the table?”
Nigel swallowed the lump in his throat and shrugged one shoulder. “At least we can’t hurt anyone from down here.”
Her lips parted then closed then parted again. She pulled her head away from the lyre support, turning to look at him more directly. “I don’t quite see how it is to be managed.”
In lieu of an answer, Nigel merely shifted his seat.
He scooted his posterior across the floor, angling his hips until they were aligned with hers, his legs folded to one side.
His head was still awkwardly bent, but he scarcely felt aware of that discomfort.
His heart pounded, his blood raced, and it took all his powers of control to keep his breath from coming in ragged gasps.
He reached out his right hand. Took hold of her cold, slender fingers.
Then his other hand slipped slowly, tentatively around her waist. And suddenly he was holding her.
Right there, in that dark little space, shrouded by tablecloth, shielded from the eyes of all those wedding guests and the world at large.
Observed only by shy violets, who blushed at his boldness and hid behind their leaves.
Luna’s face was very close to his, her nose only an inch or two away.
Her head was slightly turned, and her gaze seemed to be fixed on the strap of his apron stretched over his shoulder.
But when he began to sway gently in time with the music, she swayed with him.
After a moment, she brought her other hand up to rest on his shoulder.
“I’m not sure this quite counts as dancing,” she murmured.
“Probably not,” he acknowledged.
But he didn’t let go. Neither did she. They continued to sway, while he studied the lovely dusting of freckles across her cheekbones and nose. And Nigel knew that he had never in his life felt this truly, completely, beyond all hope or help or expectation, happy.
Then Luna leaned forward suddenly and rested her head against his shoulder.
She uttered a little sigh, and his heart hitched, his breath caught, and the joy in his soul soared to heights hitherto unimagined.
Nigel adjusted his hand at her waist, drawing her ever-so-slightly closer, and wished that he had distilled Dire Matter enough left over to pull them both outside of time right here, right now. Possibly never to return.
“Do you think this is it, Mr. Grimm?” Luna asked suddenly, her voice very soft beneath the ongoing sighing of the band and the voice of the crooner. “Is this the best anyone can hope for?”
“The best . . . what?” Nigel asked in return.
“Happily For Now,” she said. “Do you think little stolen moments are enough? To make . . . to make all the pain worth it?”
He couldn’t answer. Not right away. Not with the scent of her—that new, heady scent of vanilla and honeysuckle—filling his nostrils. It was so sweet, so delicate, and awakened such a hunger deep in his core.
“Perhaps it is the hope that matters more than anything,” he spoke at last. His voice was oddly husky, hardly sounded as though it belonged to him.
“Hope which keeps the soul striving, keeps the heart beating, whatever the odds. The dream of your Happily Ever After, however unattainable it may be.” He closed his eyes, inclining his head so that his cheek could rest against her hair.
“What is life, after all, but the striving after impossible dreams, day after day?”