Chapter 20
Nigel returned to the Moat House Café approximately forty minutes later as promised, a carpet bag in hand.
He spied Luna across the way, still seated at their table.
She was drinking a fresh cup of tea and swinging her feet from the tall stool.
The sun was beginning to set, and it cast a soft, golden glow through the very old, diamond-paned window.
The light caught in her dark hair, teasing out delicate highlights.
Lit up like that, she really did look angelic.
And the way her lips shaped into that lovely little pucker when she went to sip her tea . . .
Gods. It was enough to make a man come all undone. Resolutions of gentlemanliness be damned.
Giving himself a quick shake, Nigel wove his way through the tables.
Luna saw him coming, and her face lit up.
The next moment, however, it changed oddly.
He couldn’t explain it. Her spontaneous reaction at the sight of him was definitely delight, but what followed was such an immediate shuttering of her eyes, a closed-off uncertainty.
Nigel paused, wondering if this was all a big mistake.
If he shouldn’t have indulged himself, spending an entire afternoon with this woman.
Perhaps it was time to call an end to their little holiday and part ways.
To hells with that.
“Success, Miss Talbot,” he said, holding up the carpet bag even as he slid back into his seat across from her.
Her brow knotted. “And what do you have there, Mr. Grimm?”
“The means to get you up to the top of that tower. But we’d better hurry—they’re closing down everything already.
If we’re going to make this work, I need you to stand up and loudly declare that you simply must get something from the gift shop, then hurry back that way.
I’ll join you shortly. Go to the very back where those tacky stamped tapestries are hanging and wait for me there. ”
Luna worried her lower lip, her face uncertain.
Then, seeming to come to a decision of sorts, she took a last gulp from her teacup, set it down in the saucer, and stood.
“Darling!” she proclaimed, loud enough that the scattered patrons across the café all heard her.
“Darling, I simply must get that shot glass for Uncle Howard’s birthday!
You know it’s just the thing! I won’t be a minute. ”
Snatching up her purse, she turned and flounced across the café, her ridiculous earrings swinging.
Patrons idly watched her go, and no one spared a glance for Nigel, where he was left at his table, his heart throbbing oddly, his mouth gaping.
Never in his wildest dreams had he thought he would hear the word “darling” spoken from her lips and directed at him.
Subterfuge or no subterfuge, this was possibly the single most glorious moment of his entire existence.
Blowing out a little breath, Nigel dropped his gaze to the table, where he discovered that she’d left him half of the raspberry scone.
For want of something else to do, he swallowed it down, though he scarcely tasted anything.
Still, somewhat fortified, he rose, picked up his carpet bag and, with a polite nod to the barista, made his way back through the Moat House.
“You know we’re closing in five,” the barista called to his back.
“I know, I know. Just . . . got to fetch the little missus,” Nigel replied. And those words were so singularly delightful, he couldn’t help the smile that burst across his lips. He probably looked like a grinning lunatic.
Ducking his head, he hastened out of the café and back toward the castle and the gift shop. It was dim and somewhat musty inside. The lady behind the counter looked up from her tasks and said sternly in echo of the barista, “We’re closing in five.”
“Won’t be two,” Nigel answered and plunged into the twisty depths of souvenir mugs, tasseled bookmarks, replica swords, and other various tchotchkes.
The seriously ugly stamped wall hangings done in the style of medieval tapestries hung from the ceiling at the very back of the shop, as though embarrassed by their own existence.
“Miss Talbot?” Nigel whispered.
There was a ripple of tapestry, the hideous, stamp-printed unicorn apparently shivering with dread. Luna’s face appeared from behind it, blinking up at him. “Here.”
“You didn’t need to actually hide,” Nigel chuckled. “Just wait for me.”
“Well, how was I to know?” She came out, smoothing her skirts with great dignity. “So, what’s your plan now, oh criminal mastermind?”
Nigel tried very hard not to let the echoes of her “darling!” ring in his ear, but wasn’t terribly successful. Mutely, he opened the carpet bag to show her its contents.
Luna frowned. “Isn’t that your dressing gown?”
“The very same.” Nigel cast a glance over his shoulder, looking for signs of the shop lady.
She was busy up front, so he risked pulling the dressing gown out in a flash of embroidered celestial stars on dark blue silk.
“This once belonged to Yorik Balthazar, a lesser-known sorcerer, but renowned in certain circles. He had a gift for sartorial sorcery.”
Luna, who had reached out to touch a fold of silk, dropped it abruptly. “It’s enchanted?”
“Yes.”
“I wore this dressing gown all afternoon once!”
Nigel flushed. That was a memory firmly emblazoned across his soul. “Yes, well,” he muttered, not meeting her gaze, “the enchantment has to be activated to work. And it’s nothing you need concern yourself with.”
“What does it do exactly?”
“It’s an invisibility robe.”
She looked up sharply. “Not really.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“You’ve had a robe of invisibility hanging up in your wardrobe all this time?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Mr. Grimm.”
Nigel couldn’t tell if the tone of her voice was disparaging or admiring. “This is our way up the tower,” he said a bit stiffly. “Do you want to glimpse that star or don’t you?”
Luna considered, rolling her lips from one side to the other. Then: “All right, how does this work?”
“First, I need to activate the spell.”
“Do you need my permission?” She caught his eye. “The troth, you know.”
He shook his head. “This spell is already wrought. I need only activate it, no permission required.”
“Another workaround?”
“Yes.”
Luna sighed. “Fine. Get on with it then.”
Nigel performed a small sigil—just a teeny, tiny, little smidgeon of arcane work.
Immediately, the dressing gown vanished in his grasp, though he could still feel its silky folds.
“Now,” he said and swung the cloth to drape around the two of them.
It only occurred to him in that moment the proximity necessary for this little scheme to work.
There was only one robe, after all. A large, copious robe, but still intended for a single person.
As the folds of silk draped around them, ripples of old magic disguised them completely, all the way down to their feet.
Luna uttered a little squeak and stepped closer to Nigel.
For an instant, his nose was filled with the sweet scent of her hair.
“Stay close, Miss Talbot,” he said. And proceeded to nearly swallow his tongue the next moment, because, in response, Luna slipped her arm around his waist, hugging into his body.
Nigel froze. He wondered if perhaps he would never move again for fear that any movement on his part might cause her to break away.
“What next?” Luna whispered, her voice low and near under the robe. “Mr. Grimm?”
He realized she’d asked the same question several times. Only he’d not been able to hear it through the throbbing in his ears. Hastily, he shook his head and forced words out through his tight throat. “We, erm. We need to move in tandem. To the door. The one leading back to the castle.”
She nodded, her head close to his shoulder. “Now?”
He glanced through the invisible folds of robe. There was no sign of the saleslady, and Nigel thought he could hear her rummaging around in the back somewhere. It was as good an opportunity as any. “Yes. Now.”
At an awkward shuffle, they made their way back through the crowded shop.
It wasn’t as easy as one might think, for some of the turns were very pokey, and the robe wanted to catch and pull over every display they passed.
Luna continued to hold Nigel close, matching her stride to his, and Nigel couldn’t remember a time in his life when his body had felt more awake and alive.
He honestly didn’t care if they were caught.
He didn’t care if they were dragged out by their ears, cast from the park, and told never to return.
This sensation of Luna’s arm wrapped around him was worth any price, even imprisonment, if it came to it.
Fighting with everything he had to keep his breath steady and betray nothing of the thrilling excitement coursing through his veins, he somehow managed to navigate them to the door.
The shop clerk was still in the back somewhere, so Nigel hastily opened the door.
Bells tinkled, a different tone from those at The Arcane Bouquet.
They sounded oddly threatening, and Luna gasped a little, “Eeep!” of surprise and pressed even closer to him.
But no one shouted, no one came running, and they staggered out of the shop into the ruinous and roofless stone passage on the other side of the door.
Nigel looked down at Luna. Both his arms were up, holding the robe out so that it could cover them in its magic, but he fought the temptation to let the whole thing drop and encircle her in his embrace.
She tilted her face back, and he realized how very, very close she was.
Her breath was sweet; she smelled like raspberry scones and spiced orange blossoms. An intoxicating medley.
“Where to next?” she asked, turning away and peering into the gloomy castle passage.
“Erm. This way, I think. Through the long gallery.”