Luna gasped. “No!” “It’s a no?” #2
“You know. When you couldn’t take your eyes off him?
It was like you were a compass, and he was True North.
Didn’t matter what I did, where I took you, how I tried, your arrow kept pointing straight back to him.
” Ward shook his head, rubbing disgruntledly at his sore cheek.
“Such a shrimpy dope of a guy too! I thought for sure I could win you away from him. The man has no game whatsoever. Just let me swoop you away from him right and left, while your roommate plastered herself all over him. I didn’t think it would take long, honestly.
I mean, how could you go on mooning over a fellow who never stepped up?
” He kicked his feet out in front of him and leaned back on his hands, tilting his head up to the sky.
“Truth be told, I haven’t worked this hard for a dame before in my life.
I think that’s a lot of it, really—I hated to lose.
Especially to a namby bloke like him! Figured once you got a taste of what a real man was like, you’d be over him in a snap. ”
His words stirred the air around Luna’s ears, but she scarcely heard them.
Her mind was racing faster than she could keep up with, almost as fast as her careening heart.
Of course. Of course, it was so obvious!
How could she not have seen it? All these weeks, all this confusion, and it really came down to something so very, very simple.
“I’m in love,” she murmured, her voice strangely hollow and distant. Then she huffed out a breath of a laugh, her mouth cracking into something between a smile and a sob. “I’m in love with Nigel Grimm!”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Ward growled and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “No need to go rubbing it in.”
But Luna couldn’t hear him. She rose on unsteady feet, paced away from the bench, her fingers tensing before curling into fists. Then she spun in place, staring back at Ward with a look of pure horror. “I’m in love with Nigel Grimm!” she cried. “Oh gods, Ward, what am I supposed to do?”
“You’re asking me that?” Ward’s face twisted with disgust. “Come on, Luna, have a heart. I just put it all out there for you, didn’t I?”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “Oh, of course. Oh, Ward, I’m so sorry.” She pressed trembling hands to her face. Why did her cheeks feel so hot, so fevered? “I’m . . . I’m just . . . I’m a little confused. How did I not realize?”
“Well,” Ward offered with a shrug, “I probably muddied the waters a little bit along the way.”
He had. At least at first. Not for a while though, if Luna was being honest with herself.
Now, as her mind raced back over the events of the last few weeks, she saw that what Ward said was absolutely true.
She’d been in love with her boss all this time.
Since Green Yule morning, when she’d woken in his arms?
Since two days before that, when he’d grabbed her elbow under the mistletoe?
Or earlier still, like Ward was saying? At Saint Jollify Fair.
When he danced with her. When he held her hand in the fete wheel.
When she slammed a whole funnel cake into his waistcoat, and he smiled at her.
“No,” she whispered. Because that wasn’t it either.
She was pretty certain she’d loved him a lot longer than that.
How much longer, she couldn’t say. It might go all the way back to that very first day, when she’d knocked him off his feet and blubbered into his handkerchief and hung her wet underthings on a drying line all around him.
When he’d brewed her that positively vile tea and listened to her sob story with such gentle earnestness, all while gazing at her with those sad blue eyes of his, so full of pain and longing.
Oh gods.
She might have loved him from first sight.
“But this is dreadful!” Luna cried, grasping the hair at her temples and pulling. She turned away from Ward, staring into the ominous shadows of the hedge maze. “Oh, Mother love me, why did I have to realize this now?”
It was one thing to acknowledge some kind of feeling.
But she’d always left that feeling carefully unnamed.
Attraction, yes. Gratitude and comfort and that new, unfamiliar, sizzling tingle of lust. But none of those feelings were ultimately devastating.
Not like this. All of those feelings she could afford to walk away from when the time came, but now . . . now . . .
Tears escaped through her lashes, rolling down her cheeks. With a little cry, Luna buried her face in her hands.
“Gods-damn it, Luna,” Ward growled and rose from the bench, swiftly crossing the little space between them. “You’re really going to make me play the good friend part now? After I just put my heart out there for you to stomp all over?”
Luna choked on another sob, shaking her head, unable to speak.
Ward pulled a handkerchief from somewhere in the depths of his dress uniform and pushed it at her.
“Here,” he said, not altogether ungraciously.
“Don’t let the mascara run down your face.
” He blustered out a big sigh, his jaw rolling.
“See here, why don’t you just go home and tell him? ”
“I can’t!” Luna wailed, staring up at him from behind his hankie.
“Why not?”
“I . . . I just can’t.”
Ward rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t know how they do things in Crimble, but this is a modern world we’re living in.
You don’t have to wait for him to get his act together and come courting.
You’re a grown woman. If he’s the one you want, go get him!
Granted, I don’t know what you see in that sorry milksop, but—”
“You don’t know him!” Luna snapped, scowling. She heard the cliché in her words but didn’t care.
Ward held up his hands defensively. “Yeah, whatever. All I know is, I saw him put a lot more effort into asking out your roommate.”
At this, Luna uttered a despairing sound, not quite like anything she’d ever heard herself make before. She buried her face in the handkerchief, halfway hoping she might smother to death in its folds.
“Oh geez, don’t take on like that!” Ward muttered.
Then, with a bitter curse through his teeth, he pulled her into his arms and let her bury her face in his shoulder while she wept a wet patch on his nice dress coat.
“Look,” he said, “I’m really trying not to be a sore loser here, so please, give me a pass on that last comment.
Fact is, I’m pretty sure if you went home now and told him what’s what, Old Grimm would probably keel over.
In a good way, though!” He pushed her gently back a step, peering down into her tear-swimming eyes.
“Remember? I’ve got a knack for reading people.
I’d bet you my next three promotions that bastard’s a goner for you. ”
Luna uttered an unladylike sniff. What could she possibly say?
Ward was trying to be comforting, she could give him that, but .
. . there was nothing he could do that would make any difference.
Nothing that could change this disaster either for better or for worse.
It was already as bad as it could be. As long as she’d been able to maintain that shield of denial, she could avoid the most devastating blow.
Now there was no escaping it. She loved him.
She loved Mr. Grimm. Loved him more than she’d ever realized it was possible to love another living soul.
And she must leave him. Tonight.
Pushing away from Ward at last, Luna roughly mopped her face with his handkerchief before pulling her shoulders back. “Ward,” she said, looking up at him, “I’m so sorry. For everything. For slapping you. For bawling all over you. For . . . for leading you on.”
“Shucks, Luna, you didn’t lead me on.” Ward heaved a sigh.
“I knew what I was doing. I figured you were worth the shot anyway.” Tucking a knuckle under her chin, he tipped her face up to him.
“I don’t know if it’ll mean much to you now, but .
. . I still think that. You were worth it, Luna Talbot.
” His mouth quirked in a small smile, not quite large enough to bring out the dimples.
“And please, don’t keep thinking I’m going to be some kind of creep and turn you in over one piece of circumstantial evidence!
I may not be the hero in your story, but I’m sure as hells not the villain either. Got me?”
Luna sniffled again, nodding as she wiped her nose on his handkerchief.
Folding the square of cloth up small, she offered it back to him, but he motioned for her to keep it.
“How about I call the carriage and get you on your way home?” he suggested.
“If you don’t mind, I won’t join you. I’ve still got to be decorated by the governor, you know. ”
“But how will you get home?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he chuckled. But when he cast her a last, sad look, his expression was pained enough to halfway break her heart. “Are you sure I can’t change your mind? You might find it’s easier loving me than him, you know.”
Luna shook her head, hiccoughing slightly. “I’m sorry, Ward. I . . . I don’t think love works like that.”
“Yeah, probably not. Still, you’re worth the shot, remember?” Stepping forward quickly, he dropped a kiss on her forehead, far more chaste than any kiss he’d given her hitherto. “See you around, Luna Talbot. I’ll send someone to let you know when the carriage is ready, all right?”
With that, he turned and strode off quickly, leaving her behind in the hedge maze.
Luna listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps on gravel until they faded to silence.
Then she rolled her head back, gritting her teeth and staring up at the distant moon, which sailed through starry skies, faraway and dispassionate.
She found herself oddly wishing that Ward hadn’t gone.
Not because she craved his company. No, because now that he was gone, she had nothing but her own thoughts to face.