“Nonsense, Mr. Grimm!” She chuckled fruitily and smacked him on the shoulder. “Go on and open it, why don’t you.”
Slipping the ribbon free, Nigel folded back the paper, taking care not to rip it. A familiar pattern of dancing mushrooms met his gaze. He lifted what looked something like a clutch purse, but without any handle or buckles or buttons to make it practical. Perhaps it was a hat? One thing for certain, it was embroidered over every square inch, a true celebration of whimsy.
“Well, isn’t that a thing.” Nigel grimaced. “What a delightful, erm . . .”
“Tea cozy,” the good woman supplied.
Nigel’s brow puckered.
“You puts it over your pot,” she continued. “To keep it warm while the tea is brewing, don’t you know.”
“I’m afraid I am not well educated in matters of tea.” Nigel tilted his head to one side, contemplating the item. He’d never been a tea drinker; he thought it rather foul stuff, truth be told. Coffee was the drink of sorcerers, up until about noon, that is. Then most of them switched to tasteful shot-chalices of absinthe to clear the crevices of the mind for better reception of Esoteric Secrets from the Beyond. Three years ago, however, Nigel had discovered that a mind receptive to Esoteric Secrets from the Beyond was also a mind dulled to realities right in front of him. Realities which, by the time he noticed them, had gotten wildly out of control. So he’d poured his absinthe down the drain and gotten to work on the whole overthrowing-the-evil-overlord business. Oroverlady, in this case.
Tea was simply never part of his life’s equation.
“Thank you, Mrs. Goddard,” he said. Flicking a glance upward, he found his landlady’s gaze fixed upon him with an expression too hopeful to be denied. “I will, erm . . . cherish it.”
“Oh, Mr. Grimm, you do go on so!” the good woman chortled and smacked him on the shoulder again. She nudged the tray of stew and bread across the tabletop. “Eat up then. I put an extra bit of flavor in it, just to warm you on this miserable evening.”
“And what flavor would that be?”
“Salt, of course!”
A culinary marvel she was not. But, having no practical experience in the kitchen himself, Nigel was in no position to complain. He ate obediently while Mrs. Goddard filled the silence with news of her other tenants. There was a shoemaker on one side of The Arcane Bouquet and a tailor on the other. Both happened to be bachelors, like Nigel himself, a state of being Mrs. Goddard found woefully deficient.
“I always says,” she declared, as she had every night Nigel could remember since signing his lease, “a man doesn’t like to be alone. Oh, you can protest all you like”—Nigel never did; he wouldn’t dare—“but an old chit like me knows the ways of a man better than you might think. You need a wife. That’s right, Mr. Grimm, and I ain’t afraid to tell you straight! What’s more, I’ve got the perfect girl for you. My niece! A lovely young thing, realperky,you might say, in all the right places. Just the miss for a lonely bachelor—”
“Pray, Mrs. Goddard, have you more stops to make this evening?”
“Oh, lands, yes, Mr. Surley next door needs his supper still.”
“Don’t let me keep you. I wouldn’t want Mr. Surley to suffer on my account.”
“Ain’t you the thoughtful one?” Mrs. Goddard smacked his shoulder a third time, and Nigel couldn’t help wondering if, when he undressed tonight, he would discover a bruise developing. But the old woman tottered to the back door, trilling as she went, “I’ll fetch the tray tomorrow when I brings your breakfast. Ta, Mr. Grimm! Enjoy your cozy!”
“I’m sure I will, Mrs. Goddard. I’m sure I will.”
The door opened and shut on a howling night, which swallowed up Mrs. Goddard and left behind a cavernous silence. Nigel ate in peace, sharing his repast with Debbie, who muttered her thoughts to herself but, for once, chose not to share. The meal complete, Nigel piled dirty dishes in the sink along with the two mugs.
He stood a while, contemplating those mugs. That Miss Talbot had seen something in them he did not doubt. But it didn’t have anything to do with the weather. Her whole demeanor had changed from that easy, breezy friendliness which had so disarmed him, to nervousness. Timidity. Almost embarrassment. Like she’d seen something illicit.
It wasn’t possible she’d actually had a glimpse into the future, had she? A future involving . . . the two of them?
No!No, no, no. Nigel hastily turned on the taps, rinsed out both mugs, and upended their contents right down the drain. He was not going to let his mind wander in such foolish directions. “Keep your thoughts in order, Grimm,” he commanded himself firmly. “If Miss Talbot shows up for the job tomorrow—and, if you ask me, that’s a pretty bigif—you must treat her with the utmost decorum at all times.”
Her tale of struggle had wrung his cold heart. And all because of that little mark on her wrist! That mark which he may not have personally tattooed there, but he knew all too well what part he’d played in its application. Were it not for him and his obsession with moving around the metaphysical furniture of the universe to access the occultic dust bunnies cavorting underneath, Miss Luna Talbot would be back home with her aunties in her tea garden right now.
“You owe it to her,” he muttered even as he stacked the mugs in the bamboo drainer, “to at least see she’s paid a fair wage and able to keep a roof over her head.”
And that meant quashing any inappropriate thoughts along the way. He would not do, say, or—gods help him—feelanything that might compromise her position. It simply wouldn’t be fair to her as his employee.
“Never mind,”quoth the raven from the kitchen table.
“That’s right, Debbie,” Nigel replied, turning to face her and straightening his cuffs. “Never mind indeed! Now it’s high time we closed up for the night.”
So saying, he returned to the shop and, though it made no difference, turned the little sign in the door window to CLOSED. Before he pulled down the shade, he couldn’t resist a last look out into the street. The thaumatic streetlights were starting to pop on, illuminating the wet evening with little golden halos.There wasn’t much to see, of course; no one would be out on such a night by choice. Certainly not Miss Talbot, who must be long gone by now. And yet . . .
Something moved. On the sidewalk opposite. A shadowy figure stood beneath the awning of the bicycle shop, and Nigel would have missed it entirely, save that it made a sudden dart for the alley. For just the briefest moment he glimpsed a tall, dark, hooded phantom, there and gone again in a flash.
