A sudden hammering at the door cut her off mid-sentence.
Mr. Grimm paused, scoop in hand, and caught Luna’s eye. They both looked at the door, then back at each other. “It isn’t nine yet, is it?” he said.
Another eruption of pounding, followed by an imperious female voice speaking from the front step: “Idemandthe proprietor of this establishment admit me at once! Imustspeak with the flower witch!”
“Flower witch?” Mr. Grimm mouthed silently, turning to Luna in confusion.
“Oh!” Luna plunked the kettle back down on the nook stove, remembering suddenly the young lady from yesterday. She’d wondered if that accidental flash of her sorcerer’s mark would come back to bite her. A stone of dread dropped in her chest. She gripped the counter’s edge for support.
Mr. Grimm, noticing her distress, made a soothing motion with one hand. “Let me handle this,” he said. Dropping his scoop and leaving the Mama Morgana’s where it sat, he stepped to the door and said in his poshest voice, “Your pardon, madame. We open at nine o’clock.”
“You will open tomeat once!” the woman on the other side declared.
“And who are you exactly, madame?”
“I am the Countess Claudine d’Ackerley. I attended the Duchess of Kinsley’s assembly last evening and bore witness to the spectacle of Miss Eugenia Lambert. Iwillspeak to the flower witchimmediately.”
Luna shook her head in response to Mr. Grimm’s curious look. She’d never heard the name Eugenia Lambert. It may ormay not belong to the young woman to whom she’d sold the lisianthus. Summoning her courage, she crept out from behind the counter and approached the door, calling out in a timid voice, “Um, may I ask . . . who gave you the name of this shop?”
“My good woman, Phillips, spoke with Miss Lambert’s maid. It was she who revealed the establishment from whence Miss Lambert purchased her enchanted corsage.”
Mr. Grimm caught Luna’s eye once more. “Enchanted corsage?” he whispered.
Luna shrugged. “I’m sorry,” she called in answer, “no enchanted blooms were sold from The Arcane Bouquet. Your information is incorrect.”
A moment of stunned silence followed.
Then, to Luna’s great dismay, a sudden sob exploded on the far side of the door. “Thenhowwill Ievermanage to get Lord Bruxley to say boo to me?”
It was so unexpected, such an abrupt letting down of the dignity hitherto displayed, it wrung Luna’s heart. She looked at Mr. Grimm, who stared back at her, his expression one of mounting horror as the sobs on his doorstep intensified. Luna reached for the doorknob, but Mr. Grimm’s hand came down on her wrist. “Wait,” he cautioned.
Luna flicked her eyes to meet his. “We can’t very wellleaveher out there.”
He looked unconvinced. But when Luna tugged against his grasp, he let her go. She turned the bolt, opened the door, and found herself facing an enormously impressive personage. A woman, no longer young but remarkably stately, clad in a tremendous amount of purple and green plaid, all expensively cut in the most modish fashion, complete with militant-grade shoulder pads. Not the sort of person one would expect to stand in shop doorways sobbing her heart out over someone named Lord Bruxley.
“Oh, quick, do come in!” Luna cried, ushering the woman inside, pleased to note that she was not shadowed by a maid as Miss Eugenia had been yesterday. Somehow, Luna felt it imperative that no one see the Countess d’Ackerley at such a disadvantage. It wouldn’t bode well for the future of The Arcane Bouquet. “Please, lady countess,” she said, uncertain of the correct form of address for a person of such eminence, “don’t distress yourself! Come, tell me what is the matter. Mr. Grimm!”
Her employer stared at her over the lady’s shoulder pads, all white-ringed eyes and shock.
“Put the kettle on right away, if you please!”
“Erm—why—yes. Yes, of course.” Taking care to lock the door behind him, Mr. Grimm darted back to the nook, fetched the kettle, and rushed to fill it at the trimming sink, all while Luna ushered the countess back behind the counter and into the cane chair, where her sorrows might be hidden behind the privacy curtain.
“There, there, lady countess,” Luna said, patting the woman’s shoulder pad, a gesture she suspected was probably futile. “Don’t take on so! Do tell me what the trouble is, there’s a dear.”
“Ihavetold you!” the countess brayed with great elegance, a feat which could only be accomplished by the very cream of society. “I saw it all take place before my very eyes only last night! Miss Eugenia Lambert, a consummate wallflower, became, most unexpectedly, the object of keen admiration from numerous masculine parties at the Duchess of Kinsley’s. They say the Duke of Woolfwood called on her father’s house later that very night to ask for her hand in marriage! She—who has never danced more than three dances at any given ball, even the year of her debut!”
This barrage of information flew at Luna at such a bewildering rate, she struggled to grasp what she could from it. “I’m . . . terribly sorry?” she ventured. Truth be told, she wasglad to hear the mouse-ish young woman to whom she’d sold the lisianthus had enjoyed something of a fairy tale moment. It was Luna’s staunch belief that every girl deserved one now and then.
“Her maid,” the Countess d’Ackerley continued, “told my good woman that it was all due to the flowers Miss Lambert bought from this very establishment. She said she witnessed the exchange herself—how the flower witch guided her mistress to the correct choice of bouquet, promised their attractive influence, and even flashed an eldritch symbol on her wrist as proof of her powers.”
“Oh!” Luna winced. How easily the truth had become conflated. “Well, you see, it wasn’t really—”
“Meanwhile, I can’t convince Lord Bruxley to offer me more than a tip of his hat on Sundays, much less settle down andproposeas everyone knows he ought!”
“Everyone?” Luna echoed. “Ought?”
“Of course! He’s the only man in the world whom I could ever love, for he’s the only man in Ballycastle with a properseat.”
