“You must be cautious,” she said, taking care to infuse her voice with an appropriate level of mysticism, for affect. “Do not give your heart away too easily. It is a precious thing, worthy of a good man who will treasure it.”
The countess sat forward in the cane chair, large hands clasped nervously. “Is that what the leaves are telling you?”
Luna didn’t answer directly. She looked up into the countess’s searching eyes. “You will be happy. You will be surrounded by those who love you.”
“Horses?”
“Yes.” Luna smiled. “And children too. But”—she raised a warning finger even as she gazed back into the cup—“you must not rush the Green Mother’s will. All good things will come, but only in good time. And time is not of our making.”
Countess d’Ackerley nodded, her long face strained with deep thought. Then she quavered, “And Lord Bruxley?”
“Ah!” Luna set the cup back into its saucer with a clatter. “The vision is passed. You must take what you are given, lady countess, and be grateful. Attend chantry services this Sunday and say a prayer of thanksgiving.”
This last bit sounded a bit too much like something Auntie Aurora might say, but it seemed to have the desired influence on the countess. She rose, her dignity recovered, and wiped the last traces of tears from her cheeks. “Thank you, tea witch,” she said earnestly. “Your kindness will not be forgotten.”
“Would you like to purchase a bunch of daisies to take home with you?” Luna asked brightly.
Countess d’Ackerley agreed. Mr. Grimm completed the transaction, his own face a mask of pure surprise and mild alarm. When the countess vacated the premises at last, he did not immediately turn the CLOSED sign to OPEN, but stood at the door, his hand resting on the knob. After a moment, he turned to look back at Luna, who was clearing the tea things from behind the nook. “Did you actuallyseeanything in those leaves?” he asked.
Luna looked up with a little smile. “I saw the good countess married to a plump little man with a red, smiling face, surrounded by half-a-dozen children.”
“Why didn’t you tell her that?”
“Because I have no idea what Lord Bruxley looks like! If he doesn’t happen to be plump and red and smiling, she would not take the reading well. One must learn to read the drinker as well as the leaves, or so Auntie Apolonia always said. In this case, I delivered a true message, one which may, I hope, benefit her. The specifics of the vision she will discover for herself in time.” Luna sighed and looked down at the cup and saucer in her hands. “Itisa tricky business, though, I’ll be the first to admit. One little glob can throw off an entire reading!”
She shook her head then, dark curls bouncing against her cheeks. “Why, I remember the first reading I ever had. This was soon after I’d come to live in Tealeaf Cottage, and Extremely Great Aunt Amelia was still alive. She called me to her chair by the hearth, thrust a cup of bitter taerel into my hands, and told me to drink up! I’d not yet developed a taste for it, but I was so terrified of her, sitting there like a bag of bones in her black taffeta gown, rocking back and forth. So I gulped it down, and she took the cup, and immediately began laughing at what she saw.”
“And did she share with you?” Mr. Grimm asked, curiously.
“She did indeed. When she was quite through cackling, she said, ‘My, my! For such a scrawny, ill-favored little creature, you’ve got quite the romance in store for you. I see ballgowns and carriages, moonlit gardens, and a daring man risking all to save you from certain doom.’ Then she turned the cup around and tilted her head to one side. ‘That, or you’re destined to join the circus as a rhinoceros trainer. My Sight isn’t what it once was.’”
Luna laughed merrily at the memory and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye before slipping out from behind the counter. “I used to dream about my future with the circus,” she said over her shoulder as she carried the tea things back to the kitchen. “But sadly, all these years later, not a single rhinoceroshas crossed my horizon. No daring men or ballgowns either, for that matter!”
The following morning, three young Ladies of Quality turned up on the doorstep of The Arcane Bouquet just as it opened, all clamoring for tea and fortunes to be read. Apparently the serving class gossip chain was thriving in Ballycastle; their maids had heard from the Countess d’Ackerley’s good woman all about the Tea Witch of Addle Street, and now the young ladies were most eager to learn their future in tea leaves.
“This is not ateashop,” Nigel insisted, attempting to block the doorway with his body. “This is aflowershop. If it’s readings you want, try Mystic Infusions, over on—”
But the young ladies were not to be thwarted in their purpose. “Oh, Mystic Infusions is acompletescam!” they declared between twittering giggles. “All ‘tall, dark strangers,’ and ‘mysterious moonlit trysts,’ and such bosh. We wantrealreadings from arealtea witch!”
With these words, they crowded in so close, Nigel had no choice but to back down or be trampled. As the young misses flooded the shop floor, he cast a desperate look over their heads to Miss Talbot, who stood fortified behind the counter.
She smiled and proceeded to fill the kettle from the trimming sink. “Tea is for paying customers only,” she declared sweetly.Plunking the kettle on the little nook stove, she lit the burner, then turned to the young ladies, hands clasped in professional readiness. “Can I interest you in some lovely hydrangea cuttings? They make for splendid floral displays.”
With the prospect of tea on their horizons, the ladies set to shopping with a will, each selecting large bouquets of long-stemmed flowers to grace their boudoirs. The Arcane Bouquet was temporarily filled with the sounds of delightful chatter and many exclamations over the variety of blooms on offer. Debbie muttered and coughed and rattled her wings from her skull perch, which thrilled the young ladies still more. “What anominousthing!” one declared. “It quite gives me thechills!”her friend agreed. “An apparition ofdoom!”trilled the third.
Debbie, overwhelmed by these compliments, hid her beak under her wing.
While selections were made and transactions completed, Luna brewed tea in the nook, pouring out into the two porcelain cups and the less-battered of Nigel’s mugs. Each lady received her brew and drank with relish before shoving her leafy dregs back into Luna’s hands.
Nigel observed from a discreet distance while Luna recited oblique fortune after oblique fortune, combining just enough verisimilitude with a dash of restraint and a soupcon of mystery. The young ladies listened, expressions rapt, interrupting only with the occasional giggle, half-suppressed behind well-manicured hands.
By the time Luna ushered them out the door, The Arcane Bouquet had made quite a tidy little profit, cost of tea notwithstanding.
“You shouldn’t indulge them,” Nigel said when the last of the shop bells had ceased tinkling. “They’ll only tell more of their friends.”
“They will!” Luna agreed, clearing the tea things from the nook. “We’ll be positivelyinundatedwith Silly Young Things. Think what good business it’ll be for the shop!”
This wasn’t the message Nigel had intended to communicate. But as no further tea-seekers arrived on his doorstep that day, he chose to let it go. A few more customers drifted in and out, one or two every hour or so. Not enough to justify paying a shop assistant, but Nigel hoped Luna wouldn’t notice this. She, having swept the display floor, deadheaded the petunias, and created a dozen tasteful bouquets tied with tissue and ribbon—an idea which had not occurred to Nigel, but struck him as rather a fine one—asked if she might slip out into Garden for a little while.
