Page 61 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

“Well!” Luna breathed, casting a furtive look around. “Let’s hope that didn’t wake the aunties!” Then, heedless of their painfully uncomfortable position, she pressed her mouth aggressively to his again, and all the pain in Nigel’s head vanished in a flood of far more agreeable sensations.

For a moment, he was tempted to do as ordered. To give in to every single urge pulsing through him, body and soul. To do exactly what he had longed to do since almost the first moment he saw her, though he had fought valiantly to suppress the more specific details in his imagination in a bid to honor her dignity and personhood. But those desires had always been there. Suppressed or otherwise, they lived, they burned.

But no! No, this wasn’t how he wanted this to go! This wasn’t how he wanted things to be between them. Certainly not with his feet in the air, and his spine squashed into rocking chair rungs, and her knees digging into his hipbones.

With a little cry and determined push, Nigel pressed her back from him. A series of wiggles, and somehow he managed to scootout from underneath her. He backed away across the flagstones until he hit the wall. His shirt hung open, his hair was all askew, and he stared at her like she was a wolf on the make.

Luna crawled awkwardly off the chair and knelt on the hearth, sitting up and pushing her hair back from her face. This brought her nightie straps mercifully back into proper position, but the firelight emphasized just how very light and sheer that nightie was, doing very little to help the situation. “Nigel?” she queried, looking at him with an expression of innocent confusion that did not correlate with her kiss-swollen lips, flushed cheeks, and tousled hair. “What’s wrong? Don’t you . . .” A silver shimmer gleamed in her dark eyes. “Don’t you want to make love to me?”

“Oh, Luna!” He uttered her name like the last breath of life itself. “Luna, I don’t want to be yourlover!”

Her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Only then did Nigel hear how his words probably sounded. “Wait,” he said. “Wait that’s not what I—”

“Oh!” Luna clapped her hands to her cheeks, her expression flooding with horror. By the glow of the firelight, he watched first as all the blood drained from her cheeks only to be replaced by a terrible red flare. “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry! Oh, I should have—I can’t believe I—”

Quicker than thought, she scrambled to her feet, the hem of her long nightgown falling nearly to her ankles. Nigel, still a bit dazed from the crash and everything preceding it, wasn’t quite as fast, but he managed to get up and spring after her. He caught her just as she reached the first step of the stairwell, his fingers closing around her slender wrist. “Luna!” he barked. “Stop!”

“No, no!” she cried. “I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Grimm! I can’t believe I—Oh gods! Just let me go!Let me go!”

This last came out in a desperate little scream, and she wrenched her arm, trying to break his hold. But Nigel slipped hisother hand around her waist, forcing her to turn and face him. “Luna,” he growled roughly, “I said I don’t want to be your lover because I want to be—”

In that moment, the stillness of the Crimble Mountain night was broken by a horrific caterwauling:“Oooooooh, luuuurv! Li-ga . . . liga rooooooose inna raaaaaain!”

Drunken, tuneless. Loud enough to wake the dead. The owner of that voice staggered up to the back door of Tealeaf Cottage and pounded on it repeatedly. “Oi! Aunties!” the songster slurred. “You got any o’dat nasty tea? My pa’s gonna whoop me a good one if’in you don’t fix me up!”

Nigel, who had startled at the noise and whirled to face the door, heard Luna’s soft curse like a sob behind him. “Oh, Green Mother, it’s the vicar’s stupid son!”

With that, she slipped free of his grasp and raced up the stairs, two at a time. Nigel turned to call after her, but his voice was cut off by the slam of her door, followed by a sudden flash of light bursting into the kitchen. Auntie Arabella emerged from the back of the cottage, her hair in rollers, clutching a shawl with one hand and holding up a candle with the other. “I’ve got you, Horace, luv!” she called out. “We’ll get you sobered up in no time, don’t you worry!”

She paused when she saw Nigel standing there at the base of the stairs. Her quick gaze flicked to take in the tossed paperback novel, the knocked over rocking chair, and his flushed complexion. A smirk creased her thin lips. It didn’t look like the sort of expression that belonged on a little old spinster lady’s face.

“Get on upstairs with you,” she said, jerking her chin. “I’ve got to take care of the vicar’s son, and you’ll only get in the way down here. Go on! Scoot!”

“Erm,” Nigel said.

Then, because he didn’t know what else to do, he turned and started up the stairwell. Behind him, he heard the back door open and a drunken voice saying, “Auntie, did you know there’s a big kitty in your yard? Like areallybig kitty!”

Auntie Arabella’s answer faded from hearing, however, as he stood outside Luna’s door, blood throbbing in his ears. Summoning up all the courage in his soul, Nigel knocked.

Luna threw herself upon her bed, hugged Gruffles close, and let her tears flow freely. It felt like the appropriate thing to do, under the circumstances, though the teddy bear might have thrown off the aesthetic somewhat.

It’s all right to have a breakdown,she told herself with the part of her brain that wasn’t totally consumed with heartbroken sobs.It’s not really abouthim!

No, of course it wasn’t.

It was about being kidnapped. Imprisoned. Held in a dark, windowless chamber, her hands clapped in irons. Having her clothing stripped, her energies siphoned, her will taken away. It was about believing her fate had finally caught up with her, and there was no escape save the long-foretold doom.

See? There were plenty of reasons to justify a fit of hysterical weeping.

This certainly wasn’t about . . . about . . .

“Oh!”she squealed, muffling her voice in Gruffles’s musty fur.

Why, why, ohwhydid she think she could get away with not being a Good Girl for once? Good Girls didn’t take stupid chances. Good Girls didn’t put either their virtue or their dignity on the line. Good Girls certainly didn’t straddle the laps of Nice Gentlemen and kiss them like there was no tomorrow and basically offer themselves up on a silver platter and, as a result, Good Girls didn’t get their heartsdashed to tiny little pieces.