Page 9 of A Season for Scandal

“Of course.” I handed it to her.

When she flipped it over and saw the note from Oliver Lockhart, her eyebrows twitched in the faintest hint of surprise. “Would you mind waiting here for a moment?” she asked smoothly.

“Not at all,” I replied.

The girl lifted the heavy velvet curtain behind her to reveal a door, which she opened. Beyond the doorway I spied a small hallway with a staircase running steeply up one side. With a quick reassuring smile, the girl slipped through the curtain.

I was left alone to wait. That was no hardship in a place like this. I moved to a small table, examining the lengths of trim laid out on it with pleasure, choosing a braided mossy green velvet and a jaunty cherry-red silk that I knew Simon would hate but that made something inside me sing.

I chose another trim – shell pink this time – as a gift for Daisy. It would make up for me forgetting to collect her library book. (I had been a bit distracted after the almost-murder/run-in with a possible vampire prince.)

“I’m sorry to have kept you.” The shop girl reappeared from behind the curtain, her eyes carefully watchful. “I’m afraid Mrs Finch isn’t available at the moment, but she’d be happy to meet with you. If you could leave your name and address with me, then someone will be in touch with you to make the arrangements.”

“Thank you.” I still had no idea who Mrs Finch was or why this meeting was even taking place, but I supposed I had come this far. I wrote down the address of the shop.

“Oh, Bloom’s!” the girl exclaimed, already wrapping up my purchases with deft hands. “I love it there. Sometimes I go out of my way just to walk past and peek at the displays. Such beautiful flowers.”

It was my turn to smile with pleasure. “Make sure you stop in next time.” I fished out one of my own business cards from my reticule. “Give them this and ask the girls for some of the lavender shortbread. It’s delicious.”

“I will, thank you.” With that, she handed me my parcel and we said our goodbyes before I left.

It was only when I was outside again that I realized that Mrs Finch had kept the card that Oliver Lockhart had given me.

And I wondered why I cared that I didn’t have it any more.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Late that night I headed out to buy produce for the shop at the flower market, trying not to dwell on my problems, which was easier than I had expected as my mind seemed only too happy to dwell on Oliver Lockhart instead. It had been a strange encounter, brief but compelling. There was something about him – and not only the fact that he was so devastating to look at – that I couldn’t put aside. He had been grumpy, almost rude, and yet he’d sent me to the Aviary… I didn’t understand it yet, but I felt instinctively that he had tried to help me. It was a puzzle. Something to think about. So I did.

If you didn’t get to the flower market by midnight, then you’d find yourself in real trouble. The narrow lanes were so crammed with stalls and carts, as people prepared to barter into the early hours, that by one o’clock in the morning you couldn’t move an inch, and selling was already at its height: a frenzied cacophony of sound filling the air as vicious haggling broke out on every corner.

Fortunately, I had been coming here for as long as I could remember, and so Robbie – the boy who took care of our cart – and I were settled in a prime spot the moment the sellers opened for business.

If anything else were needed to wipe away the troubles of the day, then being here would do the trick. There was nowhere like it and I fell quickly into the rhythm of the place, all other thoughts melting away.

Over the last century, the market had grown and grown, until now it stood, sprawled across the centre of the theatre district. It was right next door to the opera house, but we florists knew where the true drama was to be found.

The front of the covered market was like a temple, all graceful stone columns, and the inside – for me, at least – felt like a cathedral, enclosed by a ceiling of soaring glass and iron. The arcade was lined with sellers who loaded their stalls with flowers from local nurseries and further afield. Thanks to the railways and greenhouses, the flower trade had changed significantly since my grandfather’s heyday, and now the press of people found themselves in a fairyland of bright hothouse flowers: blooming orchids, feathery ferns and fat, pungent roses. It was something to be proud of, the way that flower selling – after all, such an ancient tradition – was really here at the sharp edge of modernity, changing almost faster than we could keep up with.

The noise was tremendous, and the sounds, the smells, the frantic pace of it all stirred something inside me. Grandfather had been bringing me to the market since I was a young girl and I felt nothing but delight as I left Robbie in our spot, and weaved confidently between the stands, savouring the day’s offerings, a bounty laid before me like a feast.

I was making a show of looking over some sweet tea roses, preparing to grind the price down, when it happened.

A yell went up, an angry roar that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, and then I was shoved aside by a small girl. I saw only a blur of spindly limbs, a thatch of straw-coloured hair, before she was gone, darting into the crowd.

The next shove that I took was more serious. An enormous meaty hand closed round my upper arm, almost throwing me out of the way as the burly mountain of a man who was attached to it pushed past.

“Thieves again.” The flower seller sighed, coming round to help me, but I was already on my feet and in pursuit, sweaty palms holding up my skirts as I flew into the sea of people.

The man who had pushed me out of the way was called Scullen, and he sold greasy-looking pies of dubious origin from a stand that he ran with his pugnacious son. He was also a terrible bully with a reputation for violence (a reputation in which he took great pride). No one was foolish enough to steal from him, because the punishment was severe and had absolutely nothing to do with justice or the authorities, and everything to do with those raw-boned fists of his. The girl must not have been here long if she’d made the mistake of filching a pie from Scullen’s stand, and she was about to pay a terrible price for that ignorance.

Busy as it was, it was easy to follow Scullen’s progress because he stood a head taller than most of the crowd, and from the way he was moving, it was obvious he still had the girl in his sights. I was breathing hard by the time the crush began to thin. With a muttered oath, I saw the girl slip down a darkened alleyway, Scullen gaining on her and still bellowing like an enraged bull.

I sped up, much to the appreciation of one of the street sweepers who wolf-whistled as I flew past. I had no time to do anything but lift my hand in a rude gesture in return as I dived into the shadows.

Just in time.

When I reached them, the girl was sprawled on the ground, her face a pale moon against the cobbles in the light coming from the building behind her, Scullen towering over her like a monster from a fairy tale. The girl let out a whimper of fright. I would put her age anywhere between seven and eleven, and she had the gaunt look of one whose belly had been kept empty for more than one night.