“I still can’t believe that she was playing matchmaker behind the scenes. How many couples can claim the Director set them up?” Will boasted. “Little did she know I was already crushing on you. You wouldn’t believe how mercilessly Maida and Arthur teased me.”
“Maida is going to be impossible when we tell her about our plans to travel together.” Zani smiled. A tiny smile. She was not actually all that worried about this. No amount of teasing or ‘I told you sos’ would take away from the happiness she was feeling. The fact that her best friend was going to be thrilled was frosting.
Her great-aunt was another story.
“I’m sure Maida and Arthur will be happy to have the Mudpuddle back to themselves when we go.” Zani smiled. “But I’m not sure my Aunt Minodaura will be as happy about our travel plans as Maida and Arthur.” She sighed.
“I think she’ll come around,” Will said. “I’ll win her over. I’m really good with elderly aunts. They all love me.”
“So you’ve said.” Zani rolled her eyes. “But I was thinking … Maida offered me a shop and an apartment on the Mudpuddle property.”
“Where the garden shed used to be?” Will sat up straighter.
“Yes.” Zani nodded. “She thought there was space for a shop and a couple of small apartments there.”
“She offered me a space for an apartment, too!” Will said. He shook his head. “Her matchmaking efforts are hardly subtle.”
“Not even a little bit,” Zani agreed. “But I think she might be onto something. I’d love to have a little shop with all my travel goods, maybe make it the headquarters for a catalogue company. And it might be nice to have a more permanent address. Not to live there full time, mind you, but to get mail.”
“And where would you like to live ‘full time’ then?” Will smiled his secret smile at her and his eyes began to skrinkle at the corners.
“On my dirigible, of course.” She rolled her eyes, as this should have been more than obvious, and flopped back against a cushion.
“Yourdirigible?” Will raised a brow. “Don’t you meanmydirigible?” He scooted closer to her.
“Fine,” Zani conceded. “I guess Burnside left it to both of us. Would you mind if I lived aboard our dirigible?”
“And how long were you planning to stay aboard said dirigible?” Will lifted a strand of her hair and wrapped it around one finger.
“Let’s just say the foreseeable future,” Zani said.
“As much as the future is foreseeable.” Will nodded seriously. “And what about the past?”
“Well, obviously I’d want to live here in the past. It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else with as good of a view.” Zani nodded.
“And the present?”
“You’d have to pry me out with a bootjack,” Zani said.
“So let me get this straight.” Will sat up again, gazing down at her. “I’m stuck with you in the past, the present, and for the foreseeable future.”
“That sounds about right, Porter.” Zani smiled.
“Well, then.” Will leaned forward to kiss her. “We better quit wasting time.”
* * *
Willand Zani agreed it would be best to speak with Minodaura first, before returning to Primrose Court to speak with Maida about their plans. So, bright and early the next morning, they set their course back a day, and pointed the airship toward the Montauk Lighthouse where they knew Minodaura was back in residence.
“I’m afraid I may have been too hard on my aunt,” Zani admitted as the dirigible broke through the misty coastal fog. “I had no idea what sort of things she’d been through. Plus, she was kind of a daredevil in her youth. I would never have imagined that.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Will quipped.
“Stop.” Zani poked him in the ribs. “You sound just like my handkerchiefs,”
“I just meant, sometimes you can’t know all the things in the moment.” Will steered the airship along the coastline. She could just make out the lighthouse in the distance. “But the truth comes out in the end.” He smirked.
“Enough already!” Zani snapped a tea towel at Will. “I’m just not sure what to say to her. I know she’s been hoping that I’ll move back to the States and help run the family warding business, but that’s just not what I want to do with my life.”
