Lucie frowned at her knees.Marvelous?
“Your mother is … concerned for you. I have assured her that you are quite well, merely tired, and she does not believe a word of it but is choosing, for the present, not to press.” Another pause, briefer. “The guests have departed. All of them.”
All of them.Did that mean Kazrian as well?
“The shop is locked, and there is no one left below but the pixies and one exceedingly disgruntled cat.”
Ah.No Kazrian, then. It was better that way. Definitely better that way.
“You may, of course, remain here for the evening, should you wish. The Honeycomb, I understand, has been known to offer a rather comfortable night’s rest to those who find themselves in need of one.”
Then the footsteps withdrew, unhurried as they had come, and descended the stairs, leaving Lucie in the deepening quiet.
She sat with her forehead on her knees and could make no sense of it. Lady Rivennaknew. She knew all of it now, and she could not possibly approve. Her own grandson—and the human girl who worked in her kitchen? Whatever damage she had managed in the aftermath of the day’s dramatic revelations—the smooth, unhurried pivot Lucie had heard as she’d made her way back toward the kitchen, the redirection of the story toward Henry and his violence and the storeroom door’s temperament—none of it could erase what every person in that garden had seen with their own two eyes.
And yet she had come upstairs, spoken through a closed door with the tone of someone discussing the weather, and told Lucie she might stay for the night.
Lucie understood, though, that Lady Rivenna could not possibly permit her to stay much longer.
She came down the next morning braced for the worst.
She had rehearsed it, the words Lady Rivenna would likely use, and the apology Lucie would give. She had decided she would not cry. She would accept it with dignity. She would thank Lady Rivenna for everything, and she would gather her few things, and she would walk out of The Honeycomb with her head up.
She nearly walked directly into Lady Rivenna in the kitchen.
They both stopped. Lady Rivenna was holding a teacup, and Lucie’s mind was already running ahead, tripping over the small ordinary questions that would have mattered on any other morning and did not matter in the least today. Was she late? Was Lady Rivenna early? And the tea—the pixies had seen to the tea?—
For a terrible, suspended moment they simply looked at one another. And then the words that actually mattered began assembling themselves inLucie’s mind.I am so sorry, I know what I have done, I understand if you must let me go?—
“Well,” said Lady Rivenna. “Yesterday.” She took a sip of tea with an air of brisk consideration, as thoughyesterdaywere a problem of inventory or scheduling rather than the wholesale collapse of Lucie’s reputation and possibly the shop’s along with it. “Do you wish to speak of it, or do you not?”
Lucie stared at her. Of all the things she had expected to hear—you have disgraced this establishment, you have compromised my grandson, you will gather your things and be gone by noon—this had not been among them.
“I … did not realize I had a choice,” she managed.
“Of course you have a choice.”
“Then … no?” It came out as a question. She could hear the disbelief in her own voice, thin and uncertain, as though she were being offered something she could not quite trust was real. “No, I … I would rather not. If that is … if that is permissible.”
“I suspected as much.” Lady Rivenna set her teacup down on the worktable and straightened a stack of paper that did not require straightening. “Very well. Rosavyn will be in shortly. The shop will be busy today—rather busier than usual, I expect. If they do not come for the confections, they will come to see the source of all the commotion.” The faintest pause. “And we shall ensure they purchase confections while they do.”
A silence. The first shaft of morning light shifted through the kitchen window and caught the honey jar on the side counter, the gold of it spilling across the worktop in the same warm wash it always did, as though nothing had changed, as though the world had not tilted on its axis the afternoon before.
“So … you are not dismissing me?” Lucie said.
Lady Rivenna gave her a long, steady look. “Now why would I do that? The Honeycomb would not be The Honeycomb without you. I should as soon dismiss the honey light itself.”
Lucie’s mind, never still, was already forming a picture that made sense. Of course Lady Rivenna was keeping her.For now.The shop needed its confectioner and, more to the point, it needed its honey light, and Lucie was the only person who could collect it. Her instructions were written down, and she had walked Lady Rivenna through the process, but training areplacement would take time. Lady Rivenna was no doubt planning for this already, but until then, Lucie was still here.
She did not let herself think past ‘until then.’
“Now. The caramel will not make itself,” Lady Rivenna said. She picked up her teacup and went upstairs.
She had been right about the patrons.
They came in droves. More than The Honeycomb had ever seen on a single day, a steady stream of silk and gloves and carefully composed faces, and every last one of them ordered something, but not before casting a glance—some subtle, some considerably less so—toward the kitchen doorway, as though Lucie herself were one of the confections on display.
She kept her head down. She worked.
