Page 66 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘We only have fifteen minutes to shop!’ she told Noah with genuine alarm as they reached the shop. ‘Talk about pressure!’
Nina was a very focused shopper. She put it down to all the years of riffling through charity-shop and jumble-sale rails looking for good vintage. Now, she immediately homed in on a pretty print of the Parsonage in autumn, then grabbed a handful of postcards and added Brontë-branded chocolate bars to take into work on Monday (a milk chocolate Charlotte bar for Posy, a milk orange chocolate Branwell for Tom and though Verity was always saying that she was an Austenite and that the Brontës were too dour and histrionic for her liking, she could have an Anne bar and count herself lucky). Nina snatched up five Emily dark chocolate bars for herself. She really wanted to get Noah a gift too. Some small, entirely inadequate way of saying thank you for the day out he’d given her. He seemed to have looked deep inside her soul to plan out the most perfect set of experiences – even that hellish march across the moors to the waterfall had had its highlights – and she’d like to look deep into his soul to decide on the perfect thank-you gift. Though her options were limited, what with being in a gift shop in the Brontë Parsonage. Perhaps she could get him an iPad or mobile-phone case? Nina looked around for inspiration and then came to a halt by a display of gifts featuring quotations from some of the Brontë novels.
She couldn’t help the snort that exploded out of her nostrils at the sight of a ‘Reader, I Married Him’ mug. She’d suggested the famous quote fromJane Eyreas a possible new name for the shop, which had been shot down in flames though Posy had commissioned a ‘Reader, I Married Him’ tote bag and rashly ordered five hundred of them.
‘Oh God, Posy must never find out about all this branded merchandise,’ said Noah, coming up behind her. ‘Verity told me about the tote bags.’
‘We have “Reader, I Married Him” T-shirts too,’ Nina said. ‘They do surprisingly well as gifts for brides-to-be. But we can’t tell Posy about these,’ she added, pointing at oven mitts and an apron both with the quote ‘I Am Heathcliff’ printed on them.
‘You tempted?’
‘Not really, they don’t go with my aesthetic and making toast or heating up a ready meal, which is all I do in the kitchen, doesn’t really need accessories,’ Nina explained. ‘But I will have a mug and you’re having one too! I mean, everyone needs a mug.’
The Emily Brontë mug had the quote ‘No Coward Soul Is Mine’ which seemed appropriate for someone like Noah who had such a love of death-defying activities. A mug that cost seven pounds fifty was a very poor way of saying thank you but it would do for now.
‘Everyone does need a mug,’ Noah solemnly agreed and Nina saw that he’d been doing his fair share of shopping.
‘Nice scarf,’ she said, nodding at the grey-and-lilac scarf adorned with pale-blue dots, which Noah was holding.
‘For my mother, for Mother’s Day,’ Noah said. He frowned. ‘We’re not meant to spend more than ten pounds on gifts and I don’t know if the lamb’s wool comes from ethically sourced, free-range lambs who spend their days happily gambolling about the moors.’
‘I’m sure she’ll love it.’ Nina was sure of no such thing. Noah’s mother, like her own, seemed like a tough crowd. He was also holding several boxes of Bron-Tea. ‘Is the tea for her too?’
‘The Emily, er, Bron-Tea is for my father. He’s on this detox diet since he was diagnosed with MS and this has wild nettles and berries in it, and I got the Branwell one too, which has yerba maté and spice, for my younger brother. He prides himself on being able to drink the most foul-tasting concoctions.’
‘Like green juice? Ugh!’ Nina, Posy and Verity had been on a collective health kick last year that had lasted two days and had involved one yoga class and a green juice that had cost ten pounds and had tasted like pond scum.
‘Green juice is the work of the devil.’ Noah shuddered. ‘When I lived in San Francisco, everyone was on green juice. If you ordered a fully caffeinated coffee, they’d look at you like you’d just asked them to chuck in a couple of rocks of crack and hold the foam.’
‘But isn’t caffeine one of the five major food groups?’ Nina mused as they walked towards the till where a woman was staring at them with the desperate look of someone who wanted to close up the shop and go home.
They paid for their purchases and left the Parsonage. It was quite dark as they walked back to the car park and suddenly, despite her legs aching, actually all of her aching due to all the enforced activity, and being ravenously hungry, Nina felt quite skittish with nerves.
Noah had told her to pack an overnight bag so he obviously wasn’t planning to drive them back to London. They’d be staying somewhere.
Maybe sharing a room. And a bed.
It was their third date and they both knewexactlywhat that meant.
The shivers were back because Nina wasn’t at all adverse to the idea of finally getting down to some serious funny business. Quite the contrary, especially when he took her hand and asked, ‘Are you cold?’
Nina paused to consider the question. Actually, shewascold, to add to the general achiness and the hunger. ‘A little bit, but I have a few ideas on how I might warm up,’ she said huskily and squeezed Noah’s hand just before he let her go because they were at the car now.
‘A pot of tea and a round of toast?’ he suggested primly. ‘Then an early night with an improving book.’
‘Well, maybe one out of those four,’ Nina agreed.
‘Make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.’
It was a short drive to their next destination. They hadn’t even been in the car ten minutes with the lady on the satnav purring directions before they were turning into a drive at the end of which was a long, low, slate-grey house. The lights were on in the windows and as they pulled up the front door opened.
‘This looks nice,’ Nina said. ‘Cosy and welcoming.’
‘That’s not all it is,’ Noah said, a little smugly, which wasn’t that becoming but indicated that he had more surprises in store for her. ‘I’ll grab our bags.’
‘Come inside!’ called the woman who stood in the doorway. ‘You must be freezing!’
It wasn’t long after that that Nina and Noah were side by side on a gloriously squashy sofa, with a mug of tea and a huge slice of cake each as the owners of the bed and breakfast explained how the Brontës had been frequent visitors and that it was generally regarded as the inspiration forWuthering Heightsitself. Nina didn’t think her eyes could get much wider – it felt like they might pop out of their sockets altogether – when they also revealed that Nina would be staying in the Earnshaw Room with its ‘Cathy window’ where Cathy’s ghost had struggled to get in.
