Page 67 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
It sounded magical. Nina could only stare at Noah who ducked his head modestly. Hands down, this was the best date Nina had ever been on. The best date, in fact, since records had begun.
Also, best road trip. Best mini-break. Best foreplay because, oh yes, they were definitely going to do IT tonight.
‘We did wonder if you were still wanting a second room. It’s just we’ve had a phone call from an American couple who were hoping we might still have a room free for tonight,’ their host, who was extremely genial in both face and character, asked apologetically.
‘We only need the one room,’ Nina said firmly and a little forcefully. ‘Right?’ She patted Noah’s knee with heavy emphasis. No one could, or ever had, accused Nina of being subtle.
‘In case you get scared that you hear something tapping at the window?’ Noah enquired with just a little bit of arched eyebrow. ‘Or someone?’
‘Exactly, you know what a vivid imagination I have,’ Nina said and she winked so theatrically that she practically dislocated her eyelid.
There was a moment’s silence,awkward, then the landlady coughed quietly. ‘Well, you’ll be wanting to see your room and get straightened up.’
‘That would be great,’ Nina agreed. She was still wearing damp clothes and she would have paid vast sums of money for a hot bath.
Their room was something to behold. If you stripped away the fripperies of twenty-first-century living – the sofas, the velvet throws, the retro-looking but actually very modern wood-burning stove, which lit the room with a warm, cosy glow – then little had changed from when the Brontës had been visitors to the house. There were rough brick walls and thick wooden beams, like tree trunks, supporting the sloping ceiling, smaller beams bisecting them.
And there was what their hosts called ‘a box bed’, just like the one that Emily Brontë described inWuthering Heights. A bed hidden in an oak cabinet: ‘I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.’
Nina felt as if she had stepped into the pages ofWuthering Heights.
Noah was asking about local places to eat and what time breakfast was in the morning as Nina wandered the room, hands running over each piece of furniture, eyes trying to take in every detail. In its little cubbyhole, the bed looked so inviting, so soft and comfortable, piled with pillows, that Nina wasn’t even thinking about what a suitable venue it would be for their third-date activities but how she’d like to fall face down on it and sleep for a hundred days.
‘Nina? So, does that sound like a plan?’ Noah asked and she turned to him with a fixed but bright smile on her face.
‘Sorry, didn’t catch that. What is the plan?’
The plan was that Nina would spend a ‘not ridiculous amount of time’ freshening up, then their hosts would very kindly drive her and Noah to a local pub for dinner and pick them up when they were ready to call it a night.
Nina had never got this treatment in any of the hotels she’d stayed in before, though admittedly the hotels she’d stayed in before tended to be nana-ish B&Bs or Premier Inns.
She was even promised the loan of a coat as her bedraggled leopard-print faux fur was carried away to be dried, Noah going with it, so Nina was alone.
When she’d woken up that morning, it seemed like weeks ago, she’d expected nothing more than a hard day of bookselling, maybe a trip to The Midnight Bell for after-work drinks. She certainly hadn’t expected, well, any of this or that their first night together was imminent.
Her heart sank when she saw that the en suite only had a shower and not the bath she was hoping for but it was probably just as well. She’d definitely fall asleep in a hot bath. As it was, even a hot shower made her want to sink to the floor of the shower cubicle and have a nap.
But there was no time for napping. Not when Nina needed to do her whole third-date-night getting-ready regime in half an hour. Washing, conditioning, depilating, exfoliating, moisturising and then trying to quickly blow-dry her hair so she’d have time to get to work with the curling tongs after.
When Noah tapped on the door thirty-seven minutes after he’d left, Nina was ready. She opened the door and his eyes widened, his mouth fell open, which was all the validation she needed. But his awestruck ‘Nina, you look absolutely gorgeous!’ was the cherry on top of the validation cake.
It was their third date, after all, and most of the time Noah had seen Nina in her hated Happy Ever After T-shirt. He’d seen her in her Land Girl dungarees. He’d seen her in a laser-tag-friendly ensemble but he’d never seen Nina in all her full glory before.
Noah’s eyes didn’t know where to focus first. At her glossy, platinum Veronica Lake-style waves or her face with brows perfectly arched and HD ready, a sweep of liquid eyeliner, false eyelashes, and matt-red lips. Many other products had happened and the finished effect was siren of the silver screen, which was further emphasised by the black satin wiggle dress that plunged in the right places and clung lovingly like a sailor on shore leave in all the other places.
‘I’m meant to be serving Old Hollywood realness,’ Nina said and finished with a giggle because she hadn’t realised how nervous she was. Or maybe it was just the way that Noah was still looking at her fishnet-clad legs, toes curling in perilously high black suede heels.
‘Mission accomplished,’ Noah said hoarsely and he took hold of Nina by the wrists, his eyes all pupil, so she wondered if they might just skip going out to dinner and move straight on to pudding but … no. He was moving her gently but firmly out of the way.
‘Give me ten minutes,’ he said, pushing her out the door. ‘That’s all the time I need to shower and put onmywarpaint,’ and Nina was laughing as she snatched up her leopard-print clutch bag from the sideboard by the door.
Their fellow guests were a young American couple, Rachel and Ford, who were touring around Europe and slightly dismayed to find themselves in Britain in a March that was mostly grey and damp.
‘We’re from Austin, Texas,’ Rachel explained as they all squashed into a car to be driven to the pub for dinner. ‘No one told us that it would be this cold.’
‘Or wet,’ Ford added glumly.
When they got to the pub, which was as charming and old-looking as any pub in Brontë country should be, Nina realised that there was no chance of ditching Rachel and Ford for a table for two.
