Page 94 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘How’s your shoulder?’ she asked.
‘I think we have more important things to talk about, don’t you?’
‘If you’re injured, you need to let someone look at it.’
‘I will, but not now. I didn’t mean for you to discover …’ He glanced behind him. ‘To discover that. I was going to tell you about it.’
‘Your Secret Book Lair?’ She folded her arms.
Felix, set free from his watery cave – although he had never actually been trapped – was warming himself in front of the fire, his ears pricked up.
‘It’s not a secret,’ Harry said. ‘It’s … when Dad couldn’t run The Book Ends any more, there was a lot of stock left. Some of it went back to the wholesaler’s, some of it we passed on – to charity shops and the library in Dad’s care home – but there were still all these books, a lot of them really old, just … sitting there. And they were there for too long, because I was still in London and I didn’t make enough time, but I finally hauled them all here. When I moved back, one of the first things I did was build the annex to store them in.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Clearly, I didn’t make it stormproof.’
Sophie didn’t know what to say. All of that made sense, but it didn’t come close to explainingherbook, or Winnie or Simon’s, or why he hadn’t told her he bound books in his spare time; that they had that in common.
‘And then?’ she prompted. The fire crackled encouragingly, and Sophie wondered how the others were coping. Was May looking after Frank, Valerie and Birdie? Was Lucy OK?
‘I told you, I think, that I started to find my work in London soulless?’ Harry said, and she nodded. ‘I was in a pub one night, and there was this sign on the wall for evening courses: develop a hobby, find your passion, that sort of thing. I was feeling completely hollowed-out, really unhappy, so I looked at the website. I didn’t even know if the company existed any more. Who puts flyers up on pub walls these days?’
‘People who accidentally add an extra couple of zeros to their flyer order?’ Sophie suggested. ‘End up with twenty thousand instead of two?’
Harry looked at her, surprised. But she had to find some levity, or she’d drown in her disappointment before he got to the end of his story.
‘I did it with some expensive leather sheets,’ she explained. ‘I ordered two hundred instead of twenty. I didn’t realize until the bank called me to tell me I’d gone over my overdraft limit, and by then they were already on their way. It was four years ago, and I still have a lot left. They do make beautiful notebook covers though,’ she added pointedly, and Harry closed his eyes.
‘One of the courses they were offering was bookbinding,’ he went on. ‘It sounded archaic, so old-fashioned, but … I guess I was thinking about Dad, feeling guilty. I couldn’tcome home because then we’d have lost this place, so I just … I went to the first night. It was a small group, and I was the youngest there by a long way – apart from a girl called Destiny who was setting up an Etsy shop, who wanted to rebind romance books.
‘I didn’t really have any aims, except to lose myself in something that wasn’t about ambition or greed. And I loved it. I kept going with the sessions. Then, when I moved back here, I decided that all those old books that had been in Dad’s shop, some of which were damaged, the covers ruined – I would try and rebind them. I got the tools and the materials, set up that desk in the annex. I didn’t want to tell anyone, not until I’d seen whether I could really do it.’
‘Then what were you going to do?’ It was both heart-warming and heart-breakingthat he’d done this: felt so miserable and trapped in London, found something good that made him think of his dad. If she hadn’t been so angry, so upended by her discovery, she would have wrapped her arms around him.
‘I don’t know.’ Harry shrugged a shoulder. ‘I thought … maybe reopen The Book Ends, eventually. But it’s not quick work, I’m still pretty amateur, and the house repairs had to take priority. Clearly, I still have a long way to go with those. But I didn’t … I never meant for that copy ofJane Eyreto end up with you.’ He frowned.
Sophie’s heart thudded. ‘You didn’t?’
‘I didn’t know you had it, not at first.’
‘I told you …’ Sophie thought back, trying to remember what she’d told him about it and when. She knew she’d mentioned it, but had she given him all the details? ‘What do you mean, Harry? I don’t understand.’
‘I didn’t leave that book for you at the shop. You mentioned you’d been given a book, that you didn’t know where it had come from, but I had no idea it was one of mine. Not until …’
‘When?’ Sophie asked quietly.
‘The night I came to meet you at the village hall, the day I’d been in London. Your bag was open in my bedroom and I saw it.’
‘But you didn’t say anything?’ Sophie stood up. She had too much nervous energy to sit still any longer. She heard barking in another part of the house, and Felix’s head turned, but he didn’t leave his spot on the rug. ‘Do you know how it ended up with me? How Winnie and Simon ended up with your books too, if you’re claiming it wasn’t you?’
‘Itwasn’tme,’ Harry said. ‘I promise you. And, at the time, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain.’
‘And do you know, now?’
He nodded.
Sophie waited, her fingers tingling with tension. ‘Who was it?’ she asked, when he didn’t offer up the information.
Harry swallowed. ‘It was May.’
Sophie blinked. ‘What? Why?’
