Page 39 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘I look what?’
She thought about it for an agonising, protracted moment, but she couldn’t help herself. She reached up and wiped her thumb along his muddy forehead. It did hardly anything,made the smear worse, maybe, but it meant her fingers could brush against his hair, feel how soft it was, in all its messy disarray.
Harry went completely still. He stared at her, his lips slightly parted. His eyes were a chaos of green and brown, his pupils inky black. She wasn’t that much shorter than him, and she knew if she tipped forwards, even slightly, they would be close enough for their breaths to mingle.
‘That’s better,’ she said, pulling her hand away.So much for backing off.
‘Thanks.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And thank you, for letting me know about Felix.’
‘Of course.’ Sophie felt silly, and guilty, and like a total fool. ‘I’d better …’
She turned away, and warm fingers wrapped around hers.
Harry tugged her back to face him. ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Sophie. I just – I’m lucky to have May, and Felix and the dogs are great, but they aren’t always …’ He shook his head. ‘I’m glad we’re doing this together.’
Sophie waited. She wanted more from him, something more explicit, but she didn’t know what, exactly, so instead she said, ‘Me too,’ and they stayed like that, looking down at their intertwined fingers for one heartbeat, two, before she let go. Then he said goodbye, got in his car, and drove his rampaging goat back to Mistingham Manor, while Sophie tried to get her head in gear for an afternoon of avoiding all Fiona’s questions.
Chapter Thirteen
Sophie had made a list in the very middle of her snowflake-covered notebook, because the middle always felt like the safest place to write things you didn’t want other people to discover. So far, it read:
Fiona
Ermin
Harry
May
Birdie
Dexter
Lucy
Annie
Winnie
She was sure Annie hadn’t given her the book, and she’d discounted Harry and May from the beginning, because until a few weeks ago she hadn’t known either of them thatwell, so they had no reason to give her anything, let alone a cryptic message about finding what she was looking for.
She had put a circle around Fiona, who was still her most likely suspect, even though that felt weak. Fiona was her closest friend in Mistingham, and it made sense that she would want Sophie to stick around, but it didn’t seem like her style: she was straight down the middle, not one for subterfuge or subtle hints.
Sophie turned to the page where the gold bookmark rested and read a couple of pages ofJane Eyre, as she had started doing whenever she was home and had a spare minute. She found Rochester’s description of Thornfield Hall, and couldn’t help thinking of how Harry saw Mistingham Manor.
… you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.
‘What do you think, Clifton?’ Her dog was standing on the arm of the sofa, looking out at the horizon. The sun was setting, the sky a pale peach, and Sophie was glad she had plans that evening. Fiona and Ermin had invited her to the pub, and she was going to make the most of it: the socializing, of course, but also being in the heart of the village, surrounded by people who might have a motive to secretly give her a book. She was going to do some drinking, some talking, and some investigating.
Stepping from the cold, dark night into the Blossom Bough was like walking into a warm, welcoming hug. The lightingwas soft, with twinkly white bulbs running along the back of the bar, providing sparkle all year round and, no doubt, soon to be joined by some more festive adornments. The walls were cream, the tables and chairs walnut, the booths and benches covered in a velvety cherry red fabric. There was no music playing in the background, no television mounted on the wall, but tea lights glimmered on all the tables, to the soft chink of glasses and hum of people enjoying a Saturday night with friends.
The one, incongruous object was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Elvis Presley wearing a garland of fake cherry blossoms. The landlady Natasha was a huge fan, though Sophie couldn’t remember the story about where the cutout had come from.
She pushed her way to the back of the pub, and found Fiona and Ermin at their favourite table, their mini schnauzer Poppet sitting underneath. Sophie set Clifton down and he greeted the other dog, his playmate on the days Ermin looked after him.
‘Hello.’ She shrugged off her coat and gestured to their half-full glasses. ‘Top-up?’
‘If you’re offering,’ Ermin said. ‘I’m having the local IPA.’
