Page 53 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘You’re committed to staying here, then?’
‘Of course.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Did you think I was going to refurbish it, then sell it and move away?’
‘I didn’t know, honestly.’ She shrugged. ‘You were in London for a long time, and you don’t always seem happy here. You don’t enjoy the consultancy work – it’s not your long-term plan – so what will you do when the house is exactly as you want it?’
He cut into a sausage, speared a piece on his fork. ‘Something more creative,’ he said. ‘Something to do with the manor, maybe. But I haven’t allowed myself to think about that yet. I’m still trying to catch up, after everything that happened with Dad. It’s not been the easiest few years.’
‘Has it helped, having May close by?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘She’s the most positive person Iknow, and it was hard to see her after she came back from America. She was so defeated by it; how the whole thing – the industry, the lifestyle – differed from her expectations. But she’s bounced back, we’ve helped each other, I think, and it’s good not to be rattling around here by myself.’
Sophie stabbed peas onto her fork, avoiding his gaze. ‘How long have you been together?’
Harry was silent for a long time, and eventually, Sophie looked up.
‘May and I aren’t together,’ he said, but he didn’t sound surprised that she’d asked. ‘We were, briefly, as teenagers – which feels like a lifetime ago – but it didn’t last. We’re good friends now, and I honestly don’t know what I would have done without her, but there are no romantic feelings there, for either of us.’
‘OK,’ Sophie said, far too brightly, and went back to her dinner.
‘I don’t think she’s spent any time thinking about what my hands are capable of,’ he murmured, and her breath caught. She looked up to find him staring at her, his expression impassive. Was he waiting for her to reply? Was he teasing her? Sometimes she had no idea what was going on behind his hazel eyes.
‘Harry—’ she started.
‘What about you and Dexter?’
‘Dexter?’
‘You’re close, aren’t you?’
‘We’re friends,’ Sophie said. ‘Just friends. It hasn’t been that long since his wife died, I have no idea if he’s even considering …’ She shook her head. ‘There’s never been anything between us.’
‘Right,’ Harry said. He nodded, then went back to his food.
In the quiet that followed, the crackling, smouldering fire seemed to echo the tension simmering between them, the atmosphere no longer comfortable but instead charged with something that, to Sophie at least, felt as if it could set the entire manor alight if they weren’t careful about it.
Once they’d finished eating, they moved to the armchairs in front of the fire.
‘Tell me about Mrs Fairweather,’ Harry said, cradling his mug of hot chocolate. He’d made it for them after he’d cleared up the plates, had even found some marshmallows in a cupboard that he assured Sophie were still in date. ‘You said she did more for you than anyone else?’
Sophie tucked her feet up under her, inhaled the sweetness coming from her mug. The dogs were drowsy and content in front of the flames, and Sophie wished she felt the same. Everything had shifted since she’d asked him about May, the boundary between them suddenly gone, making room for possibility that brought with it an undercurrent of panic. She didn’t know what to do with her newfound understanding. Mrs Fairweather was easier ground, and she was glad he’d asked.
‘She treated me like a real person,’ Sophie said. ‘She told me that my hopes were valid, that growing up the way I had shouldn’t stop me from pursuing whatever life I wanted. She bought me a beautiful notebook one Christmas, and told me that writing my thoughts down would help me to sort through them. When she saw how much I loved crafts – collages and sewing, I did leatherwork at school – she encouraged me to go to art college.’ She smiled at thememories. Mrs Fairweather had been tall and rosy-cheeked, friendly more often than she was stern, though she wouldn’t let her kids get away with much.
‘And you decided to make notebooks?’
‘Not until I’d finished college. My final piece was all about different types of paper – collages and origami, pop-up greeting cards. I made a series of tiny sculptures with pages of old books, newspapers, tissue paper – and it just … it made me feel more excited than anything else I’d considered doing. I started small, getting to know the different processes and techniques around bar jobs and waitressing, spending whatever spare wages I had on supplies.’
‘You must have been dedicated, to get to where you are now.’
She smiled. ‘Partly. I was devastated when Mrs Fairweather retired, but I was seventeen, so I wouldn’t have been able to stay with her much longer anyway. We kept in touch, mostly by email, but she died four years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you.’ She swallowed. ‘I was lucky to have her, and even luckier that she left me some money in her will. It’s been a big help, allowed me to focus more on my business. It’s never been the most lucrative of livings, but I’m building up a good customer base now, and I wouldn’t want to do anything else.’
‘Didn’t Fiona say something about the old sweet shop?’ Harry frowned. ‘I’m sure she mentioned it … a while ago?’
Sophie’s stomach flipped. ‘She suggested that I might be able to rent it out, have a permanent home for my notebooks, as well as somewhere more suitable to make them. It would be an investment, but I could work on moredesigns, buy in other stationery lines: pens and letter holders, quirky things that tourists would love.’
