True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop Annie Darling It's a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good job, four bossy sisters and a needy cat must also have want of her one true love. Isn’t it?Another delightful novel from the author of THE LITTLE BOOKSHOP OF LONELY HEARTS. Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny ColganVerity Love – Jane Austen fangirl and an introvert in a world of extroverts – is perfectly happy on her own (thank you very much), and her fictional boyfriend Peter is very useful for getting her out of unwanted social events. But when a case of mistaken identity forces her to introduce a perfect stranger as her boyfriend, Verity’s life suddenly becomes much more complicated.Johnny could also use a fictional girlfriend. Against Verity’s better judgement, he persuades her to partner up for a summer season of weddings, big number birthdays and garden parties, with just one promise – not to fall in love with each other… Copyright (#ulink_2a4f439b-60bc-5c6e-a58e-75bb72d67429) Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017 Copyright © Annie Darling 2017 Cover design by Heike Sch?ssler © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017 Cover illustration © Carrie May Annie Darling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008173142 Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780008281366 Version: 2018-09-27 Dedication (#ulink_a094bd13-4b02-5bf7-a7fc-4bf3b06ad3c7) Dedicated to my beloved Mr Mackenzie. He would like you to know that he’s appalled at any similarities between himself and Strumpet and he intends to sue. Contents Cover (#ua1fc4a87-1d01-5fc9-853f-9f0c7721dc71) Title Page (#u51d0146c-a30a-5d57-a698-d1a2bfb36ef7) Copyright (#u19bfd930-40b2-50bc-9c73-6c25a3afb15f) Dedication (#u0cb24b6b-d075-5ce9-8690-6a04435f8068) Chapter 1 (#u484d5f7e-7ed7-5af7-b4e2-074e2498cba1) Chapter 2 (#u74182df6-f677-56a0-8848-7eb563e080f1) Chapter 3 (#u0eb6f4a0-b5d3-564c-8c9b-ec4361e45638) Chapter 4 (#u8dcaac5f-a7c2-50c9-8ee0-432b3a08c888) Chapter 5 (#ubeb4a5ba-b51a-520c-b5eb-4f87d2346a37) Chapter 6 (#u662d4346-f45e-5ba6-99fb-ea617f854883) Chapter 7 (#ub3d5d32a-d8a4-5711-be85-da0ea318d18f) Chapter 8 (#ud6243e2d-9e6f-5d07-b1b2-a467eab370f0) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo) Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo) Bonus content for True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also by Annie Darling (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) (#ulink_90aa44e9-79f5-535b-9098-0e17424cd92d) 1 (#ulink_90aa44e9-79f5-535b-9098-0e17424cd92d) ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ Peter Hardy, oceanographer, was the god of boyfriends. He was good-looking: blond and tanned from all that time spent diving into oceans in exotic locations, his eyes as blue as those deep seas he mapped, but not ridiculously, intimidatingly good-looking. He was also clever. After all, you couldn’t be an oceanographer without a clutch of A-levels and at least a couple of degrees. He had a great sense of humour too – a little bit dry, a little bit goofy, and was particularly skilled at sourcing hilarious cat videos on YouTube. But don’t think Peter Hardy’s perfect boyfriend credentials ended there. He always remembered to call his mother on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, was punctual to a fault and if he was going to be more than five minutes late, not that he ever was, he sent an apologetic text. He was also both attentive and enthusiastic in bed, but not into anything too weird. Peter Hardy would never ask a girl to dress up in a pink rubber catsuit or slap him around the face with a wet sock. Whichever way you looked at it, Peter Hardy was a prime catch, a paragon of boyfriendly virtue, and Verity Love, though she was a vicar’s daughter and meant to lead by example, was going to have to kill him off at the first opportunity. No time like the present, Verity thought as she clutched a glass of vinegary Pinot Noir and smiled weakly at her friends, who were still fangirling Peter Hardy, boyfriend extraordinaire. ‘He sounds so lovely. Sweet but manly,’ Posy said enthusiastically. ‘Now, when are we actually going to meet him?’ ‘Well, you know how it is. He’s so busy with his job. I mean, he’s hardly ever around. That’s starting to become a problem when …’ ‘We get it. You want to keep him all to yourself.’ Nina nodded. ‘We’ve all been there, but Very, it’s been months and months. You can’t keep your hot oceanographer boyfriend locked away indefinitely.’ ‘Has it really been that long?’ Of course it had. It was now the end of June and Peter had conveniently come along at the end of the previous November to save Verity from flying solo for the Christmas party season. In fact, she’d been a no-show for most of the festivities but who could blame her for bailing when she was feasting on prime oceanographer goodness after a three-year dry spell? ‘Gosh, it’s been over six months! Wow!’ ‘Don’t be so coy. I bet you’re still in the first throes of mad shagging, what with him being away so much,’ Nina said. She tucked her currently platinum-blonde hair behind her ears then sighed a little. ‘Oh God, I miss being in the first throes of mad shagging, before you start arguing about whose turn it is to take the bins out or why he’s physically incapable of putting the loo seat down.’ Verity took another fortifying gulp of wine. They were sitting in the pub just around the corner from the Bloomsbury bookshop formerly known as Bookends where they all worked, and now known as Happy Ever After since Posy had inherited it a few months before and transformed it into a ‘one stop shop for all your romantic fiction needs’. Many an evening after a hard day’s bookselling, the staff retreated to The Midnight Bell. It was a tiny pub, which still had its 1930s Arts & Crafts wood panelling intact and art deco tiles in the loos. You could also get a bottle of wine and two grab bags of crisps for under a tenner before eight so who cared that it reeked of chlorine from the swimming pool of the health club a couple of doors down and they could never put their bags on the floor because they’d get slobbered on by Tess, the pub dog? Tess could sniff out half a bag of Bombay mix or an apple lurking at the bottom of a bag at fifty paces. ‘Actually, talking of Peter, I don’t think we’re going to last much longer,’ Verity said hurriedly then drained the last sour dribble left in her glass and forced herself to look at Posy and Nina, who had both assumed matching expressions of goggle-eyed dismay. ‘No!’ ‘You said he was perfect!’ ‘I didn’t say he was perfect,’ Verity protested. ‘You said he was perfect. I just said that he was quite nice.’ ‘He is perfect.’ Posy was absolutely not to be swayed. Even though Posy was a newlywed, there were times when Verity thought that Posy was more into Peter Hardy than she was. Though considering that Posy had plighted her troth with the rudest man in London, maybe her preference for Peter Hardy wasn’t that surprising. ‘Why would you not hang on to a man like that with every last ounce of strength in your body?’ ‘Because he’ll never love me as much as he loves, um, oceans and the sea can be a very cruel mistress.’ Verity was pretty sure she’d stolen that line from Moby Dick. Or possibly Titanic. Something featuring a lot of sea. ‘He’s away all the time and if things did get serious, if we had children, what kind of security would we have, knowing that he could be eaten by a shark or that his diving suit might spring a leak at any minute?’ ‘I didn’t know that oceanographers worked in shark-infested waters,’ Nina said with a frown. ‘Aren’t there health and safety rules about that kind of thing?’ ‘They make them sign a waiver.’ Enough was enough. This had gone on too long. Verity stood up on wobbly legs that weren’t as strong as her resolve. ‘I really have to go.’ ‘But we haven’t even finished the first bottle!’ Nina held up the offending bottle to show Verity the trickle of wine that was left in it. ‘And it’s not even half-past seven. Are you sickening for something?’ ‘Something like Peter Hardy, oceanographer?’ Posy asked with a sly smile. Verity shook her head as she picked up her bag. ‘I don’t know why you say his name like that. Like oceanographer is the second bit of his surname. Anyway, I’m sorry to bail but I did say I could only stay for a bit. You know I don’t like to go straight from work to a social situation.’ ‘Oh my God, you’re meeting Peter Hardy right now, aren’t you? Are you going to break up with him?’ Nina looked like Marilyn Monroe’s tattooed and pierced younger sister, but she’d once told Verity that she’d been an awkward teenager (‘buck teeth, braces and bee-stings for boobs’) and had made up for it by being animated. She’d long grown into her spectacular, fifties pin-up girl prettiness but still had an exaggerated expression for every situation. Now she widened her big blue eyes, wrinkled her nose and let her mouth hang open. ‘I haven’t decided. Maybe.’ Verity inched herself out from where she was trapped in the corner and almost fell over Tess, a stout Staffordshire bull terrier, who’d barrelled over to see if there might be some crisps going spare. ‘But you can’t break up with him before we’ve had a chance to meet him,’ Posy lamented. ‘Can we come too? Just long enough to say hello …’ ‘You don’t need to say hello to him, you’re married,’ Verity pointed out. Posy gave a start. ‘Oh God, so I am! I keep forgetting.’ She gathered herself. ‘Anyway, it’s not Victorian times. Married women are allowed to say hello to men who are not their husbands.’ She shook her head and let out a breath. ‘I still can’t believe I have a husband. Ugh! Sebastian Thorndyke is my husband. How the hell did that even happen?’ It had happened during a whirlwind few weeks in which Posy had relaunched the bookshop and through some strange and bizarre series of events that Verity still couldn’t begin to process had fallen in love with Sebastian, her arch nemesis, and married him a couple of weeks ago at Camden Town Hall. There’d barely been time to chuck confetti at the allegedly happy couple before they’d hurried over the road to St Pancras station to catch the Eurostar so they could celebrate their wedding in Paris before the ink had dried on their marriage certificate. No wonder that when Posy wasn’t walking about with a blissed-out smile on her face, she looked rather dazed. Now Verity took advantage of Posy’s dazedness to back away from their corner table. ‘You should probably go home to Sebastian now. I mean, technically you are on your honeymoon, aren’t you?’ ‘Don’t go. Don’t be one of those women who forgets her friends just because she got married,’ Nina pouted and as Posy turned to her, Verity took the opportunity to hurry for the door even though Nina shouted after her, ‘But why isn’t Peter Hardy on Facebook? That’s just weird!’ It was weird but then as Verity had explained to them, and her sister, Merry, had backed her up, being an oceanographer meant that Peter was in the employ of several governments and knew lots of confidential information about climate change so he wasn’t allowed to use social media. Something like that anyway. It had rained while she’d sat in the pub. Verity could smell the heavenly scent of petrichor rising up from the damp, hot summer pavements as she walked along the slick cobblestones of Rochester Street, past the shops she knew so well: the Swedish deli, the old-fashioned sweet shop, the boutiques. Verity did think briefly of going home but the flat above Happy Ever After, which Posy had offered to Verity and Nina rent-free, didn’t feel like home yet. Besides, it was Friday evening, the start of the weekend, and Verity had Friday evening rituals and routines that were set in stone. Verity rounded the corner into Theobald’s Road, hurrying past shops and offices and the estate agent with the brightly coloured Eames chairs, then turned left onto Southampton Row, which was bustling and brightly lit, full of people hurrying to meet friends or standing outside pubs in happy, chattery clumps. Verity ducked down a tiny road on her right, past a pub even more charming and olde worlde than The Midnight Bell, and stopped when she came to a small Italian restaurant. Its paintwork was red, its windows were steamed with condensation and when Verity pulled open the door she was greeted by the sound of people laughing and talking, glasses clinking, and a nose-twitching aroma of garlic and herbs. Verity had discovered Il Fornello one Friday night several years ago when she’d been walking the streets (not like that – she was a vicar’s daughter) to delay going back home. Home had been a double room she shared with her sister Merry in a house in Islington owned by the daughter of one of her father’s parishioners. The family had five children, a Spanish au pair, two bichon frises, one rabbit, a couple of guinea pigs and a goldfish. The noise and the smell were often overpowering. And to compound matters, Verity was also newly single after three years with Adam, her ex-boyfriend. It hadn’t been a good break-up, far from it, and it was very hard to brood in a noisy, smelly house where she didn’t even have her own room. So, that long-ago evening, footsore and heartsore, and even though the thought of dining on her own in a restaurant made Verity break out in a cold sweat, she’d been lured into Il Fornello by Luigi, the owner, who then, like now, was coming forward to greet her. ‘Ah! Miss Very! You’re late tonight. We’d almost given up on you. Your usual table?’ ‘Had to make a quick stop on the way.’ As she made her way to her usual table (tucked away in the corner so she wouldn’t be bothered by any lone wolves hoping to strike up a conversation) Verity looked back to check that she’d closed the door only to see Posy and Nina peering in at the window. Oh, they hadn’t! They bloody well had! Their curiosity about Peter Hardy, oceanographer, had triumphed over common sense and they’d followed her. Now they were sure to burst in once they spotted Verity rooted to the spot amid the rustic tables and benches. Her heart quickened even as time seemed to slow down until it came to a grinding halt, much like Verity had. She let out a shaky breath. It would be all right. She could handle this; brazen it out. Except brazen was never a word that could be applied to Verity Love. She had only two options. Fight or flight, and Verity chose flight every time. She could race up the stairs to the ladies, lock herself in and refuse to come out. Except, that wasn’t a plan. It was ridiculous. She was a fully functioning adult and would simply have to stand her ground and come up with an excuse. Say that Peter Hardy, oceanographer, had stood her up and actually, she had tried to tell them that he’d been rather distant of late, oceans between them, etc. This could be the perfect opportunity to kill him off … but Verity was well aware of her own limitations and winging it was one of them. Think! Think! For the love of God, think! Verity looked wildly around the room, dimly aware of Luigi still at her side. ‘You’ve gone bright red, Miss Very. Are you all right? It’s very humid tonight, isn’t it? I hope you’re not going down with something.’ Down with this ship, Verity thought helplessly and then she saw him. He was sitting at a table for two at the back of the room, an empty chair just waiting for her to skid over to it and sit down, which she did, hoping against hope that his date wasn’t in the loo. The man frowned and looked up from his phone. He was young enough. Thirties anyway. No noticeable neck tattoos, wasn’t wearing anything horrible, just a plain white shirt under a jumper that almost matched the colour of his startled blue-green eyes. He’ll do, Verity decided. At a pinch, he’ll do. ‘Hello?’ He said it coldly, like a question. Like, who the hell are you and why are you sitting down at my table? Verity risked a glance back at the room to see that her worst fears had been realised. Nina and Posy had come in and were looking round for her. Then Posy caught sight of Verity and nudged Nina who waved at her. Verity turned back to the solo diner. Oh God, he didn’t look very happy. ‘I’m so sorry about this. Are you on your own?’ He looked down at his phone and frowned again. Though really he hadn’t stopped frowning, it was more that his frown had deepened. ‘Apparently so.’ The frown evened out and he smiled at her tightly, perfunctorily. ‘I know the restaurant’s busy but I’d rather eat on my own, if you don’t m—’ ‘Very! Don’t pretend that you can’t see us!’ Verity closed her eyes and wished that not being able to see Nina and Posy would mean that they couldn’t see her either. Sadly, life was never that kind. ‘Please,’ she whimpered. ‘I beg of you. Just go along with this. Please.’ ‘Go along with what?’ he asked, but it was too late. Verity felt hands land heavily on her shoulders and smelt the heavy rose fragrance that Nina favoured. ‘Very! Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ (#ulink_c1fdbf0a-c2b6-5c91-bfb7-4d0d985dff91) 2 (#ulink_c1fdbf0a-c2b6-5c91-bfb7-4d0d985dff91) ‘I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.’ Verity kept her eyes shut and sat there frozen in an agony of mortification. Her shame lasted for aeons or maybe only a few seconds, until she felt a slight displacement of air, then something that felt like cashmere brushed against her cheek and a voice said, ‘I’m Johnny.’ She reluctantly opened her eyes. He, the man, Johnny, had stood up to shake hands with Posy and Nina, who pulled her confused face. ‘Johnny? You’re not Peter Hardy, oceanographer, then?’ Nina’s voice was breathy with gleeful horror. At some later date, Verity was going to kill her. After they’d had words, post-watershed words. There were rules about this sort of thing. You didn’t catch a friend allegedly cheating on her alleged boyfriend, then rat her out to the man she was cheating on him with. You just didn’t. It was against the basic rules of feminism. Johnny looked down at Verity, who shut her eyes again because his expression was the absolute opposite of encouraging. ‘No, not Peter,’ she managed to say, even though it was hard to squeeze the words out past the lump in her throat and the dead weight that was her tongue. ‘I didn’t actually say I was going to meet Peter. You just assumed.’ At least now the worst was over and Verity could just lie. Lie through her teeth. Say that Johnny was the son of one of her father’s parishioners (her father’s parishioners had, conveniently, a lot of children between them) and they’d arranged to meet here because he needed some spiritual guidance. Even though spiritual guidance was really more her father’s department. ‘Anyway, Johnny is—’ ‘I know this is still quite a new thing but I didn’t realise that you were seeing other people too. Just who is Peter Hardy, oceanographer? Is he someone I should be worried about?’ Verity could feel the heat sweep across her chest, up her neck, along her cheeks so that even her earlobes felt as if they’d been plunged into boiling-hot water. She’d been hoisted by her own petard, ‘h-ed by her own p,’ as her family was fond of saying, and this had now gone from bad to worse to verging on absolutely bloody catastrophic. ‘Verity Love, you bad, bad girl!’ Posy gasped in delight. ‘You never said anything about juggling two men. And you a vicar’s daughter, too!’ It was their go-to line whenever Verity did anything even a little bit not good. From swearing, to saying uncharitable things about reality TV contestants, to apparently playing two men off against each other. ‘Oh, well, the thing is … Gosh … I don’t really know …’ Whole sentences would be great. Would be peachy, in fact. Verity felt hands on her shoulders once more, squeezing her gently, then Nina rested her chin on top of Verity’s head. ‘Please don’t get the wrong idea about Very,’ she said and Verity steeled herself for Nina to overshare on her behalf. Knowing Nina, she’d probably tell this unimpressed-looking stranger that Peter Hardy left Verity on her own far too much when he was away on ocean-related business and that Verity had needs and so she wasn’t to be blamed for letting her attentions wander. It was something that Nina had often pondered aloud, usually when the shop was full of customers, because Nina had no respect for other people’s boundaries. ‘Let me tell you about this woman. This woman once borrowed her landlord’s car and drove through a rainstorm on a school night to pick me up from a campsite in Derbyshire where I’d been abandoned by my bastard ex-boyfriend. She’s got the kindest heart of anyone I know.’ The man, Johnny, was still standing up. He was lean and tall, tall enough that Verity had to tip her head back to catch the considered look he gave her as if there might be something more to her than a presumptuous, gatecrashing liar. ‘Look, we haven’t had the talk about whether we were exclusive or not yet. I mean, we haven’t even been on one date.’ Verity had managed to spit out two complete sentences and she’d managed not to lie. Well, hardly lie. And it was all going to be fine because Johnny sat back down and smiled, not tightly this time but lazily, as if this was all an amusing distraction from whatever he’d been frowning about before. ‘No time like the present for that talk, I think. Ladies, it was a pleasure, I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.’ They only backed away when Verity turned and gave them a look that said very plainly, ‘I can think of at least ten ways to kill the pair of you and make it look like an accident.’ She could have quite happily stayed like that forever, but Posy and Nina were at the door, giving her double thumbs up and mouthing things like ‘Get in there!’ and ‘You go girl!’ until Johnny pointedly cleared his throat and Verity had to turn around. ‘I’m so sorry. I panicked and I couldn’t think what else to do,’ Verity confessed, as she stared down at her white-knuckled hands clenched around the lip of the table. She had a splodge of black ink on her thumb. ‘Probably not as sorry as Peter Hardy, the oceanographer.’ ‘There is no Peter Hardy. Look, I really am sorry and I’ve taken up enough of your time—’ ‘What exactly do you mean when you say there’s no Peter Hardy?’ Johnny’s voice was cultured and precise, which was just a fancy way of saying posh, but also warm, like he was smiling, though Verity could neither confirm nor deny this as she was still gazing at the ink splodge on her thumb. Verity looked up. There hadn’t been time before to do anything other than check that he was in full working order, but now she could see why Posy and Nina had been practically shoving each other out of the way to get a better look at him. But who could blame Posy and Nina when this Johnny was actually very handsome in a Brideshead Revisited, oh-yes-in-my-spare-time-I-do-a-spot-of-modelling-for-Burberry way? He was high of cheekbone and if he weren’t smiling then his full lips, lush and pillow-y, would look positively sulky. He had thick, glossy brown hair cropped close at the back and sides, then left free to roam on top so he could keep pushing it back, all the better to display his ridiculous cheekbones and eyes which were bluey green or maybe even greeny blue and it would probably be a good idea to stop gazing into them like a small woodland animal trapped in the crosshairs. He was a grown-up version of the pale, sneering boys doing Foundation Art at the local college that Verity had yearned after when she was a teenager. Sadly, those boys had always sneered at her yearning because she was one of the vicar’s five odd daughters and she wasn’t beautiful enough for the oddness not to be an issue. She wasn’t hideous either, not by any stretch of the imagination, but still Verity had never once managed to get their attention. Not like this stranger who was waiting a little impatiently, if the drumming of his fingers on the table was anything to go by, for her to start speaking. Peter Hardy, oceanographer. Where to begin? Well, she could always start with the truth. ‘So, um, Peter Hardy started from a silly conversation with my sister Merry about what my perfect boyfriend would be like. Eventually we had a whole back story for him but he was only ever an imaginary boyfriend, until my friends … they mean well … but you see, they kept trying to set me up with any random man going spare or signing me up for dating sites and, oh God, do you know about that dating app, HookUpp?’ He shuddered. ‘Everyone in my office under thirty is obsessed with it.’ ‘I was forced to install it on my phone because it was easier than explaining for the hundredth time why I wasn’t interested in a relationship, then one night I left my phone on the table in the pub while I went to the loo and when I came back, they’d been up-swiping some absolute horrors and I suddenly heard myself saying that I already had a boyfriend and his name was Peter Hardy.’ ‘The oceanographer.’ Johnny nodded again. ‘Do you want a drink, Very Love?’ Hearing her name said in that dark-grey velvet voice made her name sound less like a cheesy Valentine’s card translated from English to Japanese and back to English again. She suppressed a shiver. ‘It’s Verity, really. My name. But everyone calls me Very. Sorry.’ Verity really should have made her excuses and tucked herself away in her usual corner, but she agreed that a drink would be nice and then Luigi hurried over so they could order a glass of Malbec each. It was easy to pick up the thread again that stitched together all of Verity’s dating woes. She’d been single for three years, after her first, last and only relationship had imploded spectacularly and messily and painfully. After the fallout of fallouts with Adam, Verity was happy to be single, but the world wasn’t happy that she was happy. ‘They’re not being mean, my friends. They’re really not. It’s just most of them are coupled up or obsessed with being coupled up and they expect me to want to be one half of a couple too. Also, they have very low standards when it comes to picking out dates for me.’ Verity winced at the memory of an awkward blind date with a man Nina had met at a party who turned out to be what he called a ‘full-time dominant’ and wanted to know if Verity ‘needed a man in her life who could wield some affectionate but firm control?’ Verity hadn’t known what to say but luckily her most glacial look had said it all for her. ‘I get set up by my friends too. It hasn’t been a great success,’ Johnny said as their drinks arrived. He lifted up his glass so Verity could clink hers against it. ‘Cheers. And judging from the women they try to pair me with, it seems like my friends think very little of me. Usually it’s girls who are so young that I feel like I need to ask them to provide photo ID, or bitter divorcees. The last one wanted to take out a hit on her ex-husband. Of course when I complain, my friends accuse me of being picky. Say that I should settle.’ ‘That’s why I went with the fake boyfriend. It’s also very convenient that his job means that he’s not around much.’ Verity couldn’t believe that she was talking about her imaginary boyfriend with a complete stranger. ‘I’m absolutely one hundred per cent happy being single but I’m having a hard time getting my friends on board with that.’ Johnny pursed his lips thoughtfully, which did delightful things to his mouth. ‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right person.’ ‘I don’t want to meet the right person. I have a busy job, great friends, an extremely needy cat. I don’t need anyone else in my life.’ Verity clutched her glass tighter. ‘So, what’s your story, then? Surely you can’t have any trouble meeting women?’ Johnny ducked his head. Verity was sure it was to hide his pleased but bashful smile. He must have mirrors in his house so he could see that he was very pleasing aesthetically. ‘No, no trouble meeting women.’ Of course! It was obvious. Now that she was no longer crucified on the altar of her own embarrassment, Verity could process the raw data sitting opposite her. No man could look like that and … ‘Oh, right. You’re gay. OK. And you haven’t told your friends? Really? Well, it’s none of my business, I suppose.’ ‘I’m flattered that you seem to think that,’ Johnny said, his voice all barbed wire now, instead of velvet vowels. ‘You didn’t even make it a question, just an unequivocal statement, but no, not gay.’ Verity put her hands to her crimson cheeks. ‘Sorry. I don’t usually run around outing people … One of my best friends from uni is gay. And two cousins. I’m all about the LGBT rights. I love the gays!’ ‘Well, I’m glad to hear that but I’m still not gay.’ Johnny’s eyes were a very definite blue now. Like the sea in winter; frost-tipped and cold. Verity suspected that he was a Darcy. It was very rare to meet a Darcy. It probably came from having read Pride and Prejudice so many times that she knew it off by heart, but on meeting new people, Verity always found herself assigning them roles in Pride and Prejudice. She’d met a lot of Jane Bennets and Charles Bingleys, far too many Mr Collinses, an occasional Wickham, but a Darcy was rarer than a single man in possession of a good fortune who was in actual want of a wife. And actually meeting a Darcy wasn’t that much fun. In fact, it was unbelievably awkward for a count of ten, then Johnny’s phone beeped. As he picked it up Verity realised that there was no good reason to stay and suffer. She said goodbye, quickly got up, though Johnny was riveted to his phone and gave no acknowledgement of her hasty departure. ‘Stick both glasses on my tab,’ she yelped at Luigi who still couldn’t hide his disbelief that Verity had broken with her usual Friday night routine for the first time in three years. Not only that, she’d also been seen in the company of a man. (#ulink_4915af67-9ec3-50ab-bc07-f186bf950494) 3 (#ulink_4915af67-9ec3-50ab-bc07-f186bf950494) ‘This is an evening of wonders, indeed!’ Her plans for dinner thwarted, Verity retraced her steps back to Rochester Street and There’s No Plaice Like Home for a small cod and chips and a tub of mushy peas to go. ‘And can you take your cat with you?’ asked Liz from behind the counter. ‘Been out the back for hours making an awful sound.’ ‘I’m so sorry,’ Verity muttered. She’d only moved into the flat above Happy Ever After the week before and had been determined to keep Strumpet indoors for at least a month so he could acclimatise to his new home and not make tracks back to Islington. But as soon as Strumpet had realised that his new home was less than one hundred metres from a chippy and a Swedish deli with a smokehouse in its backyard for curing salmon, he’d become determined in his efforts to make an escape. Usually the laziest and most languid of moggies, lately Strumpet had taken to racing through any open door so he could taste freedom … And fish. Verity had been reduced to putting posters up all along Rochester Street featuring a photo of Strumpet in all his fully fleshed glory and begging her neighbours ‘Please do not feed this cat. He’s on a strict calorie-controlled diet.’ Strumpet hadn’t got the memo about the diet. He was at the back door of the chippy, up on his hind legs (Verity was amazed that they could support the rest of him) as he demanded entrance. ‘What are you doing?’ Verity demanded but Strumpet pretended that he couldn’t hear her. He did that a lot. Somehow he managed to remain deaf to Verity’s pleas to leave her alone and stop using her face as a pillow but could hear a sliver of cheese being munched from several rooms away in the middle of a thunderstorm. In the end, Strumpet would only let himself be lured away from the chippy by Verity breaking off a tailpiece from her own fish supper. Then she scooped him up and carried him, furiously squirming, along the street and into the cobbled mews where Happy Ever After n?e Bookends had stood for over a hundred years. Rochester Mews had really smartened up its act in the last few weeks. True, there was still a row of empty, dilapidated shops along one side of it, but Happy Ever After was resplendent with its new smudgy-grey and clover-pink makeover. Verity hadn’t quite got used to the burst of pride in her chest (though some of that burst was currently Strumpet’s claws) when she caught sight of her place of employment and her new home. She wasn’t the only local resident pleased about Happy Ever After’s change in fortune. Since Posy had spruced up the wooden benches and pruned the trees in the mews, it had become the preferred hangout of a gang of hoodies from the nearby estate who now congregated at the benches most evenings to smoke weed. Nina had asked them if they’d mind smoking weed somewhere else, but apparently all their usual haunts ran the risk of them being spotted by a parent or teacher. They had agreed that they’d only assemble after closing hours and Nina and Verity had decided it was best to stay friendly and establish an emotional rapport with them. ‘All right, Very? You be looking fine, girl,’ the smallest hoodie said and Verity smiled in a way that she hoped was polite but not the least bit encouraging and hurried over to Happy Ever After, keys clutched in her hand so they could double up as a weapon if need be. Strumpet still unhappily wriggling under her arm, Verity unlocked the door and stepped inside the shop. She took one moment for another burst of pride as she surveyed the shelves, some of which she’d painstakingly painted herself, and inhaled the whiff of new books and the lingering scent of the Happy Ever After candle they’d had specially commissioned. The large main room of the shop where Verity stood had space for three sofas in various stages of sagging decay arranged around a display table, which doubled up as a lovely shrine for Lavinia, their late and erstwhile boss, featuring her favourite books (from Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love to Jilly Cooper’s Riders) and a vase of her trademark pink roses. One of the walls was completely lined with books, the other taken up with vintage display cabinets full of romance-novel-related giftware from mugs and the aforementioned scented candles to stationery, jewellery, T-shirts, greeting cards and wrapping paper. And tote bags. Posy was obsessed with tote bags. Then on the left and the right of the main room were arches that led to a series of anterooms, each section – Classics, Historical, Regency, YA, Poems and Plays, even Erotica – signposted in clover pink on the grey woodwork. And finally, at the furthest reaches of the anterooms on the left, were a set of glass double doors, which led to the tearoom. Or it would open as a tearoom in approximately two weeks but currently it was a work in progress and the bane of Verity’s existence but not quite as much of a bane as Strumpet who had now reached peak-squirm. Verity quickly locked the shop door behind her then gratefully relinquished her grip on nine kilograms of wriggling blue British shorthair cat. ‘You are a pain in the arse,’ Verity told Strumpet who stalked over to the counter, then stood by the door that separated the shop from the stairs to the flat, swishing his tail and meowing impatiently. ‘You can meow all you want, I’m not sharing my dinner with you,’ Verity told him, as she followed him up the stairs. ‘I’m going into the living room and shutting the door so I can’t hear another peep out of you. It’s been a long day and I need quiet.’ The meowing increased in fury and decibels. Other people had cats who were silent and judgemental; Verity longed to have a cat like that. She resigned herself to the fact that when she put her fish and chips and mushy peas on a plate and poured herself a glass of red wine, she’d have Strumpet in her lap, face all up in her dinner. But if Strumpet was eating, then at least he’d be quiet. Quiet. Verity stood at the top of the stairs and took one deep breath. Her shoulders dropped, her limbs slackened as she let that breath out. She closed her eyes, allowed herself another deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and already she could feel the strains of the week and, in particular, the traumatic events of the last two hours, ebbing away to be replaced by a lovely sense of calm and tranquil— ‘HIYA!!! I let myself in, hope you don’t mind.’ The living room door crashed back on its hinges. ‘Oh! Are you doing your mindfulness meditation bollocks? Why are you doing it at the top of the stairs? Do you need me to shut up? It’s all right. You won’t even know I’m here.’ Verity opened her eyes all the better to glare at her sister. As ever, it was like looking at herself through an extremely flattering Instagram filter. Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s wife, as Verity’s parents were usually known, had the good fortune to be blessed with five daughters. Con, the eldest, Merry, then Verity and, bringing up the rear, were twins, Immy and Chatty. Unlike their sisters who had inherited the lean athleticism of their father’s side of the family, Merry and Verity both favoured their mother. They were decidedly shorter but ‘slender’ as Merry would have it, though Verity thought ‘scrawny’ was more accurate. Though their Great Aunt Helen never failed to remind them that the women on their mother’s side all ran to fat in later years. They also both had indeterminate hair that was neither straight nor curly but any point in between depending on the weather, and which tended towards mousy in winter and not quite so mousy in summer. They had wide-set brown eyes under delicately arched brows, but Merry looked softer and sweeter while Verity already had frown lines on her forehead. Certainly, Merry had sucked every last drop of confidence and self-belief out of the gene pool, leaving none for Verity, though the gene pool had replenished itself in time for the arrival of Immy and Chatty. Still, that didn’t mean that Verity was going to go down without a fight. ‘I gave you a key, against my better judgement, to be used only in an emergency.’ Merry glared back at her. ‘Dougie’s pulled the evening shift this weekend and I was bored.’ As far as Verity’s sisters were concerned, being bored was a state of emergency. Verity shook her head and sighed. ‘Don’t sigh at me, Very!’ Merry dogged Verity’s heels at the same time as Strumpet almost tripped her over as she headed for the kitchen. ‘You have the most passive aggressive sighs of anyone I’ve ever heard,’ she added as Verity unloaded her fish, chips and mushy peas onto a plate, grabbed knife, fork and glass then tucked a bottle of red wine under her arm. ‘That’s an awfully big portion. Can I have some?’ ‘No! I’m going into the living room. I’m shutting the door and you’re not to bother me for thirty whole minutes. Let’s synchronise watches.’ Merry looked at her watch and muttered the time out loud but with bad grace and a pout that Verity ignored. She was immune to pouts. ‘What am I meant to do while you’re eating dinner and refusing to give me any even though I haven’t eaten yet?’ ‘You can draw on your reserves of inner strength,’ Verity said without any sympathy. ‘You must have some.’ Then she shut the lounge door in Merry’s sulky face and Strumpet’s outraged one, deposited her plate on the coffee table and collapsed on the sofa. It was a very comfortable sofa, in a rather garish floral print. Verity stretched out and even though her fish and chips would soon be cold, she shut her eyes and tuned out everything, even the sound of Strumpet yowling from the other side of the door. The door which suddenly swung open and, a second later, Strumpet landed on Verity’s chest, knocking the wind out of her. Merry stuck her head in. ‘Can I have some of the cheese in the fridge?’ she asked plaintively. ‘Yes!’ Verity replied through gritted teeth. ‘Take this cat with you.’ The next interruption came after Verity had managed twenty deep breaths. ‘Sorry, it’s just you took the whole bottle with you and I wondered if I could have some wine.’ The door closed behind Merry and Verity’s bottle of wine, only to be opened again immediately. ‘Sorry! It’s just I have cheese and wine and now I need crackers. Do you have crackers?’ Verity kicked her legs out in pure exasperation. ‘“Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”’ She swung herself into an upright position. ‘You might as well come in. That was your plan all along.’ ‘“I have the highest respect for your nerves, they are my old friends,”’ Merry said, quoting Pride and Prejudice right back at Verity. ‘Can I nick some of your chips?’ Verity gave in to the inevitable. ‘Knock yourself out. Also, I have some sad news.’ Merry turned to her sister with a mouth full of lukewarm chips. ‘Oh?’ ‘I’ve had to kill off Peter Hardy. Or rather Posy and Nina caught me cheating on him.’ Verity would have preferred to mull on her predicament in silence but that wasn’t going to be an option so she quickly hit the highlights for her sister. ‘Really, it’s all their fault,’ Verity mused unhappily after she’d finished blaming Posy and Nina for forcing her into the path of another man. ‘But, Very, your fake boyfriend was only meant to stick around long enough to get you through the Christmas party season,’ Merry reminded her. It was Verity’s turn to pout. ‘Shouldn’t a fake boyfriend be for life, not just for Christmas?’ ‘How would that even work? Would you have had fake children too at some point? Maybe even a fake dog?’ ‘Not a fake dog. Strumpet prefers to be an only child,’ Verity said as they heard the shop door suddenly slam shut, then the sound of footsteps growing louder as someone thundered up the stairs until Nina appeared in the living room doorway. ‘Oh. My. God!’ she announced by way of greeting. ‘Have you met him, Merry? Have you met the gorgeous piece of posh totty that your sister has been seeing when she was meant to be in love with Peter Hardy, oceanographer?’ ‘I haven’t!’ Merry said gleefully. She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Anyway, Peter Hardy’s been on the outs for ages. So, this other guy – Very’s kept him all to herself. Is he fit?’ ‘Not just fit, but foxy too. And he’s got one of those voices, like Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston. You know? Knicker-dropping voices,’ Nina said, pulling out her phone. ‘I managed to get a picture of him. It’s a bit blurry though.’ ‘Lemme see!’ Merry practically climbed over her sister to get to Nina’s phone. ‘Such a pity that the back of your head is in the way, Very. You might have thought to shift to one side.’ ‘I’ll be sure to remember that next time,’ Verity said. She munched ruminatively on a now cold chip. ‘So, tell me everything,’ Nina demanded, plonking herself down on the sofa so Verity was now sandwiched between her flatmate and her sister. ‘How did you meet? He must have approached you. I mean, you’re not the approaching type. Did you give him your dead-eyed stare when he first came up to you?’ ‘I might start using that dead-eyed stare myself,’ Merry piped up, nudging Verity and grinning like this was actual fun. ‘It’s ensnared Peter Hardy, oceanographer, and now this other guy. What’s his name again?’ ‘Johnny,’ Nina replied. ‘I don’t normally go for posh boys but for him, I’d make an exception.’ ‘I love a posh boy,’ Merry said. ‘Dougie’s actually quite posh though he tries to pretend that he isn’t. Just cause he drops his aitches doesn’t cancel out the fact that he went to St Paul’s and belonged to the army cadet corps.’ ‘I went out with a squaddie once,’ Nina said as Verity levered herself up off the sofa: her presence wasn’t needed any longer. Especially as Nina was now over-sharing about her former squaddie beau and a trick he used to perform involving his erect penis and half a pint of lager and Merry was squealing in horrified delight. She squeezed past the boxes and bags in the hall, still waiting to be unpacked, to get to her room. It had been Posy’s old room, although when it had been Posy’s room every surface had been covered in piles of clothes and books. Verity loved Posy dearly but, as Sebastian had once rightly pointed out, she was a total slattern. Now with Posy’s goods and chattels mostly off the premises (though Verity had discovered half a dozen single socks, several dog-eared romance novels and a half-eaten Bounty bar so ancient that it had calcified under the bed), and with most of Verity’s belongings yet to be unpacked, the room was empty but still welcoming. There was a large bay window that looked out onto the courtyard, and shelves set into the alcoves on either side of the beautiful Edwardian tiled fireplace, just waiting for Verity to arrange her books and keepsakes on them. Verity had a huge armchair that she and Merry had found in a skip on the Essex Road and Verity had spent money that she didn’t have getting it reupholstered in inky blue velvet. It was her reading chair. Her sanctuary chair. Her snuggle-up-under-a-blanket-and-let-the-world-forget-her chair. Verity retrieved the patchwork blanket that had been knitted by her great grandmother and curled up in her chair. Despite all that had happened that evening, unbelievably it was still only nine thirty. It was late June, the days at their haziest, their longest, and the sky outside her windows was still light. If she strained her ears, Verity could hear squeals and giggles coming from the living room and the sound of voices raised in argument in the courtyard down below. So Verity chose not to strain her ears. Tuned out the noise, the static. Hugged her knees to her chest and all was silent. Finally, Verity could hear herself think, but she chose not to think too, because when she did, all she could think about was a handsome man with greeny blue eyes seated across from her, looking at her, maybe even laughing at her. Nothing good could ever come from a man like that. (#ulink_60967dca-69ab-5489-a925-44997c8050d6) 4 (#ulink_60967dca-69ab-5489-a925-44997c8050d6) ‘And what am I to do on the occasion? – It seems an hopeless business.’ Even without having to tend to a fake boyfriend any more, Verity found that she hardly had a moment to spare the next few days. In the three short weeks since Bookends had become Happy Ever After, the shop had gone from deserted to heaving with customers hellbent on buying books. Some of it was the usual summer upturn and some of it was because their romantic rebranding had been featured in the Guardian, The Bookseller, countless book blogs, and Posy had even appeared on BBC News SouthEast. The constant sound of the till opening with the triumphant ping it always gave was music to Verity’s ears. Cashing up every night was no longer a tedious chore but a source of joy and wonder. The only thing that Verity didn’t like about becoming a destination bookshop was the endless chatter of the romance-novel-buying public and their frequent cries of ‘Do you work here?’ whenever Verity ventured onto the shop floor. It was a fair question when Verity was wearing the now obligatory staff uniform of grey T-shirt with the pink Happy Ever After logo on it. ‘I’m admin,’ Verity would mutter, stiffening in case any customer dared to touch her. There had been the time that an old lady with a grip of steel had yanked Verity over to the counter and demanded that she phone E.L. James to tell her to get a move on with her next book. And Verity was admin, though Lavinia had appointed her shop manager a year ago as Verity was the only member of staff responsible enough to be trusted with the petty cash. Behind a door marked ‘private’, she ordered stock. Inputted stock. Chased up stock. Dealt with the orders that came in through the shop’s new and improved website, orders which had increased in the last few weeks and needed to be fulfilled before noon and five p.m. each day to catch the post. But even from the seclusion of her office and with several anterooms full of books supposedly muffling the noise, Verity could still hear the constant banging and drilling coming from the tearoom, which was being restored back to its former glory. She also had to deal with Greg, and occasionally Dave, the two workmen, continually popping in to ask for money so they could nip down to the builder’s yard or to hand her receipts from the builders’ yard or to complain about Mattie, who had taken over the tearoom. Verity took a while to warm to strangers but even though their acquaintance had been a short one, she already liked Mattie a lot. Especially as Mattie was busy testing recipes and using the Happy Ever After staff as human guinea pigs for a mouth-watering, never-ending supply of cakes, tarts, biscuits, cookies, breads, shortbreads, sweet rolls, savoury rolls and something Mattie called a Muffnut, which was a muffin/doughnut hybrid. Despite its appalling name, it was slathered in butterscotch icing and was so delicious that Verity had almost cried when Nina had pinched the last one. But it wasn’t her way with a mixing bowl and a handful of ingredients that had won Verity’s respect but the fact that Mattie was a woman of few words. Unlike certain people Verity knew, who took silence as a personal affront, Mattie only spoke when she had something to say, which was why Verity had offered Mattie a desk in the back office for when she was working on tearoom admin: a privilege that very few of the staff had earned. Only Posy and that was because technically she was the boss, and not so technically, she paid Verity’s wages. But not even Posy could make Verity willingly deal with the book-buying public, either in person or on the phone. ‘Emailing. I’m great at emailing,’ Verity would remind Posy countless times a day. ‘There is nothing in my job description that says I should answer the phone or make phone calls.’ Lavinia had never given any of the staff job descriptions; she believed they’d naturally gravitate toward the tasks that suited them best. But from the mutinous look on Posy’s face whenever Verity shied away from the ringing shop phone or a customer desperate for help, she was thinking of issuing job descriptions for all the staff. There was no hiding though when Emma, sister of Merry’s boyfriend, Dougie, hunted her down to demand that Verity respond to the invitation to Emma’s thirtieth-birthday-slash-housewarming party that she’d mailed out in May. Emma insisted that she was there to support Happy Ever After but it felt a lot like being hunted down. ‘Yes or no, Very?’ Emma shouted over the counter as she paid for the new Mhairi McFarlane novel and a Reader, I Married Him T-shirt, which she said she was considering wearing as a hint so that her boyfriend Sean might propose. ‘And you are bringing Peter Hardy, oceanographer, aren’t you? Although Merry said you’d dumped him for being a marine-life bore.’ ‘I did no such thing!’ Verity gasped indignantly. Then she realised that she no longer had to come up with excuses as to why Peter Hardy was absent yet again. ‘Although we did agree to split up. It was very amicable.’ ‘So, I’ll put you down as a single, then.’ Emma smiled brightly. ‘No need to look so glum. There’ll be loads of spare men. I’ll make sure to send over a steady supply of them.’ ‘Oh my God,’ Verity said aghast. ‘It’s like you don’t even know me. Promise me you won’t do that.’ Emma closed her purse with a triumphant snap. ‘Good! So you are coming, then. And if things change and you get back with the mysterious Peter, then you’re welcome to bring him along. Such a shame about you two.’ ‘Well, these things happen,’ Verity said with a heartfelt sigh. She gestured at the office behind her. ‘Work. I must do some work now.’ Then she remembered her manners. ‘But I’m super excited about your party.’ ‘Let’s not exaggerate, Very,’ Emma said. ‘I’ve known you five years and I’ve never seen you super excited about anything.’ ‘Moderately excited,’ Verity amended. ‘You should be,’ Emma told her with a glint in her eye. ‘We’re hiring a karaoke machine. Participation is mandatory.’ Then she left, her words having struck fear in Verity’s heart so she was rooted to the spot, an anguished expression on her face. ‘Such a pity that you dumped Peter Hardy, oceanographer,’ Nina commented as she bagged up the next customer’s books. ‘You’ll have to go on your own.’ ‘Though Peter Hardy, oceanographer, was so often away sailing the world’s oceans that he probably wouldn’t have been around to plus one you anyway,’ said Tom, part-time Happy Ever After employee and part-time PhD student, with the faintest of derisory snorts. Verity had always had a suspicion that Tom didn’t believe in her fake boyfriend. ‘I don’t see why I should have to go to all these things. Engagement parties and birthdays and housewarming dos,’ Verity grumbled, folding her arms and letting her chin rest on her chest. ‘Yes, how horrible of your friends to want to share their significant life moments with you,’ Posy said, coming in from the little kitchen off the office with a tray of tea. ‘I’m so sorry that I insisted that you come to my wedding and the small but intimate party for close friends and family that we had the evening before.’ ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I love my friends. I try to be a good friend.’ Verity frowned as she contemplated how she performed in the friend stakes. She wasn’t very good at hugs or effusive advice or anything that involved her friends in one big, shrieking, drunken shouting-over-the-top-of-each-other pile but one-on-one she was great. Golden. A good listener, there with practical help for any pal recently broken up, sacked or evicted, and though she would never come close to Mattie’s baking prowess (she’d just wandered into the shop with a plate of chilli cheese straws), Verity had a bread machine and many a friend in crisis had been comforted by her banana chocolate chip bread. ‘I just find it hard to socialise en masse. That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?’ ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ Nina assured her. ‘Anyway, can’t you take your new bloke, Johnny, along?’ ‘No! It’s too soon,’ Verity said quickly. Then she realised that she was doing it again – lying about having a boyfriend and she’d sworn that she wasn’t going to do that any more. ‘Anyway, he’s not my new bloke. He’s not my anything.’ Tom smiled, though his smile was second cousin to a smirk. ‘Johnny? Who’s Johnny? I can’t keep track of all of Very’s boyfriends. Is this one an oceanographer too?’ It was one of those rare moments when there was no one left waiting to pay and none of the shoppers browsing the shelves had any enquiries or books that needed to be looked up on the system. Damn them! Nina, Posy and Mattie, who was still there with her delicious cheese straws, all turned to Verity with expressions that could be described as extremely curious. ‘Yeah, Very, what does he do?’ Verity couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘He works very hard at his job,’ she said sternly. ‘Like you should all be doing instead of standing about gossiping. And much like I should be doing because I have lots of orders to fulfil before the last post.’ And as she had so often done in the past, usually when Posy was trying to persuade her to man the till for ten minutes, Verity fled for the safety of her office sanctuary. Verity was still in flight mode at six when Posy flipped the shop sign to closed. Nina had finished cashing up, Tom was tutting as he reshelved a pile of books that had been left piled up on the sofas and Verity was sweeping the floor. ‘Pub,’ Nina said, as she so often did when bookselling was done for the day. ‘Who’s in?’ There were general sounds of agreement but Verity shook her head and there was only a token effort to talk her round because everyone knew that Verity rarely did the pub on a Friday evening. Not without half an hour to decompress in a dark room first. But once the others left, Verity realised that sitting in her chair with the curtains closed wasn’t really going to cut it. Living over the shop was wonderful in so many ways. Rent, nil. Commute, ten seconds and down one flight of stairs. Central London location. Able to go to the big Sainsbury’s in Holborn twenty minutes before it closed and make out like a bandit on heavily reduced perishables. But living above the shop also meant that there was very little work/life balance when you spent most of your time in one building. Luckily, Verity found that walking was almost as good as sitting in a dark room. She stuck to the side streets, the little cobbled mews of Bloomsbury, occasionally venturing into one of the big garden squares. It was still light enough that she felt perfectly safe, but she crossed over the road numerous times to avoid the huge crowds of people standing outside the area’s many pubs. All demob happy, jackets discarded and slung over railings and shoulders, clutching drinks and bags of crisps. Verity saw a different side to the city when she walked. A city full of hanging baskets and window boxes full of bright flowers: geraniums, lobelias, petunias and trailing begonias. There were blue plaques to the great and good. The house where Charles Dickens had lived, now the Foundling Museum, just a few doors down from where E.M. Delafield had taken a flat when she was in town and written The Provincial Lady Goes Further. As her stomach made its presence known and reminded Verity it had been a while since those chilli cheese straws, she pushed open the door of Il Fornello, to find Luigi waiting for her. ‘Miss Very! Usual table?’ he asked. ‘You’re not going to be joining any random strangers tonight?’ Verity shook her head. ‘I am not,’ she confirmed and she followed Luigi through the packed restaurant, nodding and smiling at each waiter she passed until they came to the little corner with room only for a small table set for one, where Verity could slide into the chair that Luigi pulled out for her. It had taken quite a few weeks at the start of Verity’s patronage of Il Fornello for Luigi to understand that she would always be dining alone. That she wasn’t waiting for anyone. And she certainly didn’t want to be fussed over or have her wine or water glass constantly refilled and to be asked if everything was all right with her meal. All Verity wanted was to sit and read a book with a glass, or two at most, of red wine, a side salad and a cast-iron dish full of lasagne, the cheese crunchy on top, and so hot she couldn’t eat it for five minutes. It wasn’t so much to ask. It wasn’t as if she were a hermit – that was what so many people didn’t understand; she quite enjoyed being in a crowded restaurant, listening to the hum of conversation around her, she just didn’t want to participate in it. So, Verity opened her current book, an epic sweeping romance set in the heady months leading up to World War Two, took a sip of her wine and speared a green olive from the complimentary bowl Luigi always slipped her. If there was a finer way to spend a Friday evening after a long, hard week, then Verity couldn’t imagine it. And it was perfect – until a tall man suddenly swung through the room, grabbed hold of an empty chair and plonked it down on the other side of Verity’s table. She looked up with an indignant gasp that died before it left her mouth, eyes widening in horror and disbelief. Oh God, it was Johnny. (#ulink_1b946928-7be0-517c-9472-4373f8009731) 5 (#ulink_1b946928-7be0-517c-9472-4373f8009731) ‘It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried.’ ‘Hello again,’ Johnny said easily, as he loomed over her table. Seven days had been long enough to dim his beauty so that when Verity had thought about their awkward encounter, though she’d tried really hard not to, his eyes had become a bog-standard blue. His cheekbones dulled. His hair had lost its lustre. His body wasn’t lean and lithe but gangly and gawky. But now he was back in full gorgeous HD definition, which was neither here nor there when his presence was as unwelcome as a meter reader at the door before eight a.m. ‘Hello,’ Verity said, politely but perfunctorily. Experience had taught her that sometimes, though not as frequently as she’d like, men slunk off in the face of zero encouragement. She turned back to her book and made a big performance of finding her place. Really, it was Oscarworthy. She even traced a sentence with her fingertip, though the black type on white paper might just as well have been written in Martian for all the sense it made. Was Il Fornello Johnny’s new Friday night haunt? Had he just moved to the area and didn’t know anyone so had decided that Verity would do until he found some new friends? Was he going to talk and talk at her when she just wanted to be left alone? ‘Please, I beg of you, just go along with this,’ Johnny said as he sat down opposite Verity and she could hear his smile as he echoed her own words back at her. Now he had her full, stony-faced attention. ‘I didn’t know how else to find you. I did try googling Verity Love but all I came up with were several very poorly designed goddess websites … anyway, I digress. I hoped you might be here so we could talk in person. It’s the kind of thing that would probably be better if we just chatted it out.’ Verity closed her book and willed her face to become even more stone-like. ‘Chatted what out? Is this about me thinking you were gay? Because, I get it, you’re absolutely not gay.’ Though he was protesting far too much for someone who was allegedly straight. ‘Oh, no, it’s nothing to do with that! When you maintain a certain standard of grooming, people always think you’re gay.’ Johnny waved away the idea with an airy gesture. ‘It’s about Peter Hardy, oceanographer.’ Verity inched her chair back. ‘What about him?’ she asked tightly. ‘Genius idea, an imaginary fake boyfriend, but why does he have to be imaginary? Why not have a real fake boyfriend? It kills so many birds with one almighty stone.’ Verity looked at Johnny briefly from under her lashes, just in time to see him smile at her. He was lovely to look at, even lovelier when he smiled, and Verity still had all kinds of feelings that kicked in when a lovely-looking man smiled at her. That didn’t mean that she had to act on them. Luckily Luigi arrived with her food: lasagne still bubbling in its dish, side salad and a beaker full of garlic breadsticks. ‘Just yell if you need anything,’ Luigi told her pointedly with a sideways look at Johnny. Then he made a big fuss of shaking out Verity’s napkin and placing it reverently on her lap, before he brandished the big pepper grinder, not at her lasagne, but in the direction of Johnny, in what could be taken as a threatening manner. ‘Anything at all.’ Verity took her time selecting a breadstick then held it aloft. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, because much as she was alarmed that Johnny had hunted her down and was talking about fake boyfriends, both imaginary and real, she would expire from sheer embarrassment if Luigi and a couple of his burlier kitchen staff escorted Johnny off the premises. ‘We’re fine. Are you going to order something?’ she asked Johnny who turned his lovely smile on Luigi and soon they were chatting happily about Luigi’s wood-fired oven (his pride and joy) and the provenance of his mozzarella. As soon as Luigi left to prepare Johnny’s pancetta and mushroom pizza with his own hands, Johnny’s gaze was back on Verity. She wanted to squirm and fidget, but despite the panic rising up in her, there was something calm and measured about him. Something still. Like he was a fixed point in a chaotic world. ‘I’m not gay,’ he said yet again. ‘That’s not why I’m single. If you really must know it’s because I’m in love with a woman that I can’t be with. Not right now, no matter how much we both desperately want to be together.’ ‘How very romantic and Wuthering Heights-y,’ Verity said dryly. She had spent a lot of her impressionable teen years dressed in black and pretending that Weelsby Woods in Grimsby was rough moorland and not a splendid municipal park. She was far less impressionable now. ‘Surely if you want to be together, you should well, just be together. Oh, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she added as Johnny’s face fell. ‘Here, have a garlic breadstick. They’re really good.’ Johnny took a breadstick, but it wasn’t the cure-all that Verity had hoped it would be. His light glowed a little less now. ‘We can’t be together,’ he said again. ‘It’s very complicated.’ It sounded like the simplest thing in the world to Verity. If two people loved each other, really and truly loved each other, then they moved oceans and landmasses, spurned the ties of blood, laughed in the face of every obstacle that stood in their way. She might not want love herself but Verity was emphatically pro-love for other people. But it probably wasn’t the best time to go down that particular road. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ was what she did murmur, then she was just about to ask what Johnny’s complicated romantic status had to do with her when his pizza arrived and there was a flurry of cutlery and more pepper grinding and did they want extra Parmesan until they were left alone to eat. Eating together, or rather eating in front of a stranger, wasn’t quite the ordeal that Verity expected it to be. In fact, it almost felt companionable until Johnny was halfway through his pizza and started talking again. ‘So, what I was thinking was that we’re both alone, for our own reasons, but that doesn’t mean we can’t join forces,’ he said as he cut the crust off a slice of pizza. ‘Just as a stopgap. A short-term solution to fend off our friends.’ ‘What do you mean when you say “join forces” and “stopgap” and “short-term solution”?’ Verity asked, even though she was quite familiar with all of these phrases and their meanings. It was just that she couldn’t quite get her brain to process what they meant in connection to Johnny and herself. ‘Well, you see, they’re not just setting me up with unsuitable women any more, my friends, now they’ve started sending passive-aggressive emails with links to dating sites and then there are the invites to weddings and …’ He stopped as his phone beeped. ‘Ah, talk of the devil.’ He looked at the screen then smiled. And suddenly the smiles Verity had seen up to this point were whispers, grainy photocopies, nothing like this smile for the unknown, unseen person who’d just texted him. It was a smile of pure joy, instant happiness. What would it be like to have Johnny, anyone, smile at her like that? She couldn’t even begin to imagine. Johnny texted a reply, thumbs moving as fast as hummingbird wings over his touchscreen, then he looked up. ‘I’m sorry. How rude. Where was I?’ Verity picked up his thread. ‘You were proposing we joined forces in a short-term kind of way. Something about wedding invites and passive-aggressive emails.’ ‘Right, right.’ Johnny nodded. ‘Well, you see, I’ve been inspired by your tales of Peter Hardy, oceanographer,’ he said as if Verity had spent hours regaling him with all sorts of imaginary exploits that her imaginary boyfriend had got up to. ‘It got me thinking. If I, we, turned up to a couple of things together, in the company of a real live human being of the opposite sex, then it would get our friends to stop with the endless matchmaking.’ ‘But my friends have stopped with the endless matchmaking since Peter Hardy,’ Verity pointed out quickly because it was best to shut this down immediately. Johnny narrowed his eyes. ‘Hmmm, but I bet then they started pestering you with so many questions and queries about Peter Hardy—’ ‘It’s natural that they’d be curious!’ Verity blustered. ‘—because they never once met him and how could they? He wasn’t real. He was just a figment of your imagination.’ Johnny was relentless. And ruthless. So ruthless. ‘Not just my imagination. It was my sister who said he should be an oceanographer,’ Verity muttered. She put down her fork, which she’d been using to stab at her lasagne instead of eating it. ‘All right, I’ll admit that my plan was flawed but it did get my friends off my back for a little bit. God, it was great while it lasted.’ She ended on a wistful sigh. ‘My friends just want me to be happy but they think being single must make me unhappy so I get their work colleagues and second cousins and dodgy flatmates all shoved in my direction. “This is Verity. I’m sure you two have got so much in common.”’ She clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d said far too much and Johnny was smiling smugly. Verity was pleased to note that his smug smile didn’t do anything for him. Not a thing. It edged him into Wickham territory. ‘Well, there you are then,’ Johnny said as if it really could be that easy. ‘What I’m proposing is simple. You come and meet my friends and I’ll meet yours and it will buy you some time from introductions to second cousins and dodgy flatmates and you can save me from any more advances from divorcees with fake breasts …’ ‘My breasts could be fake for all you know,’ Verity said and regretted it immediately. She hadn’t meant to sound flirty and she certainly hadn’t meant to draw attention to her breasts. Johnny probably wasn’t gay because as soon as she’d mentioned them, his eyes were immediately drawn to her chest. ‘I think not,’ he said playfully, teasingly, as if they were really flirting. ‘I’m an architect. I know about false structures.’ He was still looking thoughtfully at Verity’s breasts and when she folded her arms, his gaze skittered from them back to her face, which she hoped looked stern and disapproving. Verity was wearing a black and white striped top, dark jeans and a pair of purple Saltwater sandals that she’d got for half price in last year’s sale because not many people wanted purple sandals. Her hair, lightened by the sun so it wasn’t quite as mousy as usual, was pulled back in a ponytail – not one of those perky ponytails that bounced from side to side as she walked either. She dressed exactly as you’d expect from a twenty-seven-year-old woman who’d studied English Literature at university and was now manager of a bookshop that sold only romantic fiction, had embraced spinsterdom and owned a cat who regarded legs as nothing more than the things you climbed up so you could jump into your owner’s arms and cling. And Johnny was sitting across from her with his perfect smile and his perfect face and his perfect hair and his perfectly cut suit and perfect white shirt on his perfect body. They were chalk and cheese. Oil and water. Spots and stripes. No one who had eyes in their head would ever believe that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. While this had all been fun – the commiserating about being single – it was time to get real. Verity pushed away the second helping of breadsticks that Luigi had discreetly placed in front of her, because the waistband of her jeans was starting to dig in. ‘The thing is you think that pretending you’re in a relationship is simply one harmless little lie to get your friends to back off. But that one harmless little lie quickly turns into so many lies that pretty soon you need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all.’ Verity scooped up a breadstick, but only so she could admonish Johnny with it. He sat there very calmly, waiting until she was done, which she wasn’t. ‘Also, it’s very wrong to lie to people but at least Peter Hardy, oceanographer, was a fake lie. What you’re proposing is a real lie with acting and a back story.’ ‘OK, all right.’ Johnny held up his hands. They did look like the hands of an architect. Verity could imagine those hands unfurling blueprints and making notes with monogrammed Staedtler pencils. Or even gently cupping the face of the woman he loved desperately but couldn’t be with right now. ‘But we don’t have to act like we’re madly in love. If we met each other’s friends as a one-off, then all we’d have to say is that we were seeing each other. And technically we are seeing each other right now, aren’t we?’ Johnny was starting to sound a little desperate and the whole thing was crazy. What was even crazier was that Verity was considering it. Not seriously and only for a second but she did wonder what it would be like to walk into a party with Johnny with his perfect everything so all her friends would say, ‘Who is that with Verity? Is it that Peter Hardy bloke?’ That was as far as Verity got though, because then everything in her baulked, like a rookie filly getting to Becher’s Brook during the Grand National and deciding that they wouldn’t jump, because actually they preferred all their fetlocks intact, thank you very much. Walking in anywhere with Johnny looking the way he did and Verity’s friends not having seen her with a man in years would mean that Verity would be the centre of attention. Quite frankly, she’d rather die. ‘I can’t,’ she said firmly and with what she hoped was an air of finality that would shut this thing down once and for all. ‘I just couldn’t do it. No way. Sorry.’ She proffered the discarded breadsticks as a consolation prize. ‘You can have these if you want. Luigi always gives me an extra portion.’ ‘That’s very kind but I’d hate to have to get my tailor to let out the fat straps on my suit,’ Johnny said gravely, even though his charcoal suit was so slim-cut that Verity doubted it had room for fat straps. ‘I suppose it was a pretty left-field idea. I hope I didn’t offend you.’ ‘No! Not at all,’ Verity assured him, because Johnny was sitting there, with his chin resting on one hand and looking rather disconsolate like he had an urgent social gathering first thing tomorrow morning and had been expecting Verity to jump at the chance to be his plus one. ‘Anyway, I’m sure there must be women queuing up to be your fake real girlfriend.’ ‘Maybe I should put an ad on Craigslist.’ Johnny sighed. ‘Or perhaps I should call the last bitter divorcee I got set up with though she’s bound to be even more bitter now because I promised I’d call her and I never did. I’m probably on her hit list along with her ex-husband and all the other men who have done her wrong. Maybe she’ll forgive me though. And maybe she’ll have changed her perfume too. It was very cloying. Really caught at the back of my throat and made my eyes water so …’ ‘Just stop! Please stop!’ Verity covered her face. It was best not to look at Johnny. He was beautiful in his suffering and she was a notorious soft touch. She’d bought Strumpet for fifty quid from a bloke in a pub after he’d told her that Strumpet was a she and the runt of the litter and that her mother had rejected her. The vet later told Verity that Strumpet was most definitely a he and the fattest runt he’d ever seen in all his thirty years of vetting. ‘Of course once I’ve been on a second date with her, she’s sure to think that we should have a third date,’ Johnny said with a sniff. ‘And it would be rude to refuse. It would hurt her feelings, which have already been brutalised by her ex-husband.’ ‘I’ll think about it!’ Verity yelped. ‘Oh God, I’ll think about it. I’m not promising anything more than that, but enough already with this emotional blackmail!’ It was as if Johnny had been taking lessons from her sisters. Johnny straightened up and rewarded Verity with a smile that was more devastating than any of his previous smiles. It made her feel quite light-headed. ‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ he said and Verity suspected that she’d been totally played. It was a very Wickham move and she’d be on her guard from now on. As soon as Verity left the restaurant with Johnny’s number in her phone, his business card in her purse, her cheek still tingling from the brush of his lips when he’d said goodbye and a good half of her gargantuan lasagne in a takeaway carton, she texted Merry. I bumped into that Johnny again. Where are you? The reply came back so quickly that Verity hadn’t even tucked her phone away. OMG! Am in your flat, eating your snacks. Hurry home! Merry had left the flat and Verity’s snacks and was waiting for her sister on one of the benches in the courtyard, which was free of hoodies for once. ‘I showed them a picture I had on my phone of what smoking weed does to the human brain and they made their excuses and left,’ Merry informed her when Verity asked what had happened to them. Merry was a medical researcher at University College Hospital and had all manner of disgusting yet strangely fascinating photos of dissections and diseased body parts on her phone, which she liked to whip out at inappropriate moments. ‘So, Johnny then …’ Merry prompted as they walked into the shop. ‘Tell me everything and don’t skimp on the details.’ So, Verity told her everything, though the one part she left out was the realisation she’d had after Johnny had insisted on paying the whole bill and not going Dutch, that they’d been sitting there together, talking, for well over an hour and she hadn’t minded at all (not after she’d got over her initial shock) or felt in any way antsy. No point in giving Merry false hope that Verity was just waiting for the right man to come along. Besides, Johnny had made it perfectly clear where Verity stood, just in case she was getting ideas. ‘Just so we’re on the same page,’ he’d said as he held the door open for her as they left the restaurant. ‘If you do agree to appear in public with me as a fake one-off girlfriend, and I really hope you do, please don’t start thinking that this might lead to anything more serious.’ For one second, Verity had thought he was joking because it was such an arrogant thing to say. Yes, Johnny might be ridiculously easy on the eye but Verity resented the assumption that she was likely to swoon at his feet without too much encouragement. ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that,’ she had said, her tone both hurt and offended, though both hurt and offence were lost on Johnny. ‘I’m sure you’re a wonderful woman, but I’m not going to fall in love with you,’ he added as if Verity was harbouring fantasies that he might just do that exact thing. ‘I’m already in love. I don’t need the added complication.’ ‘In love with this unknown woman that he can’t be with although he really wants to,’ she told Merry. ‘Which now that I think about it, seems odd. Shady, even. What, in this day and age, can possibly be keeping them apart? Has she taken a restraining order out against him? Is he some kind of grade A stalker?’ ‘Hardly. His unknown woman is dying,’ Merry stated matter of factly. ‘She has a tragic terminal illness and she’s determined to do the decent thing and keep Johnny at bay so he can have some semblance of a normal life after she’s snuffed it. I mean, obviously.’ ‘Obviously,’ Verity echoed with heavy sarcasm. Though she pretended that she only read literary fiction, Verity knew very well that Merry had a secret weakness for the sort of florid, overblown romances that even Posy would declare too saccharine for her tastes. ‘Anyway, whatever the story is with his unknown woman, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not his type. Believe me, that was perfectly clear.’ They were sitting on the sofa, taking it in turns to dip their spoons into a tub of peanut butter ice cream, though Verity’s heart or stomach wasn’t really in it. As it was she felt as if she was minutes away from giving birth to the food baby that had rounded out her belly and was making her feel winded. Now, Merry swivelled round so she could stare at her sister. ‘Why are you not his type? Did he actually say that? That’s kind of harsh.’ ‘No, but he didn’t have to.’ Verity put down her spoon. ‘He’s gorgeous, Merry. Even if I did want a boyfriend, which I don’t, I so don’t, he is way out of my league and …’ She couldn’t say any more than that because Merry clapped her hand over Verity’s mouth. ‘Wrong!’ Merry shouted. ‘Everyone thinks we’re twins and I’m generally considered a knockout so that makes you a knockout too. We could have anyone we wanted. Anyone!’ ‘Did you forget to check your ego at the door?’ Verity snapped, pushing Merry’s hand down. Though it was true that Merry and Verity’s resemblance to each other went beyond a sisterly similarity. It hadn’t helped that they’d been in the same year at school as there was only eleven months between them. Apparently Mrs Love had got quite tipsy at a church social and, as she cheerfully confessed to her horrified daughters sixteen years later, ‘I didn’t think I could get pregnant if I was breastfeeding.’ Still, it didn’t really matter where Verity stood on some arbitrary scale of attractiveness. ‘Like I said, I’m not on the market. I’m too busy officially mourning the end of my short but intense relationship with Peter Hardy. And I only agreed to consider this thing with Johnny because he put me on the spot. I’m not actually going to go through with it. I am done with fake boyfriends. They’re almost as much work as having a real boyfriend. There’s a reason why lying is included in the ten commandments,’ she added rather piously. ‘Because it’s wrong.’ ‘Thou shalt not lie isn’t one of the ten commandments,’ Merry said loftily. ‘Any fool knows that.’ ‘It might not say “Thou shalt not lie” but it does say “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”, which is pretty much the same thing, which you would know if you weren’t an absolutely rubbish vicar’s daughter.’ Verity tilted her head and gave Merry a smarmy smile, which she knew drove her sister teeth-grittingly, fist-clenchingly mad. It was the way of sisters the world over. And maybe that was why, to get her revenge, when Verity popped to the loo, she came back into the living room to find that Merry was wearing an equally smarmy smile and holding Verity’s phone. ‘I decided that one shouldn’t waste a perfectly decent fake boyfriend so I texted Johnny and invited him to the opening of the tearooms next Saturday. He’s already texted back to say yes. Seems very keen. It’s all right, Very, no need to thank me.’ (#ulink_fd85ae61-1568-539b-a0fb-d8892dabeb79) 6 (#ulink_fd85ae61-1568-539b-a0fb-d8892dabeb79) ‘She was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself; and to him she had hardly courage to speak.’ Verity was going to wait seventy-two hours, then text Johnny to say that she’d changed her mind. Everyone knew that there was a standard three-day cooling-off period after agreeing to a date. Even Nina said so. But just as the seventy-two-hour window was approaching and Verity was spending a lot of her time mentally composing the apologetic text she’d send Johnny (‘I have been diagnosed with a rare tropical disease and am quarantined until further notice’) he rang her. What normal person would actually ring someone they’d arranged a date with? There was a reason why text messages had been invented. Besides, it was common knowledge that Verity only answered the phone to her immediate family. Except Johnny didn’t know her well enough to be aware of that fact and, hopeful that perhaps he was having second thoughts, Verity really felt she had no choice but to answer the phone. ‘Hello?’ ‘Hi Verity. How are you?’ ‘Um fine. What do you … I mean, how are you?’ ‘I’m very well. Just checking we’re still good for Saturday. Is there anything I should be aware of?’ Briefly, Verity wondered if her father knew of any nunneries with vacancies. ‘Like what?’ ‘Your text message wasn’t big with specifics. This tearoom; is it being opened by friends of yours?’ Verity shut her eyes as she realised the enormity of what Merry’s text message had wrought. That Johnny would be coming to her place of work. Her home. Meeting her colleagues, her boss, her friends. If Merry turned up, which she was sure to do, because free cake, then he’d even meet her family – or one very annoying member of it. She found herself launching into a garbled explanation that took in a potted history of Happy Ever After, formerly Bookends. At one point, she even referenced Lady Agatha Drysdale, former Suffragette, who’d founded the shop. The whole time Verity was willing herself to say the words ‘Look, shall we just call the whole thing off?’ but the words never came because each time she tried to reach for them, Johnny would ask her a question about whether it was all right to turn up in jeans and if he needed to bring a gift and ‘Look, we’ll just keep it really casual. Say we’re friends. What’s the harm in that?’ Oh, where to begin. Verity shut her eyes again. It seemed as if she’d had her eyes closed for the majority of their conversation. ‘Why don’t you come around at about seven, in time for the speeches? You don’t have to stay for very long.’ It was a phrase that Verity often had occasion to utter. Her sister Chatty had once even cross-stitched ‘I’M NOT GOING TO STAY FOR VERY LONG’ on a cushion for Verity’s last birthday. Her twin, Immy, had cross-stitched another of Verity’s favourite sayings, ‘I CAN’T HEAR MYSELF THINK’, on a contrasting cushion. But now Johnny was agreeing that he didn’t have to stay for very long. ‘So I’ll see you Saturday then. I’m looking forward to it.’ I’m not, Verity thought as she ended the call and she still wasn’t looking forward to it on Saturday, which was the kind of beautiful English summer’s day that made you want to take tea on the lawn and watch a cricket match. It was perfect weather to open the tearooms with some fanfare, though secretly Verity had been hoping that it might rain so they couldn’t have guests milling about in the courtyard and the whole thing would be over quite soon. But no such luck and actually wishing for storm clouds and a torrential downpour was very mean-spirited and uncharitable when all the staff, but especially Mattie, had worked so hard in anticipation of this day. On Saturdays Verity would usually do any tedious bits of paperwork she never got round to during the week, but this Saturday after the website orders were done, Verity presented herself in the tearoom ready to do Mattie’s bidding. Normally Mattie seemed a little sad (she’d arrived back in London from Paris under a cloud; ‘I bet it was a man-shaped cloud too,’ Nina had said) and unflappable, but this morning she was extremely flappable. ‘I made a list,’ Mattie told Verity, her poker-straight black fringe sticking up at all angles. She held up a batter-splodged piece of paper. ‘There are too many items on it. We’ll never get everything done.’ ‘We will,’ Verity promised. ‘I guarantee that in a few hours, the tearoom will be ready to reopen its doors.’ Posy’s mother used to run the tearoom, but by the time Verity had joined the staff five years ago, Posy’s mother and her father, who’d managed the shop, were no longer there and the tearoom had become a junk room, a shadow of what it had been. Now, the sun streamed in through the windows, shadows all banished, and the tearoom was restored to all its former, mismatched glory. The wooden floor and half-panelled walls gleaming, the primrose yellow Formica counter, which had been put in in the 1950s, was groaning under the weight of a shiny new coffee maker that was the sole domain of Paloma, who Mattie had taken on because she was a trained barista and didn’t leap a foot in the air and shriek whenever it started hissing and huffing. There was also an old-fashioned urn for tea and soon Verity would put out all the tempting treats that Mattie had been working on for weeks. Moist layer cakes stood proudly on the vintage cake stands they’d found stashed in a cupboard. Buns and scones, biscuits and brownies displayed on plates also found in the cupboard, none of them matching but all beautiful whether they were adorned with birds or flowers or polka dots. Verity set herself to washing and drying the equally mismatched cups and saucers Posy had bought from eBay. She also made a mental note to tell Posy to stop buying stuff off eBay. Then, Verity folded napkins. Put Prosecco to chill in the little fridge in the office kitchen, told Mattie countless times to calm down because everything would be fine and told shop customers, distracted by the tantalising smells coming from the tearoom, that they weren’t open yet even more times. Eventually, it was six o’clock. Time to close the shop. Verity, Nina and Mattie slipped upstairs to change. Mattie was done in five minutes. Shrugging out of her jeans and top to shrug into a little black dress then an insouciant flick of eyeliner and a slick of red lipstick and she was done. ‘I must check on my buns,’ she said and slipped back downstairs. Meanwhile Nina had already commandeered the bathroom – it took her a good hour to upgrade her daytime make-up to an evening make-up – so Verity sat cross-legged in her big velvet chair to wait. Would anyone notice if she skulked up here until everyone had gone home? Of course they would. And they’d be cross, rightly so. And Johnny would turn up and ask after her and that wouldn’t be good, especially if Merry got to him first. The thought was enough to have Verity springing out of her chair to demand that Nina let her have the bathroom for a measly five minutes so she could have a quick shower. Then Verity pulled on a short-sleeved, knee-length navy-blue dress in a crisp cotton, which was practically identical to most of the dresses hanging up in her wardrobe, though in winter she preferred long sleeves and a cosy jersey cotton. Because it was a special occasion and because Johnny, so Sunday supplement perfect, was about to turn up and act as if he and Verity were good friends, Verity knew that she needed to make a little more effort than securing her hair in its usual non-perky ponytail. Actually, a lot more effort. She braided a front section of hair and pinned it back, then dug out her make-up bag and was just dabbing helplessly at her face with tinted moisturiser when she became aware of Nina standing in her bedroom doorway, gawping. ‘Make-up?’ Nina queried. ‘Verity Love is putting on make-up? You must be serious about this Johnny dude. You never put on make-up for Peter Hardy, oceanographer.’ ‘I’m sure I did,’ Verity said, as she decided she’d done enough dabbing and rooted around for the mascara that she’d had since 2007, giving it a good shake as it tended to go clumpy. ‘Oh God, I can hardly bear to look!’ Nina turned away as if Verity’s inept make-up application was causing her untold agony. She was back a minute later with the three-tier IKEA trolley she used to stash her huge collection of cosmetics. ‘Look, I have all these free samples of stuff,’ Nina said, pulling out a couple of bulging make-up bags. ‘I can never resist one of those “Spend fifty quid, get a twee make-up bag full of stuff you’re never going to use” deals. There’s a couple of lipsticks in here that would look so much better on you, plus mascara that won’t give you conjunctivitis.’ To Verity’s shame, Nina achieved more in five minutes with six products than Verity had been able to do in fifteen years. She still looked like herself, there’d been no wild Kardashian contouring, but a more put-together, less frowny version of herself. ‘I would never have thought of using brown mascara,’ Verity said as she slowly blinked at herself in the mirror then pursed her lips, which were now faintly glossy with lip stain because lipstick was simply too much lip and too much stick for her. She looked all right. Really all right. Like she wouldn’t look completely out of place if people saw her with Johnny. Now she understood why Nina called make-up ‘her warpaint’. She did feel a little braver. ‘And I never saw the point of blusher before. Thanks, Nina.’ ‘Another six months of living together and I’ll have you pierced and tattooed,’ Nina promised, as she spritzed herself with perfume, though it sounded more like a threat. ‘Or else I’ll have you attending bible study and joining me in a prayer circle. We can sing “Kumbaya” at the end,’ Verity offered. ‘It will be fun.’ Nina’s mouth fell open. ‘Never! Not that I’m down on religion or your God but it’s just …’ Her eyes narrowed as Verity smiled serenely at her. ‘Hang on! I’ve never once seen you near a bible or heard you praying. You’re joking! I hate it when you do that, Very. You might give a girl some warning first.’ ‘Me? Joke? I never joke,’ Verity did indeed joke and, with a squawk of faked outrage, Nina turned on her heel and walked out of the room. ‘Come on! We’ve got a party to attend,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘There’s two glasses of cold Prosecco with our names all over them.’ Verity tugged at the skirt of her dress: would it do? Would she do? ‘You go down,’ she told Nina. ‘I’m right behind you.’ It took another half hour and a text each from Posy, Nina, Mattie and Tom before Verity had psyched herself up enough to venture down the stairs and face her real-life fake boyfriend. Well, that and Posy’s threat to fire her, though Verity knew full well it was an empty threat – she was the only person who knew how the stock system worked and even then it was a very vague kind of knowing. Strumpet was at the bottom of the stairs, alternately hurling himself at the door that separated the flat from the shop and yowling furiously because food was being eaten and he wanted in. It was an epic battle, woman versus cat, but eventually Verity made it through the door, her dress covered in cat fur, Strumpet’s angry and betrayed face seared into her memory. They’d locked the doors that connected the shop to the tearoom so Verity had to step outside into the courtyard, which was positively teeming with people. Favourite customers, book bloggers, food bloggers, friends, friends of friends and yet Verity immediately spotted Johnny. Not just because he was taller than about ninety-eight per cent of the other guests (only Posy’s husband Sebastian was taller) but because he was deep in conversation with Nina. That couldn’t be good. Verity forgot her plan to skulk and hurried over in time to hear Nina ask: ‘So, how did you two meet? Very plays her cards very close to her chest, she never tells us anything.’ ‘I tell you so many things,’ Verity protested but now wasn’t the time or the place. ‘Do I need to make formal introductions or did you just launch straight into the interrogation?’ Nina put a hand to her heart as if she were mortally offended. ‘I got Johnny a drink and a cheese straw then I launched into the interrogation. I wasn’t raised by wolves, Very.’ ‘Great cheese straws,’ Johnny said, so Verity had to acknowledge him, look at him, instead of focussing on Nina. ‘Hello,’ he added and he kissed Verity on the cheek so she got a lovely whiff of his aftershave, which made her think of expensive soap and warm, folded laundry. He smelt clean, fresh and ever so slightly lemony. It suited him, matched the clean, elegant set of his face as he smiled down at her. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that might have started out life as black but was faded to grey, its white logo now indecipherable. And he had nice arms. Not ripped. Not ‘sun’s out, guns out’ as they said to Tom when he slipped off his cardigan in deference to the fact that it was late June and the shop had no air con. But Johnny definitely had muscles, lean muscles, like he had a gym membership and wasn’t afraid to use it. She had to stop staring. ‘Shall I get some more cheese straws?’ she gulped, half-turning to hide what felt suspiciously like a blush in order to make for the kitchen. Nina yanked her back. ‘You’ll do no such thing. Not until you guys tell me how you met.’ There was a moment of silence – Verity was absolutely certain that her cheeks must be scarlet by now. It seemed to last for several millennia as Johnny looked at Verity and she looked back at him and held her face very still so she didn’t grimace. ‘Er, it’s quite a funny story really, isn’t it? How we met.’ ‘Yeah, one to tell the grandchildren about,’ Johnny said casually. ‘I was waiting for someone in a restaurant but they stood me up and Verity was waiting for the legendary Peter Hardy, who’d stood her up too.’ ‘Not Peter Hardy, oceanographer?’ Nina gasped indignantly. ‘He sounded too nice to stand anyone up!’ ‘And there was a misunderstanding and the restaurant thought we were waiting for each other and so here we are!’ Johnny put his arm round Verity who tried not to stiffen. ‘Yes, here we are,’ she echoed with a pointed look at Nina. ‘Nina, didn’t Posy ask you to keep an eye on Sam and Pants? Because they’re currently having a competition to see how many macarons they can cram into their mouths in one go.’ ‘Urgh, boys! I expected better from Pants!’ Nina exclaimed and she tottered away to tell off Sam, Posy’s fifteen-year-old brother, and his best friend Pants. Which left Verity alone with Johnny. Technically they weren’t alone, there had to be over a hundred people in the courtyard, but they were standing off to the side and it felt oddly intimate. ‘You look very nice,’ Johnny said after a small pause. ‘Thank you,’ Verity said stiffly. ‘You too. I like your, erm, T-shirt.’ She stared at the ground and stifled a heartfelt sigh. ‘Erm, more cheese straws? And let me get you a Prosecco.’ If they were eating and drinking they wouldn’t have to talk to each other. ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Johnny agreed and he followed her through the crowd to the tearoom so they could load up on supplies. Their progress was slow as a steady stream of people kept stopping Verity in her tracks, their eyes wide like they couldn’t believe that she was with a man. Then they’d goggle at Johnny, who’d smile equably though Verity was sure that he was now regretting the whole imaginary boyfriend scheme. ‘So, is this Peter Hardy, oceanographer?’ Verity’s waylayers would all ask. ‘No, I’m Johnny, I’m an architect,’ Johnny said every time until finally they were Prosecco-ed up and each had a plate laden high with delicious baked goods just as Posy swung a metal ladle at the new tea urn to get everyone’s attention and perforate a few eardrums while she was at it. Then she nudged Mattie forward. ‘You have to say a few words,’ she hissed in a loud voice. ‘Welcome people, your tearoom mission statement, introduce our special guests, blah blah.’ ‘Don’t worry if it’s not as good as Morland’s speech of a few weeks ago,’ Sebastian added kindly, from over Posy’s shoulder. ‘I mean, it won’t be, but that’s not your fault.’ Posy and Sebastian were still in the first flush of married love where they seemed to think the other one was the reason that the sun shone and flowers grew and life was generally beautiful. Somehow Sebastian managed to convey all this and still be rude to everyone who wasn’t Posy. Which was why Mattie rolled her eyes, even as she took off her apron. ‘Thank you, everyone, for coming to our opening. I’ve dreamed of this moment, of standing in my own caf?, since as long as I can remember and even though it’s happening right at this very moment, it still feels like a dream,’ she said. She didn’t get any further than that because her French mother, who they’d all been introduced to earlier, an older but still equally chic version of Mattie, promptly burst into tears. ‘It’s just that I’m so proud of you,’ she sobbed as Mattie’s brother, Jacques, handed her a tissue. He had a whole box with him as if he’d anticipated that they might be needed. Verity glanced sideways at Johnny but he was texting, eyes intent on his phone screen, and was missing all the drama. Once Mattie’s mother’s sobs had quietened down to the occasional hiccup, Mattie continued. ‘I went to Paris to learn patisserie and fall in love – though learning patisserie was a much happier experience than falling in love,’ she said darkly as the assembled company stared down at their glasses. ‘Anyway, here I am and here you are, at the grand opening of The Tearoom at Happy Ever After and now I’d just like to welcome our special guests to declare us officially open.’ ‘Who is the special guest?’ Johnny suddenly whispered in Verity’s ear. His breath tickled, not in an unpleasant way. ‘It’s actually two special guests,’ Verity whispered back, shifting slightly so that he didn’t have to lean in quite so closely. ‘A woman who won Great British Bake Off a couple of years ago and her mother who happens to be a romantic novelist. Quite convenient really.’ ‘Why is it convenient that her mother’s a romantic novelist?’ Johnny wanted to know but Very’s reply was drowned out by a polite round of applause as the guests cut a big red ribbon that had been hurriedly stretched over the tearoom doors. These then burst open to reveal Little Sophie, their Saturday girl, and Sam, carrying a massive croquembouche between them. Everyone ‘ooh’ed and ‘ah’ed as they caught sight of the high tower of profiteroles welded together with salted caramel and adorned with sparklers and the clapping got distinctly more enthusiastic. Unfortunately the dramatic impact was rather lost on the staff of Happy Ever After. They’d been required to taste-test so many different flavoured cr?me patisseries (in the end Mattie had gone with a hazelnut praline) that Verity and Tom had vowed to each other that they would never eat another profiterole as long as they lived. ‘Do you want some?’ she asked Johnny as plates of profiteroles began to be passed around. He shook his head. ‘Actually, I haven’t got that much of a sweet tooth. If it were a cheese tower, I’d be mowing down anyone who got in my way. What was that you were saying about romantic novels?’ ‘What?’ Verity scrolled back to their conversation BC (before croquembouche). ‘The bookshop. We specialise in romantic fiction.’ Johnny didn’t pull an agonised face like he was scared of getting romantic fiction cooties, like Dougie, Merry’s boyfriend did, every time Verity talked about work. He jerked his head in the direction of the glass doors through which shelves of books could be glimpsed. ‘The whole shop? Really?’ ‘I’ll give you the guided tour, if you like.’ Verity wasn’t just offering to be polite. More and more people were pouring into the tearoom on a hunt for profiteroles and it was inevitable that soon Verity’s personal space bubble would become pierced in all directions. She and Johnny inched closer to the doors that led to the now-closed shop, which she unlocked so they could slip through undetected. Verity took Johnny through the deserted rooms and explained how Happy Ever After had been transformed over the last couple of months. They ended up sitting on opposite sofas in the main room as Johnny looked around with interest. ‘I’m getting a very strong sense of d?j? vu,’ he said, as his eyes rested on the rolling ladder. ‘What did the shop used to be called?’ ‘Bookends,’ Verity said and Johnny’s face lit up with a smile. Verity smiled back because there was something about this version of Johnny’s smile, how welcoming it was, how it pulled you into its orbit, which automatically made her want to smile too. But then, like the sun slipping down behind the London rooftops, his smile faded. ‘I’ve been here before,’ he said. ‘Lots of times before.’ ‘When it was Bookends?’ Verity dared to ask because it seemed as if the subject suddenly had a Keep Out notice pinned on it and she liked to be as respectful of other people’s boundaries as she hoped they would be of hers. ‘We had a spelling test at school every Friday and if I got all my answers right, then my mother would bring me here to choose a book then we’d visit the tearoom for a cake. I had a much sweeter tooth back then,’ he said, eyes faraway as if he wasn’t seeing Happy Ever After but the shop as it had been, which in the day had had a huge children’s section. ‘I used to get a gold star if I got all my spellings right,’ Verity offered because Johnny had shared something personal and she found that she wanted to do the same. ‘Once I’d collected ten gold stars, I was given fifty pence to spend on penny sweets in the newsagent.’ ‘Fifty pence to spend on penny sweets was untold riches when we were kids, wasn’t it?’ Johnny asked with a grin, his mood lightening again, but Verity shook her head. ‘It really wasn’t. Not when you have sisters,’ Verity remembered sadly. Her sisters, who never, ever got ten gold stars, would always want in on Verity’s fifty pence mix up and would hang over the sweet display in the local newsagent and argue. Johnny laughed when Verity told him that the newsagent got so fed up he’d stuck a sign on the door. ‘Only two Love sisters allowed in the shop at any one time.’ This wasn’t as bad as she remembered it being. Talking to a man. Dating. Not that they were dating. Or were even friends, but it wasn’t as awful as she’d imagined it to be. ‘What books did you like when you were a kid?’ Verity asked Johnny and he admitted to an obsession with Biggles. ‘There was this guy who used to work here who’d track down out-of-print Biggles novels for me. His wife used to run the caf?. She made the most amazing flapjacks.’ ‘I think you must mean my mum and dad.’ Verity’s heart jack-knifed in her chest when she heard Posy’s voice from the doorway and then she thought she might burst into tears. ‘My parents used to run the bookshop and the caf?.’ ‘Really? Cause I’m going back nearly thirty years,’ Johnny said doubtfully, twisting round to smile at Posy. ‘Mum and Dad took over the shop twenty-five years ago and my mother made the best flapjacks in the world, so it had to be them,’ Posy said. ‘Well, they must be very proud of everything you’ve accomplished,’ Johnny said, which was absolutely the right and kindest thing to say in the circumstances. Verity had been worried about him coming here – to her work, her home, to meet her friends – but he fitted in like he really was a new boyfriend on his best behaviour. Except he’d just talked about Posy’s parents in the present tense and Sebastian, who’d come up behind Posy because they couldn’t bear to be a minute apart from each other, brushed his hand against Posy’s cheek. It was a tiny, tender gesture that made Verity’s heart jack-knife again. She also couldn’t believe that Sebastian Thorndyke, of all people, was capable of such tenderness. ‘You all right, Morland?’ he asked. Posy nodded. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’ She smiled bravely at Johnny. ‘I hope that they would be proud of me but, you see, they died nearly eight years ago.’ Johnny’s intake of breath was swift. ‘I’m sorry …’ he tailed off, took another deep breath. ‘My mother died ten years ago, when I was twenty-five … I would hope that she’s proud of me too. You know, she loved this shop. It was one of her favourite places.’ ‘Thank you,’ Posy said and then nobody knew what to say; even Sebastian felt moved enough to keep quiet. Johnny glanced over at their new-releases shelves long enough for Posy to give Verity a thumbs up and mouth, ‘I love him!’ Then Johnny turned his attention back to them and Posy smiled brightly. ‘No lurking in here. This is meant to be a party. So, let’s get back to partying.’ Of course, the first person Verity saw as they stepped out into the courtyard was Merry, who’d just arrived with Dougie. Like a heat-seeking missile, she immediately homed in on where Verity was now trying to hide Johnny behind a tree, dragging Dougie over with her. ‘There you are!’ she called out, but she had eyes only for Johnny. Or one eye because she stood there violently winking at Johnny so one side of her face was completely contorted. ‘This is my sister, Merry,’ Verity said. ‘Please ignore her weird, disfiguring facial tic. And this is Dougie, her boyfriend.’ Verity waggled her fingers at Dougie, who waggled his fingers back. He’d known Verity long enough now to understand that a finger waggle was far more acceptable than a hug. ‘This is Johnny.’ ‘I know who he is!’ Merry pointed at her eye. ‘I don’t have a weird facial tic. I was winking! To let Johnny know that I’m in on the scam, but don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Very, I need cake, I’m incredibly hungover. Dougie, alcohol, go and find some. Johnny, you come with me.’ Then Merry yanked a bemused-looking Johnny over to one of the benches that had just become vacant and there was nothing that Verity could do but break the land speed record to get cake and bring it back to her sister who by then was happily regaling Johnny with tales of Love family life. ‘There was no room to move when all of us were at home at the same time and Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s wife said that TV would rot our young minds, which is ironic because now they’re both completely addicted to Cash in the Attic, and so we had to make our own fun. Mostly we pretended to be the Mitford sisters, though we all used to fight to get to be Unity. Not because we were Nazis but if it was your turn to be Unity, you got to shoot yourself in the head, then lumber about like a lunatic. We also used to play Pride and Prejudice. Did you know that Very has the entire book memorised? She has a quote good to go for every occasion. So, what about you, then? Do you have any siblings? Where do you live? It’s so weird that you’re single. I mean, you’re ridiculously good-looking. There’s plenty of women who wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating a cracker, not that you want to be getting ideas about my sister, because hmmmppffff—’ The only effective way to silence Merry was to shove a large piece of cake at her mouth. Verity couldn’t even bring herself to say anything. There were no words. It was left to Dougie to remonstrate because sometimes – admittedly not very often – Merry did listen to Dougie. ‘Merry, stop sticking your nose into other people’s business.’ Merry managed to swallow the piece of raspberry meringue layer cake. ‘Very isn’t other people!’ ‘I am people,’ Verity pointed out. ‘And I’m your family, so you should be more respectful of my—’ ‘Family shamily!’ Dougie rolled his eyes. ‘That doesn’t even make sense, Merry.’ Johnny didn’t need to be witness to this familiar old squabble. Verity gingerly tugged at his T-shirt, both of them tensing as her knuckles made contact with what felt like quite taut musculature under the soft brushed cotton, and led him away. ‘Isn’t this a little rude?’ he said. ‘I’ve barely said two words to your sister.’ ‘Merry is genetically predisposed not to respond to hints or gentle coaxing.’ Verity sighed. ‘Sometimes rudeness is the only way to go.’ They were leaving the courtyard now, turning into Rochester Street where Verity stopped. ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ she said. ‘She sounds lovely.’ Johnny got that hazy look that he’d had before when they were sitting in the silent shop and he was remembering. ‘Being back in the shop where I spent so many happy Friday afternoons with her was strange, sad, but also rather wonderful. Thank you for giving that back to me.’ His smile became sharper, more in focus. ‘You know as first dates go, this one wasn’t so bad, was it?’ It wasn’t really a first date. Technically, it was more like a third date. Actually it wasn’t any kind of date at all. And Verity couldn’t do this again. Her heart couldn’t take the strain. ‘Shall we just call it quits?’ she asked a little desperately. ‘This was only meant to be a one-off and I only agreed to it under duress!’ Johnny gave a little start, as if she’d shocked him. ‘Oh no, you don’t wriggle out of it that easily.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘You showed me yours, now I get to show you mine. It’s only fair. My friends have a rotating open-house brunch kind of thing on Sundays and I know they’d love to meet you. What time shall I pick you up tomorrow?’ Verity resisted the urge to stamp her foot. ‘OK, fine. One thing each, then we’re even and I am done. Agreed?’ Johnny smiled patiently as if he were humouring her. ‘So, is ten o’clock good for you?’ (#ulink_37b80319-1fb1-50e6-b4f2-ed5ef50e9e4f) 7 (#ulink_37b80319-1fb1-50e6-b4f2-ed5ef50e9e4f) ‘She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man.’ Sunday dawned bright and early. Too bright. Too early. Verity could hear Nina snoring as she tried to do some yoga in the living room to calm her inner chi. Mostly she contemplated brunch. It was a very vague, woolly concept, brunch. Neither breakfast, nor lunch but occupying some neither here nor there place in between and was never the brunch that Verity had seen when she was watching repeats of Sex and the City. All perfect egg-white omelettes, avocado on sourdough toast and mimosas. Whenever Verity met Merry and their friends for brunch, it always meant a glorified fry-up with alcohol. Verity was ravenously hungry at the thought of bacon but couldn’t eat anything more substantial than rice cakes, for fear of offending her unknown hosts at this open-house brunch thingy. It would probably be buffet-style, which would be awkward. Having to hold a drink in one hand and plate in the other and not knowing what to do when she was introduced to one of Johnny’s friends and needed a hand free for shaking. Unless they did air kisses. Or worse, proper kisses. Then again, it could be a sit-down brunch and even if Johnny was on one side of her, Verity barely knew him and the person on her other side would be a complete stranger. Each possible scenario was more nightmarish than the last. As Verity pulled on a loose, drapey, bird-print top (a genuine designer item found in the Oxfam on Drury Lane, which always had rich pickings), and her favourite skinny jeans, she was surprised she didn’t have hives popping out all over her body. She accessorised with the silver leather hi-top, zipped sneakers that Merry had bought in an internet flash sale then realised they were a size too small. Verity hoped that the overall effect would be a little fashion forward but not too fashion forward. Then she tried to replicate her make-up of the night before with so-so results. It was still only nine o’clock. There was another hour before she’d grudgingly agreed to meet Johnny on the corner of Rochester Street and so, munching on another rice cake, this time smeared with peanut butter for energy, Verity googled him. Googling Johnny was fair game because he’d already admitted to googling her first and their relationship origin story yesterday had sucked and she didn’t want to walk into brunch unprepared and all right, she was curious. There was no crime in being curious. After she typed in his full name, right at the top of her search page was a link to Johnny’s company WCJ Architects, because apparently, he owned his own company. The second item was an article in the Guardian about his four-storey Canonbury townhouse, which he’d bought as a derelict shell and painstakingly brought back to life. While he was studying for his architecture degree at Cambridge, Johnny would spend his holidays working on building sites, instead of at the family firm, which he took over when his father retired five years ago. ‘I’m actually a certified plasterer, but I’ve learned a bit of everything over the years from bricklaying and carpentry to plumbing and rewiring.’ These skills were all put to good use in 2007 when, on qualifying as an architect, Johnny moved to New Orleans to work with Habitat for Humanity to provide new homes for families affected by Hurricane Katrina. Now settled back in London, WCJ Architects, under his guidance, has grown from strength to strength and specialises in lovingly restoring nineteenth and early to mid twentieth century buildings while updating them for the rigours of twenty-first century living. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the pictures of Johnny’s Canonbury house. It was full of natural light and period details mixed with modern minimalism in shades of white and blue. Much too big for one man to live in all by himself, Verity thought, though it must be idyllic; all that space, all those empty rooms. Even with a couple of flatmates, you could still have all the peace and quiet you needed. Verity stared intently at a picture of Johnny that had been taken in his airy, light kitchen so the glint of the sun turned his hair almost blond. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt and perched on his burnished steel kitchen table, fingers clasped round a black and white graphic mug that Verity had lusted after in Liberty then hastily put back on the shelf because it cost over forty pounds. Of course, Johnny photographed extremely well; his eyes looked especially blue … Verity shook herself out of her stupor and glanced up at the clock. She only had ten minutes before she was due to meet Johnny and she needed to do something about the thick rice cake and peanut butter paste that was coating every inch of her mouth. Verity was two minutes early, but Johnny was already waiting at their allotted meeting place. He was wearing jeans again and another faded T-shirt, which thankfully meant that Verity hadn’t got the dress code horribly wrong, and carrying a large bouquet of flowers, wrapped in brown paper, because the fanciest, most expensive bouquets of flowers were always presented in humble brown paper. ‘Oh dear,’ Verity said by way of greeting, taking a step back when Johnny tried to lean down to kiss her so he had to give it up as a bad job. ‘Am I meant to bring something too? I should, shouldn’t I? It’s so rude to turn up at someone’s house empty-handed when you’re expecting them to feed you.’ ‘It’s fine. The flowers can be from both of us,’ Johnny said. ‘We should probably get going or we’ll get there for lunch instead of brunch,’ he added as if he instinctively knew that Verity hated being late for anything. The brunch was being held in Primrose Hill. As they stepped onto Theobald’s Road, Johnny was already hailing a taxi. ‘Shall we get out at Great Portland Street and walk through Regent’s Park?’ he suggested and Verity nodded, even though walking through the park would mean walking and talking. Verity needn’t have worried. As they settled into their seats, Johnny’s phone beeped. Text message incoming. Then, like the day before, he was glued to his phone. As soon as Johnny sent a message out into the ether, he got a message back within seconds. Maybe it was an architect emergency. Something to do with subsidence or dry rot, Verity thought as she sat and stared out of the window at the familiar London streets thronged with Sunday shoppers, sightseers, tourists with backpacks and comfortable shoes. Even when they got out of the cab at Park Square Gardens, Johnny batting Verity’s hand away as she tried to give him a fiver towards the fare, and began the long stroll through Regent’s Park down the Broad Walk towards London Zoo, Johnny was still riveted to his phone. It was actually quite bad manners to invite someone to a brunch to meet all your friends, and ignore her for the entire journey. Peter Hardy, oceanographer, would never have behaved in such a rude fashion. ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ Johnny murmured as if he could read Verity’s mind. He slipped his phone into a pocket. ‘You now have my undivided attention.’ Then again, Verity wasn’t sure that she wanted his undivided attention. ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she mumbled and every step she took felt as if it were taking her nearer to her execution. That sounded very melodramatic. Not execution but maybe a little light torture. ‘So … um, whose house are we going to exactly?’ ‘Now that I think about it, we should be better prepared than we were yesterday.’ Johnny gave a rueful chuckle. ‘Shall we stick to the story that we met when we were both stood up?’ ‘Yes, let’s,’ Verity agreed as she had no better ideas. Merry had come up with the meet cute for Verity and Peter Hardy. He’d dropped a scuba mask at the top of the escalators at Angel tube station and Verity had managed to catch it before it brained someone. ‘So, this brunch … it’s being hosted by my friends Wallis and Graham. Wallis is American, a barrister, grew up on something called a dude ranch, and I was at school with Graham. In fact, I was at school with most of the people at the brunch. They’re all good sorts. Not at all scary, I promise.’ Johnny went on to explain how he and his old school friends met for brunch on the third Sunday of every month and took turns to host. ‘Though when it’s my turn, I get it catered and I can’t cook eggs to order. I feel like I let the side down.’ ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ Verity said. ‘I could never cook eggs to order either. Far too much pressure.’ ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, just how many sisters do you have?’ Johnny asked before Verity could think of a tactful way to grill him on how long exactly they were expected to stay at the brunch. ‘Four of them, though it feels like more.’ ‘Four?’ Johnny whistled. ‘Older or younger?’ ‘Both. I’m the middle child.’ Verity was a classic middle child, if ever there was one. The quiet one, the peacemaker, the odd one out. ‘Which is why they always tried to stick me with being Mary Bennet when we were playing Pride and Prejudice.’ ‘Merry mentioned something about that.’ Johnny shot Verity a sideways look as they walked by London Zoo, past the huge netted aviary. ‘What’s wrong with Mary Bennet?’ ‘Have you never read Pride and Prejudice?’ Verity asked him in scandalised tones. If Johnny had been a proper boyfriend then not reading Pride and Prejudice would be a total deal breaker. ‘Can’t say I have. Not really my kind of thing. Too many bonnets.’ Johnny held up his hands in protest. ‘Please stop looking at me like that. Like I’ve just admitted to kicking kittens and punching puppies.’ ‘It’s almost that bad,’ Verity said and she tried to briefly pr?cis the plot of Pride and Prejudice and the role of Mary Bennet, which was hard when it was her favourite book. ‘So, to get my revenge on years of having to be Mary, whenever my sisters are arguing, which they do, all the time, I quote her being particularly priggish. “But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into each other’s wounded bosoms the balm of sisterly consolation.” It winds them up like nothing else,’ Verity admitted at the end of her pitch. ‘So, no siblings, then?’ ‘I was a lonely only,’ Johnny said. They left Regent’s Park through the Gloucester Gate, crossed over at the traffic lights and began to walk along Gloucester Avenue. ‘It wasn’t so bad. I had lots of friends and my parents were the fun kind of parents. They were both architects and for my sixth birthday, they built me a treehouse in the back garden in the style of a pirate ship so I was very popular at school.’ ‘I really am sorry about your mother. I know she passed away a while ago, but she sounds like such a wonderful, warm person,’ Verity said and Johnny dipped his head in acknowledgement, and though he was in profile, he suddenly looked so sad that Verity felt sad too. Sad by proxy. ‘Sorry, I’ll shut up if you don’t want to talk about her.’ ‘Actually, I never mind talking about her because I don’t ever want to forget how beautiful and kind she was. And last night when I was thinking about her, about being back in Bookends, I remembered that each time we went, she’d buy a romance novel.’ Johnny frowned at the memory. ‘Said it was a special treat for getting all her spellings right too. My father would tease her; complain that she already had enough romance in her life. I’d forgotten all about that until yesterday.’ Verity knew then, that if Johnny’s mother were still alive, she would have liked to have met her. Also, that she’d approve of her favourite bookshop’s transformation. ‘I’m pretty sure your mother must have read Pride and Prejudice then, despite its high bonnet count,’ she said and Johnny smiled at her gratefully as if he needed a little bit of light relief because memories of lost loved ones, even good memories, were always painful. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘I must ask my father.’ Johnny sighed. ‘However much I miss her, my father misses her more. They really were soulmates.’ Their pace slowed as Johnny told her about how his father, William, and his mother, Lucinda, had met as students at Cambridge and had never spent a day apart until Lucinda died. William, still heartbroken from the sound of it, now lived in the basement flat of Johnny’s house. ‘He’s not quite so heartbroken any more but my mother was his one and only love and so I suppose his heart will never completely heal.’ ‘He even takes care of his ageing Papa, could he be any more perfect?’ asked a voice in Verity’s head that sounded like a composite of all her sisters, her mother, Mrs Bennet and also Chandler Bing and was so loud she barely heard Johnny thank her. ‘Huh? Thank me? For what?’ ‘For asking me about my mother. For not ignoring it because it was awkward. That was very kind of you,’ he said gently. ‘Just because something’s difficult to talk about doesn’t mean it should be swept under the carpet. My family doesn’t believe in sweeping anything under the carpet. I mean, you met Merry …’ ‘Is she the bossy sister?’ Verity couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Not the bossiest. She’s about a seven on the bossy scale. Five and a half if I stuff enough cake in her first.’ Johnny looked incredulous. ‘Con, she’s the eldest, is the bossiest sister. Hands down, then Chatty and Immy, the youngest, they’re twins, share joint second on the leader board.’ ‘Four bossy sisters. I can’t even imagine what that must be like.’ ‘Very, very noisy for one thing,’ Verity told him. There had been many times that Verity had longed to be an only child. Especially stuck in a three-bedroom prefab house (the original vicarage had been destroyed by bombs during World War Two and the diocese had yet to rebuild it) so there had been nowhere to get away from four sisters and the unholy racket that accompanied them. Our Vicar wasn’t much better. He had a booming voice all the better for sermonising with, but even when he wasn’t in the pulpit he was still booming away, usually singing from a selection of classic musicals accompanied by his wife. You couldn’t even have a wee in peace, without someone hammering on the door and demanding to know how long you were going to be. ‘You’re not at all noisy,’ Johnny noted. ‘I do ramble sometimes,’ Verity said, ‘but that’s just nerves.’ ‘There’s nothing to be nervous about.’ Johnny had come to a halt, which meant Verity had to stop too. They were standing outside a huge stucco-covered house, wisteria clinging lovingly to its walls, a perfect match for the front door, which was painted the same shade of lilac. ‘Anyway, we’re here.’ He unlatched the front gate. ‘After you.’ (#ulink_e1acde5a-9423-53d9-a60e-e2ad2e9b72ba) 8 (#ulink_e1acde5a-9423-53d9-a60e-e2ad2e9b72ba) ‘Where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour.’ Though she longed to turn tail and run, Verity squared her shoulders and followed Johnny down the path to the lilac front door. Johnny rang the bell and she even managed to return the encouraging smile that he gave her, though it was as limp as a week-old lettuce. Verity could hear people chatting, laughing, children shrieking and footsteps that got louder and louder until the door opened and a tall, elegant blonde woman stood there. Her face lit up. ‘Johnny! You’re late!’ She had a soft, lazy American accent. Her gaze rested on Verity and she gave a little start, blinked, regained her composure and smiled again. ‘And you’ve brought someone?’ It was definitely a question. Not a statement of fact. Like Johnny hadn’t bothered to tell his friends, his matchmaking-him-with-fake-breasted-divorcees friends, that he was bringing a woman to their open-house, rotating brunch thingy. ‘This is Verity,’ Johnny said breezily. ‘You’re always telling me that I’m welcome to bring a guest.’ ‘You are and Verity, I am so pleased to meet you. I’m Wallis. Please, come in!’ No sooner had Verity taken one step over the threshold than she was gathered up in Wallis’s arms for an enthusiastic hug. Nobody had said anything about hugging. Verity tried not to stiffen but she didn’t do a very good job of it and was Wallis stroking her hair? She was, then Wallis took Verity’s hand and pulled her down the hall, Verity shooting a pained glance back at Johnny who smiled encouragingly again, and into a huge country-style kitchen absolutely full of people all milling about and helping themselves to a selection of fruit, juices and pastries set up on the kitchen island. There were also savoury items keeping warm on a hot plate, the sight and scent of crisp bacon making Verity’s dry mouth suddenly water, and a tall man with a harried air was manning a frying pan and asking loudly if anyone wanted chopped chives in their omelettes. Yet more people were pouring themselves coffee then spilling out of the open patio doors into a large garden. The whole scene was like something from an advert. This isn’t just any brunch. This is an M&S brunch. At least no one seemed to be paying them any attention, Verity thought just as Wallis pulled her forward. ‘Guys! Guys!’ she called out, her voice now doing a good impersonation of a foghorn. ‘Guys! Johnny’s here and he’s BROUGHT A FRIEND! Everyone, this is Verity!’ Verity looked down at that point just to make sure that she wasn’t naked because she’d had an anxiety dream very similar to this although that had also involved being thrust on stage to sing ‘Agadoo’ with the appropriate hand gestures. No, definitely not a dream, no amount of pinching herself awake was going to rescue her from this living hell. She’d hoped that Johnny’s friends wouldn’t be too intimidating, that they’d be polite if a little reserved about the interloper in their midst. But never in her wildest imaginings had Verity expected that they’d fall on her with effusive and enthusiastic greetings. ‘Look at you!’ one woman cried as she clasped Verity to her bosom. ‘What a lovely girl.’ ‘And isn’t Johnny lovely too? We’re so pleased that he’s finally met someone nice. Is it serious?’ ‘Well, it must be serious if he’s bringing her to brunch.’ Verity was surrounded on all sides by women in their mid to late thirties, all wearing brunch casual; jeans and Breton tops, glossy hair pulled back from faces all fixed intently on her. ‘It’s not serious,’ she bleated. ‘We’re just friends, aren’t we? Aren’t we?’ She turned to find Johnny, to plead for back-up, but he was in the middle of a group of men, dressed as if they all had shares in Boden, who were slapping him on the shoulders and saying things like ‘You sly, old dog!’ and ‘About bloody time!’ until Johnny’s phone rang and he excused himself to take the call, leaving Verity on her own. Except, Johnny’s friends didn’t leave her on her own. She was supplied with a glass of Prosecco topped up with orange juice, a bagel with scrambled eggs cooked to order (‘not too runny, please’) with a side of bacon, then led out into the garden to be given the seat of honour on the decking while the women arranged their chairs in a fan pattern around her. ‘So, Verity, where did you and Johnny meet?’ She stumbled through their prearranged answer and had barely tasted her first forkful of scrambled eggs, when someone else piped up. ‘And do you live near here?’ ‘Bloomsbury.’ ‘Bloomsbury! You lucky thing!’ There were coos of approval. Verity glanced around the half circle of affluent North-London-dwelling women. It wasn’t even that they were older than Verity; they also came from a very different place to her. It was apparent in the confident way they carried themselves, the ease and assurance that prep and private school and redbrick university had given them. Verity would have been surprised if any of them had gone to a run-down comprehensive or grown up in a leaky prefab on the edge of a sink estate because the old bishop had had it in for Mr Love after he’d refused to denounce single mothers and homosexuals from the pulpit. But being a vicar’s daughter also taught a girl some valuable life skills. For all her awkwardness, for all her shyness, Verity had spent her formative years mixing with all sorts of people. Whenever there’d been a knock at the vicarage door, Mr and Mrs Love expected all their daughters to be considerate of whoever was standing on the doorstep, whether it was a grieving widow or proud new father or even Billy from the greengrocers who was convinced that the devil had taken up residence in his potting shed and called around weekly to ask Mr Love to perform an exorcism. So, in this moment Verity knew that she’d be fine as long as she tamped down her nerves and made a concerted effort to remember to breathe. ‘I work in a bookshop and I live above the shop.’ She pulled her lips back in something close to a smile. ‘I couldn’t afford to live in Bloomsbury otherwise.’ ‘A bookshop! I love bookshops!’ Wallis said and as Verity answered their questions about where she’d gone to university, where her family lived (Mr and Mrs Love were now settled in an archetypal rambling vicarage in a charming village in the East Lincolnshire Wold since the bishop who’d been her father’s nemesis had retired), what her plans for the summer were (undecided), each reply was greeted with big smiles and cries of rapturous delight as if Verity had entertained them all by balancing her plate on her nose like a performing seal or broken into a pitch-perfect rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’. She had done neither of those things. She was just a girl sitting in front of a group of comparative strangers insisting that she and Johnny were just good friends. And where was Johnny while Verity was being gently interrogated? He was pacing up and down at the bottom of the long, lushly green garden, phone clamped to his ear. ‘Johnny is such a wonderful man,’ one of the women, Lisa, said when she saw where Verity’s attention had wandered. ‘We’ve all been hoping that he’d meet an equally wonderful woman. He’s been single for years.’ ‘We’d practically given up hope, hadn’t we?’ chirped one of the blonder women there. ‘We’ve tried so many times to set Johnny up with so many wonderful women, but none of them stuck. And now, here you are!’ ‘It’s early days. Very early days,’ Verity insisted with a fixed smile. ‘We’re just taking it slowly. So slowly. I’d say we were more friends than anything else.’ ‘Of course you are, but he really is a great guy,’ Lisa insisted and the other women agreed that Johnny was hewn from greatness as the man himself glanced over at Verity. She gave him a feeble finger waggle and wished that he were close enough that she could glare at him so he’d get the message that it was not cool to abandon your fake girlfriend within thirty seconds of introducing her to your friends. Not cool at all. ‘He really deserves to be happy.’ Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/annie-darling/true-love-at-the-lonely-hearts-bookshop/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.