The Secret Christmas Bookshop (The Secret Bookshop #1)

Chapter Nineteen

T he silence stretched between them. Sophie wished, with her whole being, that he would close the gap and lean down, find her lips with his. And yet, part of her was clearly intent on sabotaging the moment.

‘You stopped talking to me,’ she said. ‘You didn’t want to make bunting together any more.’

She saw his surprise. Then his brows dipped, and she didn’t know if it was confusion or irritation.

‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want to make it with you,’ he said. ‘Sophie, I …’

‘What?’ She dropped her fingers. She’d had them on his lips for far too long.

He brought his hands to her shoulders. They were warm through the borrowed jumper, and she sucked in a breath. ‘Can I …?’

‘What?’ she said stupidly, and his eyebrow kicked up. ‘Oh. I mean, yes. Except you didn’t finish the sentence, so I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but …’

‘I’d like to kiss you,’ he said patiently. ‘Is that OK?’

‘More than,’ she replied, then cursed herself for sounding so prim.

Harry’s soft laughter reverberated through her, then he bent his head, tipped her chin up with a finger, and pressed his lips against hers. He was gentle, his movements hesitant, a whisper of a kiss more than a shout, and Sophie felt every part of her get hotter, chasing away the memory of the cold. She ran her hands up his bare stomach, trailed them over his chest, and that was all the encouragement he needed to deepen the kiss, angling his head to get better access to her lips.

It was the best kiss Sophie could remember, Harry’s pressure the perfect mix of dogged commitment and restraint, turning her molten and making her desperate for more. She wished she was still wrapped in a towel, then wondered if that was wise – if any of this was wise.

He broke away suddenly, as if he’d read her thoughts, and they stared at each other, chests rising and falling in tandem. ‘I should get dressed,’ he said roughly. ‘Make us some food.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Sophie rushed out. ‘I should get back.’

‘No, I—’

‘You need to deal with your menagerie.’ She gestured to the row of animals. ‘And I should go home. I need to … um, call someone.’

Harry frowned. ‘Sophie, I’m sorry. Should I not have—?’

‘No, you should have. I loved it.’ She winced. ‘That was … I mean, it’s been a strange afternoon. I don’t know if we should …’ She flapped her hand back and forth between them. ‘… Right now, anyway. Maybe if we just—’

‘It’s OK,’ Harry said quietly, rescuing her from her incessant babbling. ‘I understand. At least let me drive you home?’

‘That would be lovely, thank you. I’ll go and find my ruined clothes.’

‘They’re still in the bathroom. I’ll find a bag and bring them down.’

‘Right. Great. Thanks.’ She backed towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to get dressed, then.’

He nodded, and Sophie nodded back, like a marionette. Then she turned and fled the room, choosing the beautiful window seat as her refuge now she was free of lake slime. The darkness had fallen, and the view was nothing but shades of grey and black, apart from the gravel, illuminated by the manor’s outside lights. She waited there until Harry opened the door, dressed in jeans and a thick grey jumper, and then all six of them – Felix included – went down to the mud-splattered hall, and Harry found Sophie a pair of May’s slipper boots for her to wear on the journey home.

For the next few days, Sophie sold notebooks in the shop, made more at home in the evenings, and went on early morning runs with Clifton that didn’t stray too near Mistingham Manor.

She and Harry had parted amicably on Friday evening, Harry giving her a decidedly platonic kiss on the cheek, telling her to eat something hot, get under a blanket, to shroud herself in extra warmth. She’d buried her disappointment deep down, told him to do the same and then, when he’d gone, she’d bought herself fish and chips and settled in for an evening in front of the TV, accompanied by her duvet and her dog. Nobody needed to know that what she’d actually done was replay their kiss over and over in her mind.

Harry had messaged, checking on her, and she’d replied as lightly as possible. They’d fallen back into an easy rhythm, and it was as if he hadn’t ever gone cold on her, but also as if she hadn’t explored his bare torso with her fingers, as if they hadn’t kissed in his bedroom, and she’d thought – was still thinking – about doing so much more.

Jane Eyre somehow kept pace with her, taking her thoughts and mirroring them so perfectly that she almost felt as though it was alive with some of Birdie’s magic:

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence.

But, she told herself firmly, they had a festival to put on, and they needed to find some middle ground between staying away from each other and giving into the tension between them if they wanted it to be successful, and the last thing she could do was look to a book for all her answers.

On Thursday, she met May at the hotel, for coffee and cheese scones with crispy tops and warm, fluffy insides, the butter soft and melting. Jazz served them, her red hair adding a shock of colour to the elegant room.

‘OK, Sophie?’ she asked.

‘I’m great thanks. Are you still enjoying it all?’

‘Yeah, Mary and Winnie are good as gold. I’m Jazz.’ She held her hand out to May, and May shook it.

‘Lovely to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Jazz shrugged. ‘Not a whole lot to tell.’ She smiled and went to serve another table.

‘She’s made me rethink a few things,’ Sophie admitted, when it was just the two of them.

‘Has she made you realize that your calling in life is to take over the old sweet shop and become the stationery queen of Mistingham?’ May’s grin was impish, and Sophie laughed.

‘Not exactly. Something she said got me to rethink the festival, see if I could include more of the community, and not just the people who always attend village festivities. A lot of people are lonely, even if they don’t admit it.’ She spread her butter to the edges of her scone. ‘There’s old Mr Carsdale, and Birdie – though I know she sells her vegetables and herbal concoctions to a lot of the locals. I’m sure Dexter gets lonely, too, bringing up Lucy on his own, without his wife to share decisions, those memorable moments.’

‘There’s Harry,’ May added, ‘knocking about at the manor.’

The mention of his name, when he’d been so much in her thoughts, gave her a jolt. She wondered how much May knew about what had happened the week before. ‘Harry has you,’ she said, which was a lot easier to admit now she knew their relationship was platonic.

May shrugged. ‘I’m there, but I work for a technical helpline quite a bit, then go out on calls. I meet friends in Norwich – I’m meeting you. Until he started working with you on the festival, Harry kept to himself, and he’s still doing that too much for my liking: roaming about the estate, getting into scrapes.’

Sophie could feel May’s gaze on her as she broke her scone into pieces. ‘I was thinking about starting a book club.’ She popped a piece in her mouth, the cheese rich and delicious. ‘I’ve been given this book, by something called The Secret Bookshop,’ she went on when she’d finished. ‘I thought I’d been singled out, but Winnie’s had one too, and it made me think about The Book Ends; how popular it was. Do you think people here would be up for a book club?’

May smiled. ‘I think it’s a lovely idea. I’m intrigued by these book gifts, though: they sound really special. You’d run the club as part of the festival?’

‘To start with,’ Sophie said. ‘We’re having events in the hall as well as outside, so I thought we could launch it there, and then – depending how much of a success it is – see about keeping it going.’

‘Beyond Christmas?’ May lifted her mug to her lips.

Sophie replayed her kiss with Harry for the thousandth time. The air had shimmered with possibility, and she thought he’d wanted more too, even as they’d both held back. She thought of Jazz, telling her that being in Mistingham, having that sense of security, had allowed her to be more generous. Could she change her plans? Let the shallow roots she’d put down here deepen?

‘Maybe,’ she said carefully. ‘I mean, if people were into it.’

‘I love it,’ May said. ‘You’d be at the helm, I’m guessing?’

‘I’m up for giving it a go. I haven’t got involved in much community stuff before now.’

‘Why not?’ May sounded genuinely curious.

Sophie spread more butter on her scone. ‘I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to be asked, and I haven’t taken the initiative myself. Sometimes it’s easier to leave before things get too tangled.’

‘I can see that,’ May said. ‘I stayed too long in America, tried to make my situation work when it was beyond saving. But a lot of the time, sticking around is worth the complications. When it’s no longer worth the effort, that’s when you extract yourself, not before you’ve given it a chance.’

‘I guess.’

‘Even if,’ May went on, ‘some of those complications put you in unfathomable situations, like trying to rescue goats from freezing lakes.’

Sophie groaned. ‘He told you about that?’

‘He phoned me to ask if he could lend you my clothes, and that needed an explanation if nothing else. Then, when I got home, he was polishing the hallway to within an inch of its life, and Felix looked as if he’d had a blow dry.’ She shook her head. ‘That goat is going to be the death of him.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Sophie urged, but she was grinning. ‘I can’t remember ever being that cold before.’

‘No, Harry said it wasn’t pleasant, which is funny, because after it happened he was in a really good mood. Cheerier than I’ve seen him for a while.’

Heat flooded Sophie’s cheeks. ‘He must have been relieved that Felix was OK.’

‘Yes, that must have been it.’ May sounded entirely unconvinced. ‘He’s a great guy, underneath that grizzled outer layer.’

‘I know that,’ Sophie said. ‘It takes a while for him to warm up, but once he has, once he knows he can trust you … he’s one of the kindest people I’ve met.’ Now she knew her cheeks were on fire, but she couldn’t help it: the memory of his lips on hers was playing on an almost constant loop in her head.

When she glanced up, May was giving her a knowing smile, as if she could tell exactly what Sophie was thinking about. ‘What book are you going to start with, for the book group?’

Sophie was grateful for the change of subject. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said slowly, ‘but I was thinking about a classic. Something with a lot of atmosphere, that celebrates the beauty of the countryside, that’s romantic and uplifting – in the end, anyway.’ She pulled off another piece of scone, put it in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. ‘I was thinking about maybe doing Jane Eyre .’