The Secret Christmas Bookshop (The Secret Bookshop #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

H arry appeared in Hartley Country Apparel at five to five on Tuesday afternoon, and was greeted by Sophie’s warm smile and Fiona’s raised eyebrows.

Sophie was already buoyed up, because a customer had come in earlier and bought ten notebooks, then spent half an hour with her, commissioning three bespoke designs that she would have to squeeze in somehow, but was adamant she could get done in time. The drip of Christmas enthusiasm was turning into a flood, and Fiona’s sales of hats, scarves and gloves had been near record-breaking for a Tuesday.

‘Hi, Fiona,’ Harry said. ‘Sophie.’

‘Hey,’ Sophie said. ‘Your place or mine?’

Harry’s smile widened. ‘Yours. Ready to go?’

‘More than.’ Sophie put on her coat and joined him at the door. They said goodbye to Fiona, and Clifton gave her a farewell bark as Sophie slipped her arm through Harry’s and they walked to her flat.

‘I was thinking we could have bacon sandwiches,’ she said, hurrying into the living room ahead of him, tidying the coffee table, moving her notebook and the copy of Jane Eyre to a low bookshelf.

‘You don’t have to do anything, you know.’ Harry took off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door. ‘But it’s very hard for me to turn down a bacon sandwich.’

‘We need fuel while we work.’ She busied herself in the kitchen, getting out a pan, bacon, bread. With only the oven light on, she could see a couple of twinkling lights on the dark sea, tankers or fishing boats, just as Harry had talked about.

‘Are you OK?’ He slipped his arms around her waist, pressing up against her back. ‘Is this OK?’

Sophie swallowed. Now would be the perfect time to tell him she was staying. But instead, she said, ‘We’ve got all the decoration materials ready for the hall, and Jazz and I checked the mic and amplifier yesterday. We should go through our checklist, see what’s left.’

She turned in his arms, and when his lips found hers, when he pushed her gently against the counter, so she could feel him, strong and solid against her, it seemed as if there were more important things than checking they had enough bunting or working out how to run their Scrabble tournament.

‘I don’t think we need to spend the entire evening on it,’ Harry whispered. ‘We’re sensible enough to sort it out.’

‘Sensible?’ Sophie echoed. ‘Is that how you’re selling yourself to me?’

‘I thought I’d already sold myself to you quite well,’ he said against her throat, and Sophie tipped her head back and agreed that yes, he had done that quite well already, actually.

The following day, she met Harry and Dexter on the village green in her lunch break. The sun was attempting to peek through the clouds, and the green looked welcoming despite the whorls of muddy ground visible through the grass, the recent rain having had an impact. She’d brought her larger handbag, the copy of Jane Eyre stowed safely inside.

‘Are we going to need some kind of flooring?’ she asked, after her foot had skidded in the mud.

‘It obviously wasn’t an issue last year,’ Harry said sheepishly. ‘No idea what happened before that.’

Dexter shrugged. ‘People wore boots, got a bit muddy, but didn’t mind because it was Christmas.’

‘Right.’ Harry blew out a breath. ‘Good to know. We need to plan the layout; where we’re going to put everyone.’

‘And you needed my ladder as well as yours, because …?’ Dexter asked.

‘Because we’re putting the lights up.’ Harry pointed at the boxes he’d brought from the manor, the sets of lights they’d bought in Norwich. Inside the biggest box, Sophie thought gleefully, was the light-up goat.

‘And we need two of us to do it,’ she added.

Dexter tipped his head back, looking at the top of the statuesque oak tree. ‘Great.’

‘You sound thrilled,’ Sophie said with a laugh.

‘I’m not a huge fan of heights.’

‘Why do you have a ladder then?’ Harry asked.

‘Because sometimes you need a ladder, and you just have to get over your fears.’ Dexter sighed. ‘Anyway, this is going to be much better than a street festival.’

Harry glanced at Sophie. ‘I know. I’m glad I was made to see sense.’

‘Don’t worry Dex,’ she said, ‘you can be our man on the ground. I’ll go up with Harry.’

Dexter’s shoulders dropped. ‘You sure?’

‘Of course. Can I show you something, though?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’ll get the lights ready.’ Harry strode to the other side of the green, and Sophie couldn’t help watching him go. He’d had that same certainty, that confidence, under the sheets with her the night before.

‘Sophie?’ Dexter prompted with a laugh.

‘Oh! Yes. Right.’ She took the copy of Jane Eyre out of her bag and handed it to him. She had wrapped the brown paper loosely back around it, wanting to keep it pristine.

‘What’s this?’ He turned it over slowly.

‘Someone left it for me at the shop. It had a postcard addressed to me, a message about how I needed to look closer to home to find what I was missing, but I have no idea who’s behind it. Winnie’s been given a book too, and I just wondered if …’

‘I remember you telling me about this ages ago. And now Winnie’s had one? Where’s mine?’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got a clue who sent it to you. It’s a beautiful edition, but I don’t remember even Bernie selling copies this nice in the bookshop.’

Sophie sighed. ‘I’d be able to understand the message more if I knew who was behind it – I’d like to thank them.’

Dexter shrugged. ‘Maybe they don’t want thanks: maybe you’re just supposed to enjoy it.’

They stared down at it, and Sophie realized she’d already got a lot out of it. Rereading the story, having a mystery to try – and so far fail – to solve. It was the reason she’d volunteered for the Oak Fest, which had thrown her together with Harry. Her life had changed a lot because of this book.

‘Thanks Dex.’ She put it back in her bag and they went to join Harry, who looked as though a Christmas tree had exploded all over him, one set of lights draped over his shoulders and another tangled round his arm.

‘How has this happened?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been here five minutes.’

Sophie grinned. ‘You’re not used to sparkly, joyful things?’

He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Take that back, Sophie Stevens. The lights clearly have it in for me.’

‘I take it all back.’ She found the end of the dinky, book-shaped lights, and began to unwind them from round his arm. ‘It can’t be that difficult to get you out of this.’

‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Harry raised an imperious eyebrow, and Sophie got so distracted by his expression that she made the tangle worse, and Dexter had to take charge of the situation.

Half an hour later they were having the same issue, but Sophie and Harry were now twenty feet up, their ladders leaning against the trunk on opposite sides of the oak tree.

‘How the fuck did Winnie do this for so many years?’ Harry called, as he leant forward and tried to drape his lights over a particularly thick branch.

‘She got a helicopter in,’ Dexter shouted from the safety of the ground.

Harry stared down at him. ‘Fuck off.’

Dexter grinned. ‘Yeah, I’m joking. I have no idea. One day the tree was bare, the next it was decorated. You didn’t think to ask her?’

Sophie and Harry exchanged a look, and she saw her own frustration mirrored in his eyes. ‘Don’t you dare lean out too far,’ Harry called to her.

‘Or you,’ she shot back. ‘How the hell are we going to do this?’

Harry rested his forehead against the trunk. ‘Ask Winnie? Hope it isn’t actually a helicopter?’

There was a commotion from below and Sophie looked down, getting a sudden sway of vertigo as Simon and Jason appeared, each carrying ladders.

‘You’ve been trying to get the lights up just the two of you?’ Jason called up.

‘We thought it would be fine,’ Sophie shouted.

Jason shook his head, said something that sounded like amateurs , then Simon called, ‘We’ll come and help you!’

‘That would be amazing!’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Harry added grumpily. She shot him a knowing look, and his returned gaze was incendiary. ‘No risks, Sophie. I mean it. I’m not enjoying this a whole lot, and I’m usually fine with heights.’

‘It’s my least favourite bit of festival wrangling so far,’ she agreed.

‘We’ll have to come up with a way to burn off the adrenaline later,’ he said, against the metal clank of two more ladders finding purchase on the oak tree’s sturdy trunk.

‘I wonder what,’ she replied with a smile, as the married couple came to join them and, it turned out, make the job of draping the oak tree in its festive cloak a hundred times easier.

Soon, their centrepiece was festooned with trails of lights: rainbow-coloured globe bulbs nestled among the branches, next to the dangling book lights Sophie had picked out, and little gold acorns that added a touch of twinkling glamour to the ends of the smaller twigs.

‘Is it too much?’ Harry leaned back on his ladder, and Sophie’s stomach twisted unpleasantly.

‘Nah.’ Jason shook his head. ‘You can’t have too much where this festival is concerned. You might get complaints that it’s too subtle.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Simon said, ‘it looks great. Just the right side of gaudy.’

‘Brilliant.’ Sophie sighed. ‘And we still have our pièce de résistance.’

‘What’s that?’ Jason asked, as he started his descent.

Sophie felt a wave of relief when her feet found the firm-ish ground of the green. She wobbled, and Harry was beside her in an instant, his hand on her waist.

‘I thought you would have forgotten about that,’ he said in a low murmur.

‘Never.’ She grinned up at him.

‘What are we missing?’ Dexter asked.

‘The goat!’ Sophie said triumphantly.

‘ Goat? ’ Simon, Jason and Dexter echoed in unison.

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘I take absolutely none of the credit.’

Together, he and Sophie opened the large cardboard box and lifted the goat out. Sophie had forgotten how cute it was, how much attention had been given to the ears, the little horns, the hooves. Harry unwound the cable and went to plug it into their outdoor extension box, and Sophie positioned it below the tree, so it looked like part of a nativity scene, waiting for its farmyard friends.

‘That,’ Jason said, standing in front of it and crossing his arms, ‘is a great goat.’

‘I love him,’ Simon added. ‘What does he do?’

‘Do?’ Sophie frowned.

‘What colours does he turn?’

‘Oh! Loads of different ones, I think. Harry?’

‘Hang on,’ he called. ‘Just taking a look. It’s got about a hundred different settings.’

‘Let me see.’ Dexter joined him, crouching alongside the wall of the village hall, where the weatherproof electrical box had been fixed.

With Dexter and Harry occupied, Sophie turned to Jason and Simon. ‘Can I show you something?’ She took Jane Eyre out of her bag and showed it to them both, telling the story all over again.

They exchanged a glance, their expressions puzzled.

‘What is it?’ Sophie asked.

‘We got one of these,’ Jason said.

Sophie’s heart thudded. ‘Really?’

‘ Moby Dick ,’ Simon said with a laugh. ‘It looks a lot like this, except the cover’s blue, with silver fish. I wondered if it was because of Batter Days.’

‘Did it come with a postcard?’

‘Yeah,’ Jason said. ‘A tacky one of the prom and the cliffs. On the back it said something like, “For the hardest-working couple in Mistingham. Happy Christmas from The Secret Bookshop.” No idea what that is, but it was pushed through our letter box, hand-delivered because it didn’t have our address on.’

‘It’s someone local.’ Sophie tapped her fingers against her lips. ‘Winnie got one too, so maybe they’re going to work their way around everyone before Christmas?’

‘Maybe,’ Simon said with a shrug.

‘The more people who get one,’ Sophie mused, ‘the more it narrows down who could have sent it.’

‘Unless they send one to themselves,’ Jason pointed out. ‘If I was doing this and wanted to stay anonymous, that’s how I’d throw people off the scent.’

‘ Is that what you’re doing?’ Sophie asked, sliding Jane Eyre back into her bag.

‘No way.’ Jason laughed. ‘I’m far too busy concocting baked Alaska recipes for the Oak Fest to go round being secret fucking book Santa. Besides, where would I get them from? They must cost a fortune.’

Sophie sighed. ‘You’re right, so what—?’

‘We’ve got it working!’ Dexter called.

At the base of the oak tree, the little goat was shimmering a bright, pillar-box red. It pulsed purple, then pink, then orange and green. It was the perfect accompaniment to the lights twinkling in the branches above.

Sophie glanced up as Harry came to join her, her breath catching when she saw his grin. He looked proud, even though he’d grumbled about the goat from the beginning.

‘We’ll have to bring Felix here to show him,’ she said. ‘He’ll love it.’

Harry wrapped his arm around her shoulder and planted a kiss on the top of her head. ‘He’ll probably want us to bring it home once the festival is over. You’d better start thinking of a name.’

He’d said it casually enough, probably by accident, but the words lanced through her like a spear. Want us to bring it home. She’d only spent one night at the manor, and he’d spent one night at her flat, but maybe it had slipped out because he felt the same as her: that what they had together had all the fun and thrill, the heady desire of a new relationship, but also felt solid and safe, as if they’d known each other for years. As if they belonged together.

Sophie leaned into Harry’s chest, noticing the surprised looks from Dexter, Simon and Jason, and knew that this bit of news would be all over Mistingham before the end of the day. She couldn’t find out who had sent her a beautiful, unusual gift – though not for want of trying – but a man kissing a woman on the head: well, that would be front-page news. She felt ridiculously happy that Harry must also have known that, and decided to do it anyway.