The Secret Christmas Bookshop (The Secret Bookshop #1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘ I t isn’t what you think it is.’ The moment he said it, Harry made a face, as if realizing that was the least promising start to his defence.

‘Right.’ Sophie’s voice sounded so flat, she almost didn’t recognize it.

A crash of thunder made them both jump, and Harry held his hand out. ‘Let’s go into my study. I don’t think it’s safe here.’

‘What about your precious books?’ Sophie flung her arm out behind her.

She saw him waver for a split-second, his gaze flicking over her shoulder, then he shook his head. ‘Come on.’ She let him pull her out of the annex and into the study. He shut the door firmly, then went straight to the fireplace, even though the lights – and so presumably the heating – were working again.

‘You got the generator going, then,’ Sophie said, because even though she was angry and confused, she hated the silence between them: hated that he’d been out in the rain with an injured shoulder.

‘It took me and Dex longer than we’d like, but we did it.’ He arranged paper around the wood, nestled the firelighter in the middle and lit it, staying on his knees until it was flaming. Then he hauled himself up and dragged one of the armchairs across the rug, so they were closer. He gestured for her to sit down, then sat right in front of her.

‘How’s your shoulder?’ she asked.

‘I think we have more important things to talk about, don’t you?’

‘If you’re injured, you need to let someone look at it.’

‘I will, but not now. I didn’t mean for you to discover …’ He glanced behind him. ‘To discover that. I was going to tell you about it.’

‘Your Secret Book Lair?’ She folded her arms.

Felix, set free from his watery cave – although he had never actually been trapped – was warming himself in front of the fire, his ears pricked up.

‘It’s not a secret,’ Harry said. ‘It’s … when Dad couldn’t run The Book Ends any more, there was a lot of stock left. Some of it went back to the wholesaler’s, some of it we passed on – to charity shops and the library in Dad’s care home – but there were still all these books, a lot of them really old, just … sitting there. And they were there for too long, because I was still in London and I didn’t make enough time, but I finally hauled them all here. When I moved back, one of the first things I did was build the annex to store them in.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Clearly, I didn’t make it stormproof.’

Sophie didn’t know what to say. All of that made sense, but it didn’t come close to explaining her book, or Winnie or Simon’s, or why he hadn’t told her he bound books in his spare time; that they had that in common.

‘And then?’ she prompted. The fire crackled encouragingly, and Sophie wondered how the others were coping. Was May looking after Frank, Valerie and Birdie? Was Lucy OK?

‘I told you, I think, that I started to find my work in London soulless?’ Harry said, and she nodded. ‘I was in a pub one night, and there was this sign on the wall for evening courses: develop a hobby, find your passion, that sort of thing. I was feeling completely hollowed-out, really unhappy, so I looked at the website. I didn’t even know if the company existed any more. Who puts flyers up on pub walls these days?’

‘People who accidentally add an extra couple of zeros to their flyer order?’ Sophie suggested. ‘End up with twenty thousand instead of two?’

Harry looked at her, surprised. But she had to find some levity, or she’d drown in her disappointment before he got to the end of his story.

‘I did it with some expensive leather sheets,’ she explained. ‘I ordered two hundred instead of twenty. I didn’t realize until the bank called me to tell me I’d gone over my overdraft limit, and by then they were already on their way. It was four years ago, and I still have a lot left. They do make beautiful notebook covers though,’ she added pointedly, and Harry closed his eyes.

‘One of the courses they were offering was bookbinding,’ he went on. ‘It sounded archaic, so old-fashioned, but … I guess I was thinking about Dad, feeling guilty. I couldn’t come home because then we’d have lost this place, so I just … I went to the first night. It was a small group, and I was the youngest there by a long way – apart from a girl called Destiny who was setting up an Etsy shop, who wanted to rebind romance books.

‘I didn’t really have any aims, except to lose myself in something that wasn’t about ambition or greed. And I loved it. I kept going with the sessions. Then, when I moved back here, I decided that all those old books that had been in Dad’s shop, some of which were damaged, the covers ruined – I would try and rebind them. I got the tools and the materials, set up that desk in the annex. I didn’t want to tell anyone, not until I’d seen whether I could really do it.’

‘Then what were you going to do?’ It was both heart-warming and heart- breaking that he’d done this: felt so miserable and trapped in London, found something good that made him think of his dad. If she hadn’t been so angry, so upended by her discovery, she would have wrapped her arms around him.

‘I don’t know.’ Harry shrugged a shoulder. ‘I thought … maybe reopen The Book Ends, eventually. But it’s not quick work, I’m still pretty amateur, and the house repairs had to take priority. Clearly, I still have a long way to go with those. But I didn’t … I never meant for that copy of Jane Eyre to end up with you.’ He frowned.

Sophie’s heart thudded. ‘You didn’t?’

‘I didn’t know you had it, not at first.’

‘I told you …’ Sophie thought back, trying to remember what she’d told him about it and when. She knew she’d mentioned it, but had she given him all the details? ‘What do you mean, Harry? I don’t understand.’

‘I didn’t leave that book for you at the shop. You mentioned you’d been given a book, that you didn’t know where it had come from, but I had no idea it was one of mine. Not until …’

‘When?’ Sophie asked quietly.

‘The night I came to meet you at the village hall, the day I’d been in London. Your bag was open in my bedroom and I saw it.’

‘But you didn’t say anything?’ Sophie stood up. She had too much nervous energy to sit still any longer. She heard barking in another part of the house, and Felix’s head turned, but he didn’t leave his spot on the rug. ‘Do you know how it ended up with me? How Winnie and Simon ended up with your books too, if you’re claiming it wasn’t you?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Harry said. ‘I promise you. And, at the time, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain.’

‘And do you know, now?’

He nodded.

Sophie waited, her fingers tingling with tension. ‘Who was it?’ she asked, when he didn’t offer up the information.

Harry swallowed. ‘It was May.’

Sophie blinked. ‘What? Why?’

‘May left it for you, but she didn’t tell me. I didn’t know she’d done it until the day I saw it in your bag. She’s the only other person who knows what I’ve been doing, who had access to that room and the books I’d bound.’

‘But … but it makes no sense! Why would she do it?’

Harry sat forward, put his elbows on his knees, then immediately sprang back, pain twisting his features. Sophie needed to look at his shoulder, but she had to make sense of what had happened, first.

‘May is a hopeless romantic,’ Harry said.

Sophie laughed. ‘She’s a tech wizard. She went to Silicon Valley. She spends her days working with bits and bots and … whatever they’re called.’

‘She’s technically brilliant, but she is also as sentimental as they come,’ Harry explained. ‘She’s known me for a long time; we stayed in touch when we were miserable on opposite sides of the world. She knew about the bookbinding and, once we’d both moved back here, she said we had to do something special with the books I’d rescued. She knew I wanted to reopen the bookshop at some point, but she said there were other ways of being creative, of making magic out of what I was doing.

‘I thought she meant when I’d finished a good number of them; when the house was done and I’d spent some time bringing my skills up to scratch. I didn’t realize she’d taken that copy of Jane Eyre , or the others. I didn’t notice they were gone, because that room is full of books and I tend to focus on the one I’m working on, and lately, with the festival, I’ve been too busy to spend any time in there anyway.’

‘So she took them without your permission?’ Sophie couldn’t help sounding sceptical.

‘She did.’

‘And you didn’t notice ?’ She walked over to Harry’s desk and pulled back the curtain. The floodlights lit up the driveway and the still pelting rain. It was dark and miserable, and she turned back to the cosy room.

‘I didn’t notice,’ Harry repeated. ‘If I’d asked you more about your book, if I’d seen it earlier, I would have known it was one of mine.’

Sophie shook her head. She’d instantly dismissed Harry as her anonymous giver. She hadn’t properly asked him about it, had never shown him the – his – beautifully bound book. ‘But you did know,’ she said. ‘Ten days ago.’

‘I wanted to make sure I’d got it right before I said anything to you.’

‘You knew May was the only person it could be,’ Sophie said. ‘You could have told me. You could have trusted me.’ He’d chosen May over her; had wanted to protect his friend, rather than be honest with Sophie.

‘It wasn’t about not trusting you,’ Harry said. ‘I didn’t want to come to you with half the facts.’

‘And what facts are you still waiting for? Because you didn’t tell me. I found out by discovering your Secret Book Lair.’

‘Secret Book Lair,’ he muttered. He looked up at her, and he suddenly seemed exhausted. ‘I wanted to find out from May why she’d taken one of my books and left it for you. And she has told me, but I suppose I was …’ He swallowed. ‘I suppose it was an uncomfortable thing, telling you the truth.’

Sophie sat back down, the armchairs so close that their knees were touching.

‘Why was it uncomfortable?’

‘Because May had realized I liked you.’

Sophie frowned. ‘We didn’t know each other. We’d seen each other a few times in the village, but hardly ever spoken. I got the book the day after our run-in on the cliff path.’

Harry closed his eyes. ‘I didn’t know exactly when you got it.’

‘Why does that matter?’

He met her gaze. ‘I’d mentioned you to May a few times, asked her about the woman selling notebooks in Fiona’s shop, told her when I’d seen you out running. I’d done that thing of bringing you up whenever I could, because even though I didn’t know you, I’d noticed you. I thought you were attractive, your smile was warm, and you were focused – determined. I had a … crush on you.’ He grimaced. ‘May understood immediately, because we’ve been friends for three decades. I wanted to speak to you, but it turned out I wasn’t very good at it.’

Sophie remembered bumping into him outside Fiona’s shop, when he’d spilt his coffee, and their run-in at the post office. This was another moment when she should have had her arms around him, laughing delightedly at the idea of forty-two-year-old mega grump Harry Anderly having a crush on her, being so rusty with his communication skills that she thought he hated her instead.

‘She was matchmaking us?’

Harry nodded. ‘She thought she could bring us together, somehow. She saw how much I messed up in the post office. When I confronted her, she said she thought she could do a better job.’

‘With an anonymous book? How was that supposed to help?’

‘She told me that you’d figure it out: that having the book would, at the very least, send you in my direction, because of Dad and the bookshop. She thought it would be a kind of treasure hunt, and that when you got talking to me, something was bound to happen between us.’

‘It sounds like a fairy tale.’

‘Soph,’ Harry said quietly. ‘She wasn’t wrong, was she?’

‘We got talking because of the Oak Fest.’

‘Which she encouraged me to get involved in.’

Sophie thought back to that night in the village hall, how it was the mystery of the book that had made her put her hand up and volunteer: she wanted to get to know the villagers so she could find out who had sent it to her.

‘She’s been manipulating us.’

‘She likes you,’ Harry said. ‘A lot.’

Sophie stood up again. ‘So why not just tell me? Why not say: I like you, Sophie, and I think you’d be great for my grumpy friend Harry ?’ She flung her arms wide. ‘This is ridiculous – all of it. And you’ve known for ten days, and you didn’t tell me.’

Harry pushed himself to standing. ‘I wanted to tell you. I was going to do it on Christmas Eve, once the festival was out of the way. I didn’t want you to think we’d been conspiring against you. It’s my book, and it sounds crazy – I know it sounds crazy that I didn’t know about this, but I promise you I didn’t. And I should be mad with May for going about things the way she did, but I can’t be mad with her.’

‘Because she’s your friend,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s where your loyalty lies.’

‘No! I mean, of course I’m loyal to her. But the reason I can’t be mad,’ he said, taking a step towards her, ‘is because it worked. Because it did bring us together, and it’s been the best thing that’s happened to me in years. I wouldn’t wish us back to being strangers for anything.’ He held his hands out.

Sophie stared at them. Her thoughts wouldn’t slow down. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said. ‘For ten whole days, you knew May had done this, and you didn’t tell me. You’ve been binding books – I make notebooks. It’s something we’ve got in common, but you didn’t want to share it?’

‘I was shocked when I found out you made your own notebooks; that what we were doing was so similar. But my bookbinding … It’s supposed to just be a hobby, my own thing, and I’m still such an amateur. I wasn’t confident enough about it to tell you, I wanted to wait until I was better at it, and my books weren’t supposed to leave the annex.’

‘They’re beautiful,’ she said quietly.

‘It was never about intentionally keeping anything from you.’ Harry’s eyes were gleaming in the firelight. ‘It’s hard for me to open up to people, but I’ve been more honest with you than I have with anyone in a long time.’

‘Not about this.’

She needed time to think. She’d been desperate to know who had given her the book, and it had been May all along. She thought of all the times they’d had coffee and cake together and talked about Harry. Were her feelings even real? May had wanted her and Harry to be together, so she’d engineered it. Suddenly, Sophie couldn’t breathe.

She was in charge of her future. Only her. She couldn’t let anyone else decide, steer her in the direction they wanted. Trent had tried to do that, and when she didn’t live up to his expectations, he’d discarded her as easily as if he’d been closing a door.

‘Sophie?’ Harry put his hands on her shoulders, looking at her with concern. ‘Soph, are you OK? I’m so sorry. I’m sorry this happened, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the moment I knew. May’s intentions are always good, but she got carried away. I don’t think she realized—’

‘This is my life,’ Sophie said. ‘I didn’t … what if it isn’t real? What if none of this is real?’

He squeezed her shoulders. His touch was usually so reassuring, but now she just felt trapped. ‘It is real,’ he said. ‘My feelings for you are real. The book – it’s just like the initial meeting, the meet cute . Nothing more.’

‘I-I don’t know!’ She stepped back, extricating herself from his grip. ‘I don’t know any more. I need to go.’

‘Please don’t.’

‘No. You lied to me, Harry. I don’t – I mean, the book, May … You haven’t been honest with me, so how do I know that this is true, what you’re saying? What if you did it together?’

He held his hands out in front of him, as if she was a frightened animal and he didn’t want to startle her. ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I promise you, I didn’t know. But I do want a future with you. I want us to have a future together here, in Mistingham.’

Panic rose inside her. It hadn’t happened the way she’d thought; she hadn’t been in control of any of it. ‘I’m going.’

Harry hesitated. ‘Now? Back home?’

‘I’m leaving Mistingham,’ she said in a rush. It was what she always did. It was how she stayed in control.

‘What?’

‘I told you that I was planning on leaving after Christmas. You knew that, Harry.’

‘But I thought – you told me you were going to stay. You wanted to talk about it after the festival, but you said you’d changed your mind.’

‘It’s easier this way.’

‘I thought we cared about each other.’

The panic was a tide now, rising higher. A distress alarm sounded somewhere inside her head, warning her that she was getting it wrong; that, for once, this wasn’t what she was supposed to do. ‘It’s better if I go. For both of us.’

‘You can’t mean that. Soph—’

‘This is better , OK?’

Harry stared at her, a deer caught in the shotgun’s sights. He didn’t say anything else.

‘I’m going now,’ she said. And, without kissing Harry, without squeezing his hand or looking at his injured shoulder, she turned away from him and hurried out of his study. She raced through the glowing house to the lounge, where Clifton was playing with Darkness and Terror on the rug, and she scooped him up.

She didn’t meet anyone’s eye, didn’t say goodbye, she just took her dog and ran out into the storm. She was desperate to get away from Mistingham Manor, from the things she’d found out and the man inside, to have a chance to think things through without anyone interfering. She was always so much better on her own.

She couldn’t help thinking of the words she’d read in Jane Eyre. The line that had stuck with her, that came back to her now: ‘Farewell!’ was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, ‘Farewell for ever!’