Chapter Ten
You are in my thoughts again. I cannot get rid of you. I am constantly angry that you are not mine.
H
SEBASTIAN
I’m trying very hard not to pay any attention to the shop across the road today. I need to ring various people about James Wyatt’s exit from the festival, but I want to confirm Lisa Underwood first. I can’t do that until I hear from Miss Jones.
I stand behind the counter, staring hard at my laptop screen, ostensibly checking my emails for anything festival-related. But in reality my attention is focused on the front window, which calls like a siren on a rock. Urging me to look through it to Portable Magic, see what Miss Jones is doing.
I resist. I have to resist. But the memory of how she tasted has caught in my head and I can’t forget it.
Sending her that text last night was a mistake, but I couldn’t sleep and I was angry. Angry with myself and my own weakness. Angry with her for being beautiful and sexy as hell, and taking up so much space in my head.
Angry that I don’t know what to do with myself except resist and keep on resisting.
Which, as it turns out, I am shit at.
Fuck the text. I shouldn’t have kissed her, that’s what I shouldn’t have done, but . . . She was looking at me with smoky eyes, her cheeks pink, knowing full well why she shouldn’t have been sitting that close to me. Knowing, yet not moving away. Instead she raised a hand to touch me and I knew if she did that would be it. So I caught her wrist before she could, her skin warm beneath my fingertips.
My Achilles heel. My kryptonite.
I should not have leaned forward and taken her face between my hands and kissed her. That was a mistake and I told her so. Because now the taste of her is in my head and it’s there for good. Like sunshine. Summer days full of heat, and sweetness, and languorous, lazy desire. Strawberries and champagne. Ice cream at the end of a day at the beach.
I’m not sure how I managed to dredge up the will to pull away, yet somehow I did. But pulling away hasn’t made things any easier. I want more. I want everything. I want her naked on my bed, reaching for me with that smoky-eyed look on her face.
The bell above the door chimes, announcing a customer, and I realise that, despite my good intentions, I’m standing there, staring through the front window at Portable Magic. Watching Miss Jones’s figure move through the shop, shelving books.
Jesus. What’s happening to me?
I force myself to turn, to greet my customer, and it’s Gillian Marshall, another of my regulars. She’s in her seventies and a large woman in every way. Tall. Wide. With a certain . . . presence.
She and her banker husband bought a mouldering stately home just up the road from Wychtree, and she strides about the village, all very lady-of-the-manor, though she’s more oblivious than condescending.
I don’t mind Gillian. She’s mostly harmless. But she buys a lot of books for show and never reads any of them, and is always trying to badger me into stocking her self-published memoirs. She also always brings her wretched dog, which is the most ill-behaved golden Labrador I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. There’s a reason, after all, why I told Miss Jones no dogs in the bookshop.
‘Aloysius!’ Gillian bellows at the dog, who has followed her inside, because God forbid it should spend ten seconds out in the street alone. ‘Come!’
Aloysius doesn’t come. He’s gone off to the shelf of Art History books, sniffing at the place where he peed the last time he came in.
By Christ, if he pees again—
‘Sebastian!’ Gillian continues to bellow, ignoring the dog, who’s also ignoring her. ‘I hear you’re having a festival!’
I force a tight smile. ‘Mrs Marshall, good morning. Yes, that’s correct.’
She smiles at me, red-faced in her yellow mac, despite the fact that there’s nothing but blue sky outside. Gillian may be bluff and blunt, but there’s not one bad bone in her body. ‘Good show, good show.’ She puts one large hand on the counter. ‘Are you giving workshops by any chance?’
Oh God. I hope she isn’t going to say what I think she’s going to say.
‘Workshops?’ I ask carefully. ‘What kind of workshops?’
‘For writing, you know.’
Sadly, I do. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, I was thinking I could offer a memoir-writing workshop. I’ve written my own, as you know, and it was a fantastic learning experience.’
She’s retired, Mrs Marshall. An ex-teacher, though I’m sure no one ever spots that.
I’m jesting, of course. It’s one of the first things you’d spot about her.
‘It’s a readers’ festival,’ I say, with manufactured regret. ‘So, I’m sorry. We’re not offering any writing workshops.’
She frowns. ‘Really? Oh, what a shame.’ She turns abruptly. ‘Aloysius! Come away!’
The dog is behaving suspiciously.
‘Mrs Marshall,’ I begin. ‘Perhaps Aloysius might be more comfortable outside?’
‘Eh? Oh, right you are.’ She goes over to her dog and ushers him away from his potential desecration of a volume on Italian architecture.
As she’s in the process of herding him outside, she asks, ‘Have you got a programme for the festival, then?’
My smile is fixed, thinking of all the marketing I had to pull because of James fucking Wyatt. ‘Very soon.’
‘You might want to get cracking with that,’ she points out unnecessarily, not helping my already pissed-off mood. ‘Give people some time to decide what sessions they want to go to.’
‘Yes, I’m waiting on confirmation from a special guest,’ I say, probably unwisely, since we haven’t had confirmation from said special guest, but what the hell.
Instantly Gillian gets a very intent look on her face. She loves gossip more than anything and loves being the first to know even more than that.
‘I shouldn’t tell you since she hasn’t confirmed yet,’ I say casually, which might end up being a mistake: this will all go to hell in a handbasket if Lisa Underwood doesn’t want to come. Then again, I need to gauge interest somehow, and a rumour might very well be the only way.
Gillian couldn’t write an engaging memoir if her life depended on it (yes, I read some of her manuscript, because she asked me to and I couldn’t say no), but she’s truly excellent at inadvertently letting slip secrets. Especially secrets she’s not allowed to tell anyone.
‘Oh, go on,’ she says. ‘You can tell me. I’m the soul of discretion.’
‘Fine. But . . .’ I fix her with a gimlet eye. ‘If you could keep this to yourself, I’d be grateful.’
Her face lights up. ‘Of course, dear boy. You can count on me.’
She will love this news, I know she will, because while she’s got a whole shelf-ful of classics she’s never read, she did read Colours . And she loved it. She couldn’t stop raving about it.
‘Well, as I said, we don’t have confirmation yet, but . . .’ I draw the moment out. ‘Word is Lisa Underwood might be interested in coming.’
‘Oh? What?’ She’s looking at me like a child on Christmas morning looks at their presents. ‘Is that really a possibility?’
I give her a solemn nod. I’m not lying. It is a possibility.
‘Oh, dear boy, that would be amazing,’ she says and I know she truly means it. ‘That would be wonderful. I’ve never met an actual author and to meet her . . .’ She stops and presses her lips together as Aloysius disappears off to bother some other poor shopkeeper. ‘Well, mum’s the word. I’ll be first in line for a ticket, that’s for certain.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ I assure her, and as she disappears through the door after her dog, I can’t decide whether I’ve made a mistake and tempted the gods, or made an excellent marketing decision and tempted a great many of Gillian’s well-heeled friends. The people who pretend they only read the classics, while secretly devouring James Patterson under the blankets.
Feeling more like I’ve dug my own grave than I care to, I get my phone out of my pocket and glance at the screen. There are no more texts from Miss Jones and I can’t stop myself from checking again the one she sent me last night.
You go straight to my head.
I didn’t respond. The satisfaction her message prompted wasn’t something I could allow or indulge. Yet it sweeps over me again as I look at her text and remember the look in her eyes as I pulled away. The grey deepening to charcoal, her cheeks flushed, that pulse at the base of her throat racing.
She’d liked it. She’d liked that kiss.
I shouldn’t be thinking about this. I should be thinking about my great-grandfather’s notes and how Miss Jones also texted that it seems likely my ancestor slipped them into books that he’d then given to this ‘C’. That there was definitely a secret affair happening and that it was something Lisa Underwood would probably be interested in.
I need to see these notes, read them for myself, but the thought of being in Miss Jones’s presence right now is too tempting and I have to resist.
Resistance has never been a problem for me before. My father’s relationship with the bottle was the same as my grandfather’s with the racetrack, and both addictions were enough for me to know that I don’t want to head down the same path. But I’ve never felt the pull of addiction before and so I’d ignorantly assumed I’ve escaped it somehow.
I haven’t, though, and I know it now, because the pull in me to cross the road and go into Miss Jones’s shop is almost irresistible. I can think of a thousand different excuses to go and all of them are completely plausible, and I’m sure that’s how it starts, the addiction.
I’ve had a taste of her and now all I want is more.
Then again, I do need to know what’s happening about Lisa Underwood, so I quickly type out a text.
Did you email Lisa U?
I start to put my phone away, because I don’t want to stand around waiting for her to reply, but she’s replying already before I can.
I got a response from her this morning and so I emailed back re the letters and also re the festival.
That’s good. In fact, that’s excellent.
You think she’ll accept?
I text back.
Miss Jones responds.
I think so. Those letters are so interesting. I really need to talk to you about them.
I shake my head.
Later. I told you.
When?
There is a pause and then she adds,
Scared?
I give a low laugh.
What would I be scared of?
Me. That kiss.
I grit my teeth.
Forget the kiss.
There is a long pause.
Was it really that bad?
I stare at my phone for a long time as something tightens inside me. Does she think that’s why I stopped? Because it was a bad kiss? I thought I’d been clear about why. I can’t start something with her, not when she lives here. Not while we have competing businesses and the festival to plan.
And definitely not considering the Blackwoods’ terrible history when it comes to women. We always let them down in some way, shape or form, and since I know I haven’t escaped the same genetic weakness that undermined my grandfather and father, I have to assume I’ll also be a terrible partner.
Miss Jones surely deserves better than that.
Still, while it would be easier to let her think that the kiss was a terrible one, I can’t do that to her. I’m an arsehole but I’m not that much of an arsehole. Also, I don’t want to lie about a kiss that good.
It wasn’t bad, Miss Jones.
I text back.
It was extraordinary.
There is no response to this.
My muscles tighten. I prefer honesty – everyone knows where they stand – but there is such a thing as being too honest. Perhaps I revealed far too much and now she doesn’t know what to say.
Too bad. I can’t stand around wasting my day texting her, not when I have so much to do.
I thrust my phone back into my pocket and return my attention to the laptop on the counter, just as the bell above the door chimes again and someone else comes in.
I look up.
It’s Miss Jones.
Today, she’s wearing a silky-looking dress of delicate pink that wraps around her body lovingly, swirling at her hips and thighs. She has silver bracelets on one wrist and silver feather earrings that swing amongst the fall of her golden hair.
She looks like a rose in full bloom and her grey eyes are full of determination, and I wish I was anywhere else but here.
She strides to the counter, dumps the stack of envelopes on it, then folds her arms and fixes me with a glare. ‘Later isn’t going to work for me, Sebastian. Let’s talk now.’
An electric shock arrows down my spine at the way she says my name.
God help me, but I love it.
‘Now doesn’t work for me,’ I say with cold precision, fighting the urge to reach over the counter and pull her close, taste her sunshine again. ‘Thank you for the letters. I’ll go over them tonight. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’
‘No, you’re not excused.’ Her chin lifts. ‘You can’t text me about the kiss, tell me that it was extraordinary, then expect me to just ignore it. Also, “later” is not a time frame.’
Yes. It was a mistake to text her. I should have known she wouldn’t leave it alone. Now I’m well and truly fucked.
I fix her with my own glare. ‘That’s exactly what I expect you to do, Miss Jones. I expect you to ignore it. To pretend it didn’t happen. That it was a mistake. Because the alternative is you taking all your clothes off and climbing into my bed and I’m not sure you want that.’
Her cheeks have gone as pink as her dress. ‘What if I did?’ she flings back. ‘What if that’s exactly what I do want?’