Chapter 3
Mia hoped her cheeks weren’t too red as she tried to look unsurprised by the attention. The bartender was, indeed, heading their way, and he was carrying a tray of drinks, with Charlotte trailing behind.
‘He insisted on carrying them for me,’ Charlotte said with a shrug.
But his smile told Charlotte that perhaps the drinks weren’t the only reason he was coming over.
And the nudge she received from Georgia on her left told her that she likely wasn’t imagining it.
She just wasn’t sure how to make it clear to everyone involved that she wasn’t interested in anything more than a little flirting.
‘Ladies,’ he said, winking at Mia as he set the drinks down.
‘I’m not sure I need a second yet, but—’
‘Apparently yours are on the house,’ Charlotte interrupted, one eyebrow arched, making Georgia laugh.
‘Just this one more,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s not every day I have a mysterious customer in possession of an even more mysterious bottle.’
Mia thanked him for the drink, surprised when he dropped to one knee beside her so that they were at eye level. Her heart began to race, and she started to think of all the ways she could gently let him down.
‘Do you have a pen and something to write on?’
She nodded and took one out of her bag, along with Hope’s diary.
She opened it to the back, his eyes meeting hers as she passed it to him, regretting almost instantly that she was allowing him to scribble something in the back of Hope’s personal notebook.
She’d been so protective of it, and now she was just letting a stranger write in it.
‘If you have any questions about the green fairy, or where that bottle of yours has come from, this is who you need to talk to.’
He took out his phone and copied a name and the name of a restaurant onto the page, before closing the notebook and sliding it back to her, the pen on top.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t given her his number; but she was going to go with relieved.
It was a long time since she’d been with a man romantically, and as nice as it might be to flirt, she was very happy to leave it there.
She was also immediately feeling less guilty about letting him write in the book, especially if this turned out to be a useful clue.
‘Joe’s family distils gin and you’ll find him at this place in Paris. If anyone can help you solve your mystery, it will be him,’ the bartender said, standing and giving her a quick grin before returning to the bar.
‘Well, that was unexpected,’ Georgia said, fanning at her face. ‘He seems very invested in your journey.’
Mia took a sip of her drink, relieved that her cheeks were finally cooling down.
‘I’m not going to lie, it’s been a long while since I…
’ Her voice drifted away, not sure what she was trying to say or how much she even wanted them to know.
She hadn’t talked to any of the seven women about her past, and as far as she knew, they didn’t really know anything more about her personal life.
She cleared her throat. ‘Since I was in a relationship.’
‘I get it. You don’t have to explain,’ Charlotte said. ‘Before I met Harrison, it had been a long time between dates. I’d convinced myself that I just wasn’t destined to have a partner.’
‘I second that. Meeting someone was completely unexpected for me, too. I think that’s probably why it worked, because it wasn’t something I was even looking for,’ Georgia said, holding up her drink so they could clink glasses.
‘Now, explain to us what your handsome bartender was talking about. How is this green fairy linked to Hope?’
Mia pushed the diary to the middle of the table, open at one of the pages with the drawings, and then placed the bottle beside it.
‘The more I try to find out about Hope and her past, the more curious I get. But in a nutshell, I’ve been wanting to understand the link to this drawing and this bottle,’ she said.
‘It seems to be the clue to the past that needs to be solved, but it feels like a needle-in-a-haystack situation. I just keep thinking that it must have been so important to her, for her to hide it with all the boxes.’
‘So you want to find out about Hope’s past before she opened her house?’ Georgia asked. ‘And please tell me if I’m overstepping, but isn’t there someone in your family who could point you in the right direction? Is there no one you could ask?’
Mia shook her head. ‘Unfortunately not. Hope became estranged from her family when she was very young. My great-grandmother Claudette, her sister, found an unopened letter Hope had sent to her family from London after their parents had passed away, otherwise they might never have found each other. Claudette eventually moved to England and she and Hope slowly reconnected after decades apart,’ Mia said.
‘The only family member who might have truly known her story was their uncle. He left his entire estate to Hope when he died, including the house, as he passed away unmarried and with no children. But the plot twist there is that he was estranged from his family as well.’
Georgia frowned and Charlotte reached out to her. ‘Well, I guess it’s even more reason for you to figure this mystery out. And maybe you’ll find out more about Hope’s uncle, too. Maybe there’s a story there—a mystery about him as well.’
‘I almost feel as if Hope came into my life for a reason,’ Mia said while taking out a box that looked different to the other seven she’d found beneath the floorboards of Hope’s House.
‘For a long time, I felt as if that reason was simply to reconnect all the boxes that had been left behind for your grandmothers, but now I’m wondering if it was to discover her story, too.
And that little part of me wonders if Hope might have been adopted, or whether this was something she made herself.
’ She took a breath, reaching for the box.
‘I found this, too. It had a name tag inside it.’
Charlotte leaned forward to touch it. ‘You think Hope might have had her own child adopted, if she wasn’t adopted herself? That she might have made this for her own baby?’
‘What better reason could there be for her to have had the idea for them in the first place? Maybe she wanted to create a keepsake for her child?’
‘Maybe she created what she wished she’d been able to leave her own son or daughter,’ Georgia said.
‘Perhaps it was the reason she started the house in the first place,’ Charlotte added.
Mia nodded. She’d thought the same, and although she knew they weren’t going to miraculously solve the mystery over drinks, it did help to share the clues with the women who truly knew how important they were to her. They’d been in her shoes already when they’d gone on their own journeys.
‘But there’s more,’ Mia said, reaching into her bag again. ‘There was another box found, and this one had a name tag that was so faded, it’s impossible to read. I wanted to show you both to see what you thought.’
Both Charlotte and Georgia stared back at her. ‘Another box?’
‘This was found by the builders just before the house was pulled down. I’d missed it, along with some other papers and a diary, when I did my final sweep. It was hidden behind a painting, placed in a small space in the wall.’
Georgia took the box and held it, turning it over in her hand. ‘What was inside it?’
‘Nothing was inside,’ Mia said. ‘That’s the thing, there are no clues other than this bottle and her diary.
I had records to cross-check for all the other boxes, and you had your clues inside your boxes, but I feel as if I have nothing to start with.
’ She sighed. ‘The only reason it was even given to me was because I’d asked for the paintings to be taken and wrapped, and I’d happened to tell the guys doing the job about finding some personal items in the house that I kept.
So when they saw this, they saved it for me, just in case it was of sentimental value. ’
‘So you do have something,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s not a lot, but it’s something.’
‘You have a bottle and an address for a bartender in Paris,’ Georgia said, with more optimism than Mia felt. ‘I agree with Charlotte.’
‘It sounds like a wild goose chase if ever there was one,’ Mia groaned.
Charlotte laughed. ‘Honestly? There’s nothing wrong with just starting somewhere and seeing what happens. You won’t know until you start.’
They all sat for a moment, and Mia watched as Georgia set the box down in front of her.
‘I think Charlotte’s right. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen?
You book a trip and have a few fun days or a week in Paris.
If your search doesn’t lead you anywhere, then there’s nothing lost, right? ’
‘Eat the pastries, flirt with gorgeous French men and soak up some sun,’ Charlotte added. ‘I think it’s the perfect recipe.’ That made them all laugh, and Mia looked between them, so thankful she’d been able to call on Georgia and Charlotte.
‘So you think I should go to Paris and start with finding this bartender?’ she asked.
Both women nodded, then promptly laughed at how synchronised they were.
‘I think you should be open to wherever your search takes you,’ Charlotte said. ‘Sometimes we just need to trust that the universe has a plan for us, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t usually believe in stuff like that. Don’t overthink it—just see where the journey takes you.’
Mia leaned back in her seat, cocktail in hand, as she considered it all.
They weren’t wrong. Going to Paris wasn’t a hardship, and if she was able to turn it into a work trip, then it made even more sense.
If there was one thing that wasn’t in doubt, it was that she needed a holiday—it had been a long time since she’d got out of London.
‘You know, opening that little box and finding my way to Luca was the best thing I ever did,’ Georgia said, and Charlotte didn’t miss the tears shining in her eyes.
‘Just trust that it’s worth it. Even if you never know Hope’s secrets, maybe it’s more about the experience and the trip, anyway.
You never know where it might lead you, and maybe you’re being pointed towards France for a reason. ’
Charlotte held up her glass and grinned at them both, her smile contagious.
‘To all of our journeys,’ Charlotte declared. ‘And to meeting a gorgeous French bartender and then telling us all about him.’
‘Hey, this Joe guy will probably be overweight and balding,’ Mia said, groaning. ‘Don’t get my hopes up!’
That made them laugh, and before Mia knew it, she’d tucked all her clues safely back into her bag and just let herself enjoy the rest of the night.