Chapter Twelve
Over the next few days, Darcy and I settled into a comfortable routine.
I went to work each morning, leaving him watching TV with Mrs. Atallah, and when I came home, he and I would go up to my flat and prepare dinner together.
Sometimes we chatted while we cooked, telling each other about our lives and families, and sometimes we worked in silence, but I didn’t mind.
I now felt comfortable enough around him that I knew I could be myself and not worry about being interesting or intelligent all the time, like I’d always felt I had to be with Crispin.
And so I learned to relax into the silences and just enjoy having someone else cooking alongside me.
Although “cooking” might be a generous description for what we were doing.
I’d always been a terrible chef, and Darcy took it as seriously as you’d imagine but was equally incompetent, so most evenings ended up with ingredients splattered across the kitchenette and something only moderately edible on our plates.
On Monday, after our disastrous attempt to “toast spices” for a lamb curry set off the smoke alarm, Mrs. Atallah came storming upstairs to complain about the noise.
She was so horrified by our culinary endeavors—turns out you should use a frying pan to toast spices, not a toaster—that she ended up staying for the evening, barking instructions at us like a tiny army major while Darcy tried to keep up and I tried not to get the giggles.
It was after ten by the time we finally sat down to eat, the three of us squashed up on the sofa because my table was too small, balancing plates on our knees and drinking red wine out of mugs because I didn’t own three wineglasses.
I went to bed that night full of curry, slightly tipsy, and with a massive grin on my face.
This wasn’t to say I’d given up on trying to get Darcy back into his story.
Despite what Nick had said about it being an ordinary book, I knew Darcy’s arrival had to be connected to Maggie’s old copy of Pride and Prejudice, so I pored over its pages looking for anything unusual that might hint at its special powers.
I even tried reading passages out loud in case I could somehow reverse the magic and send Darcy back, but to no avail.
The blogger, Lily, still hadn’t gotten back to me about the other people who’d been interested in Baskerville Books, but I spent hours online looking for any references to Maggie or the shop.
On Tuesday evening, my spirits lifted when I found a nine-year-old post on Reddit by a user called MrRochestersBitch asking if anyone knew how to join the book club at Baskerville Books in London.
A couple of people had replied, but their responses were vague, with one user saying they’d heard about it but that it was invitation only, and another asking MrRochestersBitch to share details if they found anything.
This finally felt like a lead into whatever Maggie had been doing at the shop, and yet, despite going down a Reddit rabbit hole looking for other clues as to what they were talking about, I came away empty-handed.
I promised Darcy that I’d keep looking and wouldn’t give up trying to get him home, but the truth was that with each passing day, I was secretly becoming more and more relieved that my efforts to find an answer continued to fail.
On Wednesday morning, I left Darcy sleeping and crept down the stairs to go to work. As I walked past Mrs. Atallah’s flat, her front door swung open.
“I take it you’ll be going out tonight, as it’s a Wednesday?”
I shook my head. “I’m going to cancel Bianca this week. It’s not fair to leave Darcy on his own.”
“He won’t be on his own; he can have dinner here with me.”
“But I—”
She jabbed me in the chest with a bony finger. “Do you want to be one of those terrible women who abandons their best friend the second they get a new man?”
“Eh, no, but—”
“Then take all the time you need. You must be dying to give your friend all the gossip from your weeklong sex-athon.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Mrs. Atallah had already shut the door in my face.
With a shrug, I set off toward the Tube station.
As much as I hated the thought of spending an evening away from Darcy, Mrs. Atallah was right.
I’d been avoiding Bianca’s messages all week, but I couldn’t hide from my best friend forever.
I just hoped that she’d been so busy organizing her engagement party that she wouldn’t have noticed my silence.
Bianca had suggested we meet in a pub near Charlotte Street at 7:00 p.m. Given that I’d finished work at six, I decided to pop into Foyles first in case I could find any reference books there about literary-based magic.
The quickest way to get to Foyles from Cake Expectations was to cut through Cecil Court, but I decided to go the long way around to avoid Baskerville Books.
Yet the Fates were clearly having a laugh at my expense, because as I made my way up Charing Cross Road, I spotted a tall, blond-haired man walking ahead of me, wearing the same blue shirt as the first time we’d met.
Swearing under my breath, I slowed my pace, but he was ambling along in no apparent hurry. I soon saw why.
A tiny, dark-haired woman in a floral maxi dress and strappy high-heeled sandals was walking alongside him, carrying an oversize tote bag under one arm.
She had the glossiest hair of any human I’d ever seen and the kind of elegant walk in high heels that I’d never managed to master (to be fair, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d worn high heels in the last five years).
As they walked, Nick said something to her, and the woman tossed back her hair and laughed.
Was this his girlfriend? If so, she wasn’t at all what I’d imagined.
Not that I’d imagined Nick having a girlfriend, obviously, but if I had, I would have assumed she’d be the moody, gothy type; all dark eyeliner and scathing one-liners.
But this girl looked positively peppy; plus, she obviously found him hilarious from the volume of her laugh.
I rolled my eyes. Nick did have a good sense of humor, but she was acting like he was a stand-up comedian.
I followed them for a few minutes, getting increasingly frustrated at their slow pace; at this rate, I wouldn’t have time to visit Foyles before I met Bianca.
But just as I was about to cross the road to try to overtake them, I saw the woman’s bag slip off her arm and fall to the pavement.
Nick immediately stopped to pick it up, and as he did, his eyes swung back behind him, straight at me.
I dropped my own eyes to the pavement, pretending to study something intently on the end of my foot, but when I looked up again, Nick was still staring at me, as was his companion. Oh crap, I could hardly turn and run in the opposite direction now. With an inward groan, I walked toward them.
“Nick,” I mumbled when I reached him.
“Hello…” He paused, and I realized he didn’t actually know my name.
“Zoe,” I shared.
“Well, Zoe, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were stalking me.”
I grimaced. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m on my way to Foyles.”
“Going on another shoplifting spree?”
I opened my mouth to quip back, but the woman next to him let out a small cough, and Nick flinched, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Sorry, this is Katie. She’s a sales rep for Penguin who’s come to talk to me about some of their upcoming releases. Katie, this is Zoe, London’s number one book thief.”
I bit back a smile, but Katie looked anything but amused. The poor woman; did she not realize the man she’d gotten all dressed up for was actually a misogynistic arse?
“Nice to meet you Katie,” I said. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’m late.”
I went to move past Nick, but as I did, he reached out and touched my arm. The sudden physical contact was so unexpected that I gasped, and Nick dropped his hand as if he’d been burned.
“Sorry,” he stuttered, his cheeks flushing a deep pink. “I just… I wanted to check if you still had that book.”
Oh God, now I was the one going pink. “Eh, no,” I said quickly. “I threw it away, like you asked.”
“That’s great,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “I know you must think I’m being super weird about it, but I just feel happier knowing it’s gone.”
I opened my mouth to ask why, but I heard Katie clear her throat again.
“We should get going, Nick. I booked our table for six forty-five, and they won’t hold it if we’re late.”
I saw a flash of irritation cross his face, but he just smiled at Katie. “Of course. It was good seeing you again, Zoe.”
“You too.”
There was an awkward moment where neither of us moved, clearly waiting for the other to walk off first. Then I heard Katie sigh, and Nick gave me a quick nod before turning around and walking off behind her.
Bianca was already there when I arrived at the pub, wearing a black bodycon dress and a sharp designer jacket that I was pretty sure cost more than my monthly rent.
“There you are, I was beginning to think you’d stood me up!” she said, pushing a large glass of white wine across the table at me. “Where’ve you been all week? I’m usually the one who’s too busy to answer messages.”
“Sorry, it’s been a hectic one,” I said as I slid into the chair opposite her.
“Why, what happened?”
I opened my mouth to make up an excuse about work, then stopped.
I couldn’t outright lie with Bianca sitting in front of me, but I still couldn’t risk telling her about Mr. Darcy appearing, since I knew she’d be genuinely worried about me—plus, she’d be furious I’d kept this a secret from her all week.
In the end, I decided to go for an edited version of the truth.
“You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve met someone.” I watched as Bianca’s face did a comedic slow-motion expression of shock.
“Zoe Knight, you sly fox! When did this happen?”