Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Daniel gestured to a nearby chair. ‘You might want to take a seat. Brace yourself.’
Fern sat down. She was still riding the high of seeing him again, but she hadn’t had him down as the kind of man who loved dusty antiques, so his appearance in the shop left her feeling completely confused.
He seemed the type you’d be more likely to find at a music festival, sprawled out on the grass, not hiding away in an old curiosity shop.
‘All right,’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Explain.’
Daniel leaned against the counter, arms crossed. ‘Matilda and I were friends. I was her apprentice.’
Fern blinked. ‘Apprentice?’
‘Yeah! Like a Jedi, but for antiques.’ He grinned. ‘She found me at an auction house a couple of years ago, aggressively bidding on a teapot I didn’t even want purely to annoy some posh bloke who’d called me “boy”.’
Fern smothered a laugh. ‘Of course you did.’
‘Matilda loved my spirit,’ he continued. ‘Said I had “a keen eye for mischief”, which apparently is a desirable trait in the world of antique dealing.’
Fern pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘So, what? She just gave you a job?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you love antiques?’ Fern glanced around. ‘You don’t look like the antique type to me.’
‘What does an antique type look like?’
‘I don’t know, just … not you. Aren’t you too young to be into antiques?’
‘Are you stereotyping antique lovers?’ He narrowed his eyes.
‘Not at all, I just imagine antique dealers to be like those you see on TV programmes – older and more weathered.’
‘You can’t believe everything you see on TV.
’ He winked. ‘Anyway, as I was saying … just before Matilda passed away, she told me I could live in the flat upstairs and she made me promise that I wouldn’t let anything happen to this place.
I asked her what that meant and all she said was that someone would be coming soon, and I might need to talk them around into seeing the beauty within these walls. That must be you.’
Fern stared at him. ‘So what you’re saying is, I haven’t just inherited a shop full of dusty trinkets, but also you? A sitting tenant?’
Daniel flashed a lopsided grin. ‘And a damn good one, if I do say so myself. I don’t make too much noise, I take the bins out, and I only borrow the good biscuits in times of emergency.’
She laughed. ‘Right, so I can count on you not to pinch the chocolate Hobnobs?’ She paused, then grimaced. ‘Please tell me this place doesn’t come with any animals as well.’
Daniel pointed to the top of the piano, where sat a very still, very not alive cat. ‘Only dead ones. Matilda’s cat was called Lucky, but she wasn’t very lucky,’ he said with a wince. ‘It was all very unfortunate … a lorry—’
Fern held up a hand. ‘Stop.’
Daniel nodded solemnly. ‘Matilda had her stuffed. She said it would be good for morale.’
Fern exhaled, dragging a hand through her hair. Matilda hadn’t just left her an antique shop, she’d also left her a chaotic, ridiculously charming lodger and a stuffed cat.
Daniel clapped his hands together. ‘So! I guess this means we’re now business partners slash housemates! While you bask in the glory of your unexpected inheritance, I’ll make tea. That’s what people do when faced with life-altering news, isn’t it?’
Fern watched as he disappeared through a doorway at the back of the room, leaving her alone with No.
17 Curiosity Lane in all its eccentric glory.
She turned slowly, taking it all in. The place was mad.
Floor-to-ceiling clutter. A grandfather clock that ticked with a tired clunk.
Lampshades made of things that should not be lampshades.
A doll in a glass cabinet that may or may not have just blinked.
She let out a shaky breath. Inherited. She’d inherited this. From a woman she’d never even heard of.
A great-aunt. A shop. A flat above it.
Her first instinct was to sell, obviously.
Get it valued, flog the lot and maybe go on a ridiculously overpriced holiday.
But now there was charming Daniel to consider, currently clattering about making tea in the home where he lived.
He had no idea that she’d planned to throw the whole place on Rightmove and have done with it.
Which would mean tossing him out on the street.
She walked over to the desk and ran her fingers across the battered wood, the layers of varnish worn away by time and stories she would never know.
The place was mad.
It was like an antique shop had collided with a Victorian curiosity cabinet and then been sprinkled with a generous dose of what on earth is that?
Shelves heaved under the weight of peculiar objects like brass telescopes, pocket watches frozen in time, and an alarming number of porcelain figurines with judgmental expressions.
Gilded mirrors reflected the glow of a dozen mismatched lamps, their light pooling over old books stacked in precarious towers.
And somehow, in the middle of it all … was Daniel. The man from the train. Potentially the man of her dreams. And definitely the man whose world she was about to destroy.
Just at that moment she heard something rattle … and it wasn’t coming from the kitchen. Fern froze but her eyes flicked to a tall, glass-fronted cabinet filled with dolls, all of them staring at her with a sort of eerie lifelessness that made her stomach tighten.
And then, just as she took a step closer, one of them – a frilly-dressed thing with faded pink cheeks – squeaked out, ‘Mama?’
She clutched her chest, her heart slamming against her ribs as she staggered back. ‘What the—?!’ she yelled.
Daniel’s voice drifted from the back room. ‘Oh yeah, don’t mind Audrey! She does that sometimes.’
Fern glared at the doll, which sat there innocently, as if it hadn’t just tipped her soul into the depths of hell. She was about to turn away when something hissed at her.
She spun around.
A stuffed cobra, coiled and fanged, stared at her from a shelf, its beady glass eyes catching the light.
‘Nope. Nope, nope, nope.’ She backed away, only to bump into a grandfather clock, which chimed loudly.
She jumped, letting out another strangled yelp, just in time for a wardrobe on the far side of the shop to burst open.
A gorilla lunged out.
Fern shrieked.
She tripped over a footstool, crashing into a pile of embroidered cushions as the gorilla wobbled, flailed, then toppled over onto the floor with a solid thud.
Silence.
Daniel reappeared, holding a tray with two teacups. He took one look at her wide eyes, then at the stuffed gorilla sprawled on the floor.
‘Oh,’ he said casually. ‘You’ve found Gerald, then?’
Fern pointed an accusatory finger. ‘What is Gerald?!’
‘A gorilla,’ Daniel said, laughing. ‘You get used to him. I think he’s been stuffed in there for quite a few years.’
Fern dragged herself upright, inhaling deeply through her nose. ‘This shop is cursed.’
Daniel chuckled, handing her a teacup. ‘Maybe. Here, the tea will fix everything.’
She eyed it warily. The cup was cracked. So was the saucer. ‘Do I even want to ask?’
Daniel beamed. ‘They’re antique, and would you believe this is the very teapot I won at that auction? The one I heroically saved from the clutches of a posh bloke who wanted it purely to match his scone set?’
Fern stared at him.
Daniel raised his own cup in a toast. ‘You, my dear reluctant shop owner, are drinking from a vessel of pure triumph.’
Fern cracked a smile. She didn’t want to, but Daniel made her smile.
He was funny, and despite the fact that she was tired, hungry and still vaguely traumatised by Audrey the demonic doll and Gerald the airborne gorilla, she couldn’t stop taking a sideward glance at him.
She’d never met anyone with such good looks and a sense of humour.
In London, they only ever seemed to come with one or the other.
‘What have I inherited?’ she murmured again, shaking her head.
Daniel grinned. ‘A shop full of stories and things, a flat with a very reasonable sitting tenant, and best of all … a lifetime supply of unexpected chaos.’
Fern rolled her eyes, but there was still a smile tugging at her lips.
‘Wait till you see upstairs.’
This was going to be interesting.