The Mayfair Bookshop, page 2
Chaste as it was, it made me tingle all over. How I loved him.“Le parfum est céleste tout comme votre retour.”
“Oui, ma chérie, I am in heaven being back on British soil. And I’ve a gift for you.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small white box tied with a light blue ribbon.
My stomach leapt into my throat. Was he about to propose again? I could barely speak, and my hands shook as I reached for the white box, our fingers brushing. I tugged on the ribbon.
His mother’s ring? Or had he chosen one for me that would speak to my uniqueness, the very Nancy qualities he adored?
I grinned up at him when the ribbon fell to the floor, waiting for him to join the blue slip there on bended knee, but he continued to stand, mischievous dark eyes beneath slanting brows concentrated on me.
I opened the lid, realizing as I did that it wasn’t a ring box, and feeling utterly foolish. Oh, how disappointing that he’d not come back from America missing me so much and with the desperate need to make me his forever.
Instead, inside I found a copper figurine of Lady Liberty, the symbol of freedom, set on white tissue.
A tight smile crossed my lips for the impersonal gift given with such a message from France to America as it was to myself. Was he setting me free? Telling me with no words at all that he wished to break ties for good?
The pearls around my neck tightened.
“Well, isn’t that . . . divine?” I set the figurine on the table beside the telephone and picked up my clutch, slipped on my mackintosh, taking the offered elbow Hamish held out to me.
“I’m glad you like it.”
I hated it. “So kind of you to think of me.”
Hamish filled the conversation from my house in Knightsbridge to Piccadilly with incessant chatter about the underground jazz clubs he’d managed to infiltrate in New York City, and the night he’d run from police after the whisky den had been exposed.
“That’s when I decided to leave the wretched place. How can it be illegal to have a drink? Ridiculous.”
“Indeed,” I managed. Did Hamish not recall that his penchant for drink was what had got him sent across the pond? Not that I held any place to school him on his imbibing habit. I already planned to get properly sozzled at the café if only to erase from my mind the humiliating excitement of the pre-unveiling of Lady Liberty. “I should think I never want to go there.”
Hamish swung his car into place in front of the Café de Paris, causing a screech from a passing mother pushing a pram. I mouthed sorry to the glowering woman, while Hamish slid across the hood on his rear to open my door. I stepped out onto the slick and shiny street, rainwater dotting the tips of my shoes.
I raised my brows at him, which made him grin. “Learned that in America.”
“You’re lucky not to have ripped your trousers.” I pressed my hand into his and allowed him to help me out of the car into the dreary grayness of London. “And they are very likely wet now.”
“Try not to be so dismaying, Lady, else you’ll wrinkle that fine brow of yours.”
Taken aback, I readied a response, but he pressed a quick kiss to my lips, and then dragged me inside before I could reply. We were instantly overwhelmed by our friends. Any semblance of conversation was quickly overtaken by the music and the shouts of those admiring the roller skaters performing on the low stage. Two men dressed in black trousers and white button-downs, and a female dancer in white satin and lace.
“Sit, sit,” said Mary, Hamish’s sister, patting the chair beside herself.
I took the offered seat with Hamish on my other side. With the round tables pushed together, we were joined by the usual crowd. All cheers and questions for Hamish, who presided over his audience with tales of illegal gambling and drinking in underground clubs he guessed were run by the American mob. Either proper rubbish or another terribly convincing argument as to why I should never venture there.
“Anyone catch the eye of the infamous Hamish?” a friend asked with a wiggle of his brows.
I took a long sip of champagne trying to find humor in that idiotic line of questioning. Was it hard to imagine that Hamish might have pined for me?
Hamish put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, his French cologne making me dizzy. “Nancy is the only woman I’ll ever hold dear.”
Though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, there might have been literal truth to his words. Both my brother and Evelyn had been adamant that Hamish was more inclined to the masculine sex, and I was loath to believe them. That couldn’t be the reason we’d not yet wed.
One of the male skaters veered off from stage and approached our table. He pointed at me, and I shook my head, but Mary waved her hands enthusiastically.
“Me, pick me!”
The skater beamed. “You, miss.”
“Divine!” Mary scrabbled over our laps amongst laughs until she freed herself.
Another round of champagne was poured, our glasses raised in Mary’s direction. The band struck up a rousing song as she appeared onstage, skates on her feet, and imitating the Charleston of the skating performers, nearly losing her balance more than once.
Hamish ordered a brandy, and I wondered if he had the pounds to pay for it or if he would ask me to spot him as he usually did.
A squeal from the stage caught all our attention as Mary was flung high. A wrist was clamped in one of the performer’s hands and her ankle in the other as he swung her so high above his head and in so quick a fashion, I could barely make out which end of her was what.
“Extraordinary,” murmured those at the table, while Hamish looked increasingly worried, and a beau of Mary’s exclaimed, “Dear Lord!”
At first Mary appeared to be quite enjoying the belly-roiling act, but her squeals of laughter turned quickly sour, and both Hamish and her beau leapt over the table to run for the stage in hopes of saving her.
Longer in the leg, her beau reached her before her brother, and good thing, because the skater lost his balance and sent poor Mary flying through the air. Amidst screams and shouts, a table tipped when the partygoers lurched forward to be of help. The gallant suitor leapt toward Mary, catching her in his arms before she could be decapitated by a nearby flying table.
I let out the breath I’d not realized I held. Every last drop of Dom Perignon I’d drunk threatened to come up.
“Dear Heavens, that was mad,” Nina sighed beside me, clutching her neck.
“Dreadful,” I muttered, letting go of the table I’d been clasping hard between my fingers. “Never trust a skater who’s likely had more spirits than all of us combined.”
A few friends joined Hamish at the front, holding him back from giving the skater a beating, not that it might have hurt all that much given Hamish’s slighter build. And since when had he started roughing up the entertainment? America had not done him good.
Across the table from me, Peter Rodd rolled his eyes. “Should have embarrassed himself as he did at Eton when he tried the same on me.”
I pursed my lips. “Were you swinging around his sister?”
Peter snorted. “No.”
“Intent on harming some other female?”
Peter shook his head, a knowing curl to his lips that I didn’t quite understand. “Not my place to share why he got the beating of his life; suffice it to say we are not the closest of friends.”
I raised a challenging brow. “Shame.”
Peter was rarely serious, and a bit of a know-it-all. I found his arrogance cast a shadow on his handsome face. Mary sobbed as her beau escorted her outside for air, his arm protectively around her shoulders.
“I do not find it to be a shame at all,” Peter said, “save for whenever I want to ask you to dance, he is right there.”
I folded my arms over my chest and then flashed him a wide grin. “Hamish has not been in town for many months, Peter. Find another way to flatter me than your pretty and insipid lies.”
“You’re stunning,” he said. “Even with that blistering tongue.”
Heat rose to my cheeks as I took note of his wicked handsomeness. No dullard like Hugh, and he lacked Hamish’s immaturity. Yet he was also a bit too arrogant.
“What do you think of America?” I asked.
“Loathe it.”
“Fascinating. We might yet be friends.”
“I thought we already were.”
Hamish slid into the chair beside me, glowering in Peter’s direction.
Peter smirked and turned his attention back to the stage, where the next set of skaters had assembled. Hamish ordered a sidecar and offered one to me. Suddenly sensing the need for air myself, I shook my head.
“I’m going to go check on Mary.”
Walking away, I felt several pairs of eyes on me but didn’t turn around to see who watched my exit—fearful that none of those eyes would belong to Hamish. I kept my back straight and my hips swinging gently. I might be nearing thirty and getting close to spinsterhood, as my mother liked to say, but I still drew the eyes of everyone I passed. Cecil Beaton continually asked me to sit for his photographs. Plenty of people took notice.
Just not the one who mattered.
Chapter Two
Lucy St. Clair
London, Present Day
LUCY HAD EVERY INTENTION of ordering the vegetable breakfast roll and a cappuccino, but what came out of her mouth was, “Bacon roll and a white chocolate mocha, please.”
The Caffè Nero, down Curzon Street, was teeming, and the scents of coffee, bacon and sweet confections were just too tempting.
She’d arrived in London yesterday after accepting a special collaboration project from her boss, Mr. Sloan, at Emerald Books in DC, working with the marvelous Mayfair bookshop Heywood Hill. She loved her job as a special library curator. The chance to prove herself with a prestigious client—Miranda Masters—was going to open so many doors for her future career, including a possible promotion.
It was a dream come true every day to help shape the home libraries of private collectors, picking out amazing books that some clients would appreciate, covet even, while visitors to their homes might only gaze admiringly at the spines and wonder what they cost. Rare books to a curator or collector were a gem, but to an outsider, they were a status symbol of the elite.
This morning was her first day at Heywood Hill, one of the oldest bookshops in London, having opened in the 1930s. What really drew Lucy was who had worked there—famed author Nancy Mitford.
Nancy’s book The Pursuit of Love was Lucy’s all-time favorite, and that of her mother—the pain of whose recent loss still caused Lucy’s heart to seize. The opportunity to stand in Nancy’s footsteps was one she couldn’t refuse. Years ago, Lucy had cut out an article about the bookshop and glued it to her vision board. It was still on her bucket list of amazing bookshops to visit. And there was a mystery her mother had pondered over the years regarding Nancy Mitford that Lucy herself had been dying to solve. This trip to London might provide the answers.
Not to mention learning a little more about her family history. Originally from England, someone emigrated to the US in the mid-1950s. Lucy had heard plenty of stories of the Bright Young Things—the champagne-drinking bohemian aristocrats and literary darlings of the age—from her mother, especially when Lucy had been in college and partied a little too hard. Nancy Mitford had been a part of that set—going from one house party to the next, traipsing around London dressed in costume and treasure hunting. They were the talk of the town, their pictures and exploits splashed in the tabloids. Oh, what fun that must have been.
The two weeks in London Lucy had to curate the special library project would also provide her with plenty of time to delve into the mystery her mother had been tracing—the identity of Iris. While she waited for her breakfast order, Lucy pulled out the well-loved copy of The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, and read the scrawled handwriting on the inside flap.
My dearest Iris,
Without you, my path might have followed a less elegant trajectory than Anna Karenina. I will be forever grateful not only for your lack of pity, but for your friendship. For pulling me back from the tracks and setting me on a path that pushed me to pursue love, happiness. To leave the darkness behind and really live. No truer friend could have ever been found.
With much love,
Nancy
In all the texts, letters, biographies, those named Iris didn’t match up with someone who’d been close to Nancy, nor had they revealed how she saved Nancy’s life. Together Lucy and her mother had pondered what answers about the mysterious Iris might be revealed in London. Now Lucy had the chance to find out.
“Order for Lucy.”
Lucy put the book back into her oversized purse beside another curious package. She’d found it in her mother’s safety deposit box, just before taking off for London—letters from Nancy to various people. There was no receipt or note with the package to let Lucy know how her mother had come across them, but she hoped they might provide her with additional clues, and bring her closer to the mother she missed so much. She planned to read one each night after work.
Breakfast in hand, Lucy skirted morning commuters on Curzon Street, her eyes over their heads, tracing the perfectly polished bronze number 10 on the bookshop’s black door. A door that was literally going to open up opportunities for her. Then a blue circular plaque caught her eye.
ENGLISH HERITAGE
NANCY MITFORD
1904–1973
Writer
Worked Here
1942–1945
Lucy’s heartbeat leapt up a notch, and for a moment she saw her mother, smiling down at a younger Lucy with another Nancy Mitford tale.
Beneath it was a second plaque: the British royal crest. Heywood Hill Ltd was a bookseller by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.
Lucy took a deep breath. She was about to step into a place that held so much history. If anyone had asked her last week if she’d be stepping into the queen’s favorite bookshop today, or a shop frequented or run by famous writers, she would have said, In my dreams.
“Today is the first day of the rest of my life.” She gripped the cold metal door handle and pushed.
Announced by the tinkle of a bell over the door, she froze a moment, taking in the euphoria that was Heywood Hill.
A calm quiet permeated the shop. Lucy smelled paper and glue, doubtless the result of thousands of volumes on polished wooden shelves and stacked on tables—familiar scents backed by a faint hint of something herbal. Crystal chandeliers illuminated the shop’s treasures, and over soft, background music, Lucy could hear the subtle sound of pages being turned. What a satisfying euphony. Anyone who said a bookshop wasn’t heaven was just crazy.
Lucy stepped farther into the long and narrow shop, the sounds of her shoes muffled by the blue carpet. The first room opened into a second, framed by two elegantly polished marbled-wood columns with gold scrollwork at the top. Mounted above an empty fireplace in the left corner was a gilded frame that bespoke of London 1920s. Lucy thought she caught a trace of the comforting wood smoke from decades before. Rich history hung like magic in the London air and whispered to her like faint conversations from the past, redolent of chic perfume and pipe smoke.
Beyond, there was one more room, boasting bright red polished wood shelves. Apparitions of literary figures floated between them in her mind’s eye—Ernest Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh. Daphne du Maurier and the mysterious Nancy Mitford. She gave a deep sigh—it felt like home. Two weeks wouldn’t be enough. She could stay forever.
“Can I help you?”
The voice came from the room just behind her—where a desk was cleverly tucked from view by a midrise bookshelf. Turning, she saw a man she’d walked right past without even noticing.
“I’m Lucy St. Clair.”
He unfolded his lanky body from a chair that seemed too short for him. His cropped salt-and-pepper hair was in disarray, as though he spent a lot of time tugging on the ends. Round spectacles slid down his nose, but he made no move to push them back into place. “Ah yes, we’ve been expecting you. I’m Oliver. We spoke on the phone. I presume you have settled in, and your room above stairs is satisfactory?”
“It’s lovely.” The one-bedroom flat over the bookshop was incredibly cozy, with a perfect view of the street.
“Brilliant.” Oliver smiled widely, showing off a gap between his two front teeth. “Curating offices are downstairs. I’ll show you the way.”
They descended a narrow flight of stairs into the offices, past several people wrapping books carefully in paper—finishing off the packages with blue-and-white Heywood Hill ribbons and stickers. In addition to these workers sat a blonde woman reading what looked like a special edition of The Iliad, with two others behind computers.
“Your desk.” Oliver indicated her workstation. “Everyone, this is Lucy St. Clair, from Emerald Books in DC. She’s on loan to us for a couple of weeks. Or rather, we are on loan to her.”
Lucy shook hands before setting down her coffee and purse and offering a smile to the woman positioned beside her.
“I’m Ash,” the blonde said. “I run the subscription service.”
“Fun.” Lucy knew the satisfaction of receiving an email from a client saying a book suggested on their behalf had been a hit.
“Barbara and Louisa work with the subscription service too.” Ash gestured. “The pair packing the books are Mabel and Harry. Best get to it and not let your coffee get cold. If you have any questions, just ask.”
Lucy offered Ash another smile, then settled into her desk, taking the list of first-edition books she wanted to locate for the Masters’ library from her purse.
The primary place to look was in the shop’s database. She was fortunate to immediately locate signed first editions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf held in the rare-books section.
Lucy paused mid–triumphant stride as she scanned the shelves, her gaze falling on a display of books by Nancy Mitford—as well as several written by other members of the Mitford family. Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford was another of her mother’s favorites, and in fact Lucy had been named for Jessica, whose middle name was Lucy.
