by Fay Keenan
‘Just that glass of water, if that’s okay?’ Harry replied. ‘I’ve got plenty of cold and flu remedy in the bedside drawer, and I suppose I should just get my head back down.’
‘No problem.’ Kate reached for the glass again, but as she did, she forgot that she wasn’t wholly supporting herself on her other arm, and before she could stop herself, the momentum of the fall pushed her lips to Harry’s.
Time stood still. His lips were warm, and soft, and, surprisingly, he didn’t tense as she landed. For a delicious, safe moment, Kate stayed where she was, eyes closing in pleasure as the touching lips became a kiss, before she regained her senses and pushed herself up on her right arm again.
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to do that,’ she said quickly, the blush unstoppable as it spread over her cheeks, and, she knew, down her neck as well, which was more than visible in the silk sundress she’d borrowed from Florence.
‘No harm done,’ Harry replied, a note of surprise in his voice. ‘Unless you catch this bloody flu, of course!’
‘I’ll get your water,’ Kate said, grabbing the glass firmly and then standing up as quickly and gracefully as she could. She saw Harry opening his mouth to say something else, but she hurried out of the bedroom before he got the chance. Whatever it was, she definitely didn’t want to hear it right now.
‘Here you go,’ she said, a few moments later when she returned to the bedroom. But this time Harry was nowhere to be seen. Hearing the flush of the loo in the en suite, she decided to make a break for it, before she had to come face to face with Harry once more. ‘I’ll see you when it’s all over,’ she called through the bathroom door, before dashing down the hallway and back out of his front door.
Shit. What was she thinking? Okay, the kiss had been an accident, but so much for what she’d said to Florence that afternoon about there being nothing between her and Harry. The way her heart, and the rest of her body, had reacted to him when her lips had collided with his had been enough to prove her wrong there. But now was not the time to be thinking about that; she had Artemis Bane’s book launch to orchestrate. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door back to the shop and tried to get a grip.
31
The large white-faced wooden clock on the back wall of the bookshop edged towards the hour as Kate, Florence and Corey put the finishing touches on the preparations for Artemis Bane’s arrival. Bane was due to arrive via the back entrance to the shop ten minutes before the event started, to avoid him being mobbed. Eloise had called the shop a few minutes ago to say that they were on their way from the King Arthur Suite of the Travellers’ Rest, where Artemis had the room for the night.
The armchair was in situ, a small table beside it with a bottle of sparkling water and a glass with ice and a slice of unwaxed lemon, as requested. Copies of Bane’s latest novel, already a bestseller from the pre-orders alone, were stacked on another table to the left of the armchair, ready to be signed. All around the shop were props and items that featured in the multi-million selling novelist’s books: a longbow propped up against the Hobbies section, a giant red and white spotted teapot on the shop counter next to the till, and a picture of the St Mary Redcliffe church in Bristol that played such a huge part in the early stages of the new novel. Bane, despite his caprice and diva-like demands, was one of the most skilled storytellers of his age, as well as being one of the most accessible, and even Kate, who was not a huge fan of urban fantasy as a genre, had to admit that the first book in the series he was currently promoting had been a gripping read. She’d pinched it off Corey’s shelf when she’d been suffering a bout of divorce-related insomnia, and had found herself drawn into Bane’s perfectly crafted world of magical realism, Shakespearean riffs and dry humour. Kate had studied Hamlet for GCSE, and the twisted family dynamics in Bane’s work really resonated.
‘I think we’re good to go,’ Florence said as she passed Kate on the way to the back office to go to the loo. She gestured to the table that was set up in the far corner of the shop, where various bottles of wine and non-alcoholic drinks were in regimented lines alongside a fair few glasses. The tickets for this evening had been reasonably expensive, so the refreshment options were a step up from the usual indifferent mass catering options Kate had experienced at other dos. She was tempted to have a quick glass of white to ease her own nerves, especially after that close encounter with Harry, but figured she should probably try to keep her wits about her in case Artemis had any other requirements, or the place wasn’t up to his standards.
She had to admit, though, that the shop was looking fantastic. She’d outdone herself on the paintwork; you’d never know how bad that historic damp stain on the ceiling above the Children’s section was now. The walls, as dusky blue in colour as a starling’s egg, offset the brilliant white of the ceiling perfectly, and added even more lustre to the heavy mahogany shelves. She felt a flush of pleasure at a job well done. Harry should be rightly proud of his beautiful shop, and she felt sad that he was upstairs, languishing in bed, missing his big moment.
A loud cheer outside on the High Street brought Kate’s mind back from the patient upstairs to the shop floor. She turned to Corey and Florence in confusion.
‘I thought he’d arranged to come in the back way,’ she said, brow furrowing.
‘Looks like he was keen to meet his public after all,’ Florence replied, ambling over to the shop’s locked front door. Sure enough, as Kate hurried over to join her, she could see the tall, skinny, black jeans and T-shirt-clad Artemis Bane ambling up the High Street, looking relaxed and at ease and not at all suffering from the stage fright she’d been led to believe he found crippling. Trotting alongside him, and looking far more nervous, was a woman who Kate assumed to be Eloise Padgett. She was on his right-hand side, having interposed herself between him and the line of guests who were waiting to get into the bookshop. As they drew nearer, Kate saw her shake her head vigorously when a student thrust out a copy of Bane’s previous novel for an autograph. Clearly, she didn’t want any distractions for him before he got into the shop itself. Bane looked straight ahead, staring up towards the looming majesty to Willowbury Hill at the top of the town, not acknowledging any of the cheers and whoops that were getting progressively louder.
Tosser, Kate thought as he came into clearer view. What would it cost him to stop and have a chat with some of those people who’d been queuing outside all day, and in some cases, overnight, too? Clearly fame had gone to his head, local boy done good or not. And what was the point of arriving so publicly if he wasn’t going to even crack a smile at the crowd?
Finally, Eloise and Artemis reached the bookshop. Waiting until the very last moment, but mindful that the great author might not respond well to being kept on the doorstep, Kate pulled open the door and welcomed them into the shop.
Kate, took a deep breath. ‘Hi,’ she said, sounding more confident than she felt. ‘Welcome to Vale Volumes.’
Artemis, to his credit, looked a little taken aback. ‘You don’t look like the Harry I was expecting.’
‘I did mention to you on the way over that Harry Sinclair had been taken ill,’ Eloise explained patiently, clearly used to having to remind her famous client of these things on a regular basis. ‘And that Kate would be taking over the running of tonight’s event.’
‘Oh, yeah, right,’ Artemis said vaguely. ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. This is some high-level publicity shit, you know.’ Before Kate could respond, and obviously used to being in control of any situation, Artemis’s attention had already been drawn by the props and décor of the shop floor. With a brief smile at Kate, and ignoring her outstretched hand, he wandered off to take a look around.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eloise said in an undertone. ‘He gets awfully uptight before a gig like this. He might not seem it, but getting him to retain anything before showtime is an impossible task. He’s absolutely focused on what’s coming.’ She smiled briefly and shook Kate’s hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you. And it’s a real
shame that Harry’s so ill.’
Kate nodded and smiled back at Eloise, who obviously had her hands full with her client, although she seemed to know him very well. Eloise, while still speaking with Kate to check out a few things, had her eyes firmly fixed on Artemis as he made his way around the shop, almost as if he was a hunting hound, intent on following his nose to his prey. Kate figured it was an expression of nerves, and tried not to take it personally when Artemis picked up the longbow that was resting against one of the shelves and put it back at a slightly different angle. Corey, clearly overwhelmed to be in such close proximity to his literary idol, was hanging back behind her, mouth slightly open, just watching Artemis. Corey had burned through Artemis’s recent urban fantasy novels, and had been obsessed with its main character, Malcolm, for weeks. She knew Corey was desperate to get a signed copy of Bane’s latest tonight.
‘Right, well, if you’d like to make yourselves comfortable, we can let the audience in and get started,’ Kate said, directing her comments to Artemis’s turned back, and then looking to Eloise for confirmation.
‘Absolutely,’ Eloise replied. ‘Come on, Artemis, let’s get going.’
At the sound of her voice, Artemis seemed to come back to the shop floor from wherever in his head he’d been. Turning back to them, he gave a smile that, had Kate been a fan, would have melted her into a puddle all over Harry’s oak floorboards. ‘Of course,’ he said, in a voice that was low and, it seemed to Kate, ever so slightly over-emphasised his Somerset roots. ‘Let’s not keep anyone waiting.’ Lithe and loose as an Irish Wolfhound, he ambled over to where the striped armchair and the occasional table had been set up.
‘Everything okay?’ Kate asked.
Artemis glanced up at her and smiled again, this time really seeming to see her. ‘Absolutely. And thank you for stepping in at such short notice.’
‘No problem.’ Kate smiled back. So far, so good, she thought. Artemis had been on time and appeared to be behaving himself. She couldn’t help noticing that Eloise was still quivering with tension, though, as if she expected something to kick off at any moment. Was Artemis lulling Kate into a false sense of security?
Shrugging aside that thought, she headed back to the shop door to start letting in the crowd. This is it, she thought. It was all down to Artemis now to keep the show on the road. She hoped he’d make his audience happy.
32
Meanwhile, feeling utterly exhausted but equally unable to sleep, knowing what was going on directly below him, Harry tossed and turned. His temperature was coming down, and he didn’t feel as shivery and feverish as he had done, but his legs still felt like jelly, even when he was lying down.
Harry hated being ill. It took him back, every time, to having a bout of gastroenteritis as a child, when his mother, patience worn thin because everyone in the house had gone down with it at the same time, had screamed at him for vomiting all over his bedroom carpet, and then virtually thrown the bowl of hot water at him to clear it up himself. Since that incident, he’d learned to battle through illness, never letting it get to him.
And now here he was, struck down with this deeply unseasonal flu bug and unable to oversee the biggest event his shop had ever hosted. Not just that, but he’d dragged in a woman he barely knew to mastermind the evening, whom he’d ended up in another clinch with, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about. The feel, however fleeting, of her lips brushing his as she’d stumbled was enough to make the sweat break out on his brow again. Not even the coolness of his cotton sheets could help with that.
Turning over in bed again to reach for the glass of water that Kate had refilled before she’d gone downstairs, he cursed as it slipped from his fingers and smashed onto the uneven varnished floorboards of his room. The thirst was driving him mad, though, so he had no choice but to get up and get another one. Perhaps a plastic bottle would have been better, he reflected, all too late. Rolling over to the other side of the bed, to avoid the shards of glass, he slapped his feet down and took a deep breath before trying his weight by standing up. As his head started to spin, he breathed out, trying to regain a sense of equilibrium.
‘Come on, you twat,’ he muttered. ‘You’re a grown man. Get on with it.’ Swaying on his feet, he was caught off guard by a hammering of applause coming from downstairs. Artemis had obviously started, and, thankfully, from the sounds of the sustained clapping, seemed to have been well received. Putting one foot in front of the other, he made it to the kitchen, and grabbed his reusable drinks bottle from the draining board, filling it with water and gulping the first lot down thirstily. Refilling it, he staggered back towards his bedroom, but before he got there he was distracted by another round of applause and a roar of laughter. Artemis was clearly captivating his audience now. He felt a flash of irritation that he wasn’t down there listening to it himself. But Kate had taken one look at him and told him to stay put, and, looking in the bathroom mirror earlier, he couldn’t blame her. Artemis and his adoring audience wouldn’t thank him at all for spreading this to them.
Staggering back to his bed, he lay back down on top of his duvet as, even with a reducing fever, he still felt hot. When he was feeling better, he’d bloody well take Kate out for a proper drink, or perhaps even dinner, to thank her for stepping in at such short notice. There was something between them after those kisses; of that he was sure. And he wanted to know what.
But perhaps when he was feeling better. For the moment, all he could do was lie back, close his eyes and wait for this bloody fever to pass.
33
Kate was amazed to see how quickly Artemis slipped into role in front of an audience. She hadn’t realised just how much authors had to become ‘personalities’ to sell books these days, but with the market becoming ever more competitive, perhaps this was the way of things now. And there was no doubt that Artemis knew this and did it extremely well. Languid and seemingly relaxed, he lounged in the armchair at the back of the store, his appreciative audience hanging on his every word. As he reached out a lazy hand to grab his glass of water flavoured, of course, with those Sicilian unwaxed lemons, Kate glanced at Eloise, who, in contrast, was quivering like a greyhound in a trap. Perhaps this air of relaxation, this calm detachment, was an act on his part, and he was prone to dropping the odd howler when he chilled out?
‘So, that was the time I ended up stark bollock naked outside my hotel room in Singapore,’ he was now saying. ‘And after that I decided I wasn’t ever going to be taking any drug that involved sticking something up my arse, ever again!’
The audience, lapping it up, laughed and clapped. Kate saw Eloise glancing around yet again, and then gesture frantically at Artemis to tone things down a little, since there were a fair few older teens there who, while enjoying the stories, were a little too young for that kind of content.
‘All right, Mum!’ Artemis smiled gamely in Eloise’s direction. ‘She’s telling me I need to keep the anecdotes a little more PG-rated if I’m to survive this evening unscathed.’
Kate suddenly realised that she wouldn’t have swapped places with Eloise Padgett for all the money in the world. Artemis, while undoubtedly charismatic and charming, had a tendency to be a loose cannon that clearly it was Eloise’s job to diffuse when it got too explosive.
‘But that brings me, of course, to the inspiration for this latest, and last volume of the Redcliffe Trilogy.’ A groan of disappointment rose up from the audience at the confirmation that this would, in fact, be the last one.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ Artemis laughed heartily. ‘It’s on to pastures new for me, and finally some sense of closure for Malcolm, who, I’m sure, if he were real, would be just as sick of me as I am of him.’
Another warning look from Eloise made Artemis hastily revise that statement. ‘I mean, not that I’m sick of him, of course, but it’s time to give him what he really needs.’
And he was off again, charming, entertaining and ensuring that not one single person in the audience was going to lea
ve without buying the newest book.
At last it was time for Artemis to finish talking, having answered Harry’s list of questions with aplomb. Kate, who was doing the asking, felt a sense of relief that she’d pulled it off. He wound up his final anecdote, prompted by the last question of the evening, and prepared to sign books. Kate, off to one side, felt her shoulders relax at last. It had gone without a hitch. Now she just had to get him out of the shop without incident, and her job was done.
People were starting to leave, and as she collected glasses and plates from where they’d been abandoned, she realised that Corey, who had been chatting animatedly to a tall, fair-haired girl who looked about his age, was bidding her goodbye, after seemingly swapping phone numbers. He then edged up to Artemis with his own copy of the latest book in his hand. Looking up at him, realising he was the last one in the queue, Artemis started to chat with him. Kate watched Corey’s face light up as Artemis asked him a few questions, and nod enthusiastically, taking the book gratefully when Artemis had finished chatting to him. As Corey turned away again towards her, Kate could see the excitement in his eyes at having met his favourite author.
‘Okay?’ she murmured as he came up to her to show her what Artemis had written.
Corey nodded, obviously still too starstruck to speak.
‘Well, that went well,’ Artemis said as he unfolded himself from behind the table where he’d been signing books. ‘It’s nice to be back in the old place.’
‘Harry said you grew up here,’ Kate replied. ‘Do you come back often?’
‘Christ, no.’ Artemis shuddered, and then laughed. ‘Not if I can help it, but my publisher thought it would be a good publicity move to be seen to support an independent bookshop rather than do this one in London.’