Johnny looked down at Verity, who shut her eyes again because his expression was the absolute opposite of encouraging.
‘No, not Peter,’ she managed to say, even though it was hard to squeeze the words out past the lump in her throat and the dead weight that was her tongue. ‘I didn’t actually say I was going to meet Peter. You just assumed.’ At least now the worst was over and Verity could just lie. Lie through her teeth. Say that Johnny was the son of one of her father’s parishioners (her father’s parishioners had, conveniently, a lot of children between them) and they’d arranged to meet here because he needed some spiritual guidance. Even though spiritual guidance was really more her father’s department. ‘Anyway, Johnny is—’
‘I know this is still quite a new thing but I didn’t realise that you were seeing other people too. Just who is Peter Hardy, oceanographer? Is he someone I should be worried about?’ Verity could feel the heat sweep across her chest, up her neck, along her cheeks so that even her earlobes felt as if they’d been plunged into boiling-hot water. She’d been hoisted by her own petard, ‘h-ed by her own p,’ as her family was fond of saying, and this had now gone from bad to worse to verging on absolutely bloody catastrophic.
‘Verity Love, you bad, bad girl!’ Posy gasped in delight. ‘You never said anything about juggling two men. And you a vicar’s daughter, too!’
It was their go-to line whenever Verity did anything even a little bit not good. From swearing, to saying uncharitable things about reality TV contestants, to apparently playing two men off against each other.
‘Oh, well, the thing is … Gosh … I don’t really know …’ Whole sentences would be great. Would be peachy, in fact. Verity felt hands on her shoulders once more, squeezing her gently, then Nina rested her chin on top of Verity’s head.
‘Please don’t get the wrong idea about Very,’ she said and Verity steeled herself for Nina to overshare on her behalf. Knowing Nina, she’d probably tell this unimpressed-looking stranger that Peter Hardy left Verity on her own far too much when he was away on ocean-related business and that Verity had needs and so she wasn’t to be blamed for letting her attentions wander. It was something that Nina had often pondered aloud, usually when the shop was full of customers, because Nina had no respect for other people’s boundaries. ‘Let me tell you about this woman. This woman once borrowed her landlord’s car and drove through a rainstorm on a school night to pick me up from a campsite in Derbyshire where I’d been abandoned by my bastard ex-boyfriend. She’s got the kindest heart of anyone I know.’
The man, Johnny, was still standing up. He was lean and tall, tall enough that Verity had to tip her head back to catch the considered look he gave her as if there might be something more to her than a presumptuous, gatecrashing liar.
‘Look, we haven’t had the talk about whether we were exclusive or not yet. I mean, we haven’t even been on one date.’ Verity had managed to spit out two complete sentences and she’d managed not to lie. Well, hardly lie. And it was all going to be fine because Johnny sat back down and smiled, not tightly this time but lazily, as if this was all an amusing distraction from whatever he’d been frowning about before.
‘No time like the present for that talk, I think. Ladies, it was a pleasure, I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.’
They only backed away when Verity turned and gave them a look that said very plainly, ‘I can think of at least ten ways to kill the pair of you and make it look like an accident.’ She could have quite happily stayed like that forever, but Posy and Nina were at the door, giving her double thumbs up and mouthing things like ‘Get in there!’ and ‘You go girl!’ until Johnny pointedly cleared his throat and Verity had to turn around.
‘I’m so sorry. I panicked and I couldn’t think what else to do,’ Verity confessed, as she stared down at her white-knuckled hands clenched around the lip of the table. She had a splodge of black ink on her thumb.
‘Probably not as sorry as Peter Hardy, the oceanographer.’
‘There is no Peter Hardy. Look, I really am sorry and I’ve taken up enough of your time—’
‘What exactly do you mean when you say there’s no Peter Hardy?’
Johnny’s voice was cultured and precise, which was just a fancy way of saying posh, but also warm, like he was smiling, though Verity could neither confirm nor deny this as she was still gazing at the ink splodge on her thumb.
Verity looked up. There hadn’t been time before to do anything other than check that he was in full working order, but now she could see why Posy and Nina had been practically shoving each other out of the way to get a better look at him.
But who could blame Posy and Nina when this Johnny was actually very handsome in a Brideshead Revisited, oh-yes-in-my-spare-time-I-do-a-spot-of-modelling-for-Burberry way? He was high of cheekbone and if he weren’t smiling then his full lips, lush and pillow-y, would look positively sulky. He had thick, glossy brown hair cropped close at the back and sides, then left free to roam on top so he could keep pushing it back, all the better to display his ridiculous cheekbones and eyes which were bluey green or maybe even greeny blue and it would probably be a good idea to stop gazing into them like a small woodland animal trapped in the crosshairs. He was a grown-up version of the pale, sneering boys doing Foundation Art at the local college that Verity had yearned after when she was a teenager. Sadly, those boys had always sneered at her yearning because she was one of the vicar’s five odd daughters and she wasn’t beautiful enough for the oddness not to be an issue.
She wasn’t hideous either, not by any stretch of the imagination, but still Verity had never once managed to get their attention. Not like this stranger who was waiting a little impatiently, if the drumming of his fingers on the table was anything to go by, for her to start speaking.
Peter Hardy, oceanographer. Where to begin?
Well, she could always start with the truth.
‘So, um, Peter Hardy started from a silly conversation with my sister Merry about what my perfect boyfriend would be like. Eventually we had a whole back story for him but he was only ever an imaginary boyfriend, until my friends … they mean well … but you see, they kept trying to set me up with any random man going spare or signing me up for dating sites and, oh God, do you know about that dating app, HookUpp?’
He shuddered. ‘Everyone in my office under thirty is obsessed with it.’
‘I was forced to install it on my phone because it was easier than explaining for the hundredth time why I wasn’t interested in a relationship, then one night I left my phone on the table in the pub while I went to the loo and when I came back, they’d been up-swiping some absolute horrors and I suddenly heard myself saying that I already had a boyfriend and his name was Peter Hardy.’
‘The oceanographer.’ Johnny nodded again. ‘Do you want a drink, Very Love?’
Hearing her name said in that dark-grey velvet voice made her name sound less like a cheesy Valentine’s card translated from English to Japanese and back to English again. She suppressed a shiver. ‘It’s Verity, really. My name. But everyone calls me Very. Sorry.’
Verity really should have made her excuses and tucked herself away in her usual corner, but she agreed that a drink would be nice and then Luigi hurried over so they could order a glass of Malbec each.
It was easy to pick up the thread again that stitched together all of Verity’s dating woes. She’d been single for three years, after her first, last and only relationship had imploded spectacularly and messily and painfully. After the fallout of fallouts with Adam, Verity was happy to be single, but the world wasn’t happy that she was happy.
‘They’re not being mean, my friends. They’re really not. It’s just most of them are coupled up or obsessed with being coupled up and they expect me to want to be one half of a couple too. Also, they have very low standards when it comes to picking out dates for me.’ Verity winced at the memory of an awkward blind date with a man Nina had met at a party who turned out to be what he calle
d a ‘full-time dominant’ and wanted to know if Verity ‘needed a man in her life who could wield some affectionate but firm control?’ Verity hadn’t known what to say but luckily her most glacial look had said it all for her.
‘I get set up by my friends too. It hasn’t been a great success,’ Johnny said as their drinks arrived. He lifted up his glass so Verity could clink hers against it. ‘Cheers. And judging from the women they try to pair me with, it seems like my friends think very little of me. Usually it’s girls who are so young that I feel like I need to ask them to provide photo ID, or bitter divorcees. The last one wanted to take out a hit on her ex-husband. Of course when I complain, my friends accuse me of being picky. Say that I should settle.’
‘That’s why I went with the fake boyfriend. It’s also very convenient that his job means that he’s not around much.’ Verity couldn’t believe that she was talking about her imaginary boyfriend with a complete stranger. ‘I’m absolutely one hundred per cent happy being single but I’m having a hard time getting my friends on board with that.’
Johnny pursed his lips thoughtfully, which did delightful things to his mouth. ‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right person.’
‘I don’t want to meet the right person. I have a busy job, great friends, an extremely needy cat. I don’t need anyone else in my life.’ Verity clutched her glass tighter. ‘So, what’s your story, then? Surely you can’t have any trouble meeting women?’
Johnny ducked his head. Verity was sure it was to hide his pleased but bashful smile. He must have mirrors in his house so he could see that he was very pleasing aesthetically. ‘No, no trouble meeting women.’
Of course! It was obvious. Now that she was no longer crucified on the altar of her own embarrassment, Verity could process the raw data sitting opposite her. No man could look like that and … ‘Oh, right. You’re gay. OK. And you haven’t told your friends? Really? Well, it’s none of my business, I suppose.’
‘I’m flattered that you seem to think that,’ Johnny said, his voice all barbed wire now, instead of velvet vowels. ‘You didn’t even make it a question, just an unequivocal statement, but no, not gay.’
Verity put her hands to her crimson cheeks. ‘Sorry. I don’t usually run around outing people … One of my best friends from uni is gay. And two cousins. I’m all about the LGBT rights. I love the gays!’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that but I’m still not gay.’
Johnny’s eyes were a very definite blue now. Like the sea in winter; frost-tipped and cold. Verity suspected that he was a Darcy. It was very rare to meet a Darcy.
It probably came from having read Pride and Prejudice so many times that she knew it off by heart, but on meeting new people, Verity always found herself assigning them roles in Pride and Prejudice. She’d met a lot of Jane Bennets and Charles Bingleys, far too many Mr Collinses, an occasional Wickham, but a Darcy was rarer than a single man in possession of a good fortune who was in actual want of a wife. And actually meeting a Darcy wasn’t that much fun.
In fact, it was unbelievably awkward for a count of ten, then Johnny’s phone beeped. As he picked it up Verity realised that there was no good reason to stay and suffer.
She said goodbye, quickly got up, though Johnny was riveted to his phone and gave no acknowledgement of her hasty departure. ‘Stick both glasses on my tab,’ she yelped at Luigi who still couldn’t hide his disbelief that Verity had broken with her usual Friday night routine for the first time in three years. Not only that, she’d also been seen in the company of a man.
3
‘This is an evening of wonders, indeed!’
Her plans for dinner thwarted, Verity retraced her steps back to Rochester Street and There’s No Plaice Like Home for a small cod and chips and a tub of mushy peas to go.
‘And can you take your cat with you?’ asked Liz from behind the counter. ‘Been out the back for hours making an awful sound.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Verity muttered. She’d only moved into the flat above Happy Ever After the week before and had been determined to keep Strumpet indoors for at least a month so he could acclimatise to his new home and not make tracks back to Islington. But as soon as Strumpet had realised that his new home was less than one hundred metres from a chippy and a Swedish deli with a smokehouse in its backyard for curing salmon, he’d become determined in his efforts to make an escape. Usually the laziest and most languid of moggies, lately Strumpet had taken to racing through any open door so he could taste freedom … And fish.
Verity had been reduced to putting posters up all along Rochester Street featuring a photo of Strumpet in all his fully fleshed glory and begging her neighbours ‘Please do not feed this cat. He’s on a strict calorie-controlled diet.’
Strumpet hadn’t got the memo about the diet. He was at the back door of the chippy, up on his hind legs (Verity was amazed that they could support the rest of him) as he demanded entrance.
‘What are you doing?’ Verity demanded but Strumpet pretended that he couldn’t hear her. He did that a lot. Somehow he managed to remain deaf to Verity’s pleas to leave her alone and stop using her face as a pillow but could hear a sliver of cheese being munched from several rooms away in the middle of a thunderstorm.
In the end, Strumpet would only let himself be lured away from the chippy by Verity breaking off a tailpiece from her own fish supper. Then she scooped him up and carried him, furiously squirming, along the street and into the cobbled mews where Happy Ever After née Bookends had stood for over a hundred years.
Rochester Mews had really smartened up its act in the last few weeks. True, there was still a row of empty, dilapidated shops along one side of it, but Happy Ever After was resplendent with its new smudgy-grey and clover-pink makeover. Verity hadn’t quite got used to the burst of pride in her chest (though some of that burst was currently Strumpet’s claws) when she caught sight of her place of employment and her new home.
She wasn’t the only local resident pleased about Happy Ever After’s change in fortune. Since Posy had spruced up the wooden benches and pruned the trees in the mews, it had become the preferred hangout of a gang of hoodies from the nearby estate who now congregated at the benches most evenings to smoke weed.
Nina had asked them if they’d mind smoking weed somewhere else, but apparently all their usual haunts ran the risk of them being spotted by a parent or teacher. They had agreed that they’d only assemble after closing hours and Nina and Verity had decided it was best to stay friendly and establish an emotional rapport with them.
‘All right, Very? You be looking fine, girl,’ the smallest hoodie said and Verity smiled in a way that she hoped was polite but not the least bit encouraging and hurried over to Happy Ever After, keys clutched in her hand so they could double up as a weapon if need be.
Strumpet still unhappily wriggling under her arm, Verity unlocked the door and stepped inside the shop. She took one moment for another burst of pride as she surveyed the shelves, some of which she’d painstakingly painted herself, and inhaled the whiff of new books and the lingering scent of the Happy Ever After candle they’d had specially commissioned.
The large main room of the shop where Verity stood had space for three sofas in various stages of sagging decay arranged around a display table, which doubled up as a lovely shrine for Lavinia, their late and erstwhile boss, featuring her favourite books (from Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love to Jilly Cooper’s Riders) and a vase of her trademark pink roses.
One of the walls was completely lined with books, the other taken up with vintage display cabinets full of romance-novel-related giftware from mugs and the aforementioned scented candles to stationery, jewellery, T-shirts, greeting cards and wrapping paper. And tote bags. Posy was obsessed with tote bags.
Then on the left and the right of the main room were arches that led to a series of anterooms, each section – Classics, Historical, Regency, YA, Poems and Plays, even Erotica – signposted in clover pink on the grey woodwork. And fin
ally, at the furthest reaches of the anterooms on the left, were a set of glass double doors, which led to the tearoom.
Or it would open as a tearoom in approximately two weeks but currently it was a work in progress and the bane of Verity’s existence but not quite as much of a bane as Strumpet who had now reached peak-squirm. Verity quickly locked the shop door behind her then gratefully relinquished her grip on nine kilograms of wriggling blue British shorthair cat.
‘You are a pain in the arse,’ Verity told Strumpet who stalked over to the counter, then stood by the door that separated the shop from the stairs to the flat, swishing his tail and meowing impatiently. ‘You can meow all you want, I’m not sharing my dinner with you,’ Verity told him, as she followed him up the stairs. ‘I’m going into the living room and shutting the door so I can’t hear another peep out of you. It’s been a long day and I need quiet.’
The meowing increased in fury and decibels. Other people had cats who were silent and judgemental; Verity longed to have a cat like that. She resigned herself to the fact that when she put her fish and chips and mushy peas on a plate and poured herself a glass of red wine, she’d have Strumpet in her lap, face all up in her dinner.
But if Strumpet was eating, then at least he’d be quiet.
Quiet.
Verity stood at the top of the stairs and took one deep breath. Her shoulders dropped, her limbs slackened as she let that breath out. She closed her eyes, allowed herself another deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and already she could feel the strains of the week and, in particular, the traumatic events of the last two hours, ebbing away to be replaced by a lovely sense of calm and tranquil—
True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop Page 2