True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  The dinner was delicious. Exquisite champagne and locally sourced food: from asparagus soup, Cornish crab and poached lobster to the chicken breasts, which not even a week ago had been plucking and clucking in a farmyard a mile away. The rhubarb in its light-as-clouds soufflé had been grown on the patch of land behind the house and was a testament to the skills of the private chef who had cooked for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as Marissa kept reminding them.

  Verity barely tasted any of the mouthfuls that she mechanically chewed and swallowed. There was Johnny across the table, sitting next to Marissa because she’d obviously forgiven him for going AWOL for a month. They were deep, deep, deep in conversation but every now and then, Johnny would catch Verity’s eye and smile at her, mouth ‘Are you all right?’ in a very boyfriendly way. Every time he did, Marissa put her hand on his arm to draw Johnny’s attention away. And every time it hurt Verity to see how quickly, how eagerly, Johnny turned back to Marissa, and not just because Johnny’s occasional glances were Verity’s only respite.

  On her left she had Miles, an oil trader, who would turn to her every couple of minutes or so to bark out a comment on the food and then turn back to Solange, who was much more scintillating company. On Verity’s right was Yuri, a Russian bond trader, who was quite happy to talk to Verity though his conversation consisted of long, meandering rants about the stock exchange.

  Johnny had got her through the weekend. He’d been her partner in crime, her back-up plan, her exit strategy, always sensing when she was flagging and whisking her off to a place of quiet. Now Verity realised that she hadn’t once had to message one of her sisters for sympathy or a pep talk, as she so desperately needed to do now.

  The effort of sitting there with an animated expression on her face, shoulders straight, all ready to smile and nod and say, ‘Oh, yes, the brown butter sauce is lovely,’ or ‘US Treasury bonds sound like very tricky things,’ was exhausting. Verity could feel her battery charge running down so that it got harder and harder to maintain her smile and mutter inanities at her neighbours.

  What must it be like to be Marissa at the head of the table, whose sparkle and glitter outshone even the ten rose-cut stones on her new eternity ring? Verity couldn’t begin to imagine how easy life must be when you were so certain of your place in the world, were sure that you were absolutely deserving of all your good fortune.

  As the pudding plates were cleared away, Marissa tapped her glass with a knife to get the room’s attention. ‘Ladies? Shall we retire to the Sun Room for coffee?’

  Verity didn’t need to be told twice. She was already out of her chair and halfway out of the door before anyone else had stood up. ‘Just going to get something from my room,’ she called over her shoulder, not that she expected anyone to care.

  In her panic, Verity got turned around so that the blessed sanctuary of her room remained elusive. The house had two internal staircases and three floors but after minutes of stumbling about and peering round doors, Verity found something even better than the room she shared with Johnny.

  The library.

  Verity stepped inside, shut the door, and took a moment to calm herself. Breathed in. Breathed out. The sight and smell of books all around her was an instant comfort, almost as good as being back at Happy Ever After.

  Now, if only she could get a signal, Verity was free to phone Merry or any one of her sisters who would commiserate with her on the sheer hideousness of the weekend. Whatever they were doing, they’d immediately stop doing it, to pour on some of that balm of sisterly consolation.

  But it was Saturday night and Verity was sure that all four of her sisters had more fun things to do than talk her down from the ledge and, as if she had a sixth sense about these things (which she was pretty sure she did), Verity found herself homing in on a set of shelves to her right. She ran her fingers along the spines of the old, leather-bound books and stopped when she came to the words that her hands, her heart, her soul, knew so well.

  Pride and Prejudice.

  Verity smiled. She was with friends after all.

  She took refuge in a huge wing-backed chair that looked out through an open set of doors to a balcony. It was a hot night but she welcomed the faint breeze that came in from the sea, even briefly admired the view, the twinkling lights of the mainland, before she opened the book at the very first page.

  ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’

  It was impossible to know just how many times Verity had read that first sentence so that she wasn’t even reading it, but reciting it from memory. And because she’d read Pride and Prejudice countless times, and because she was in need of comfort, she skipped quickly through the chapters to get to her favourite part.

  Darcy’s declaration to Elizabeth Bennet.

  ‘In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.’

  Verity settled back with a happy sigh, even though Darcy was about to blow it by telling Lizzy that her family were an embarrassment, she was entirely beneath him in status, and that he loved her against his better judgement. But it was all right. It would sort itself out in the end.

  That was the thing with a favourite book; it never let you down, she thought, then froze as she heard the door behind her open gently.

  Verity was about to make her presence known when she heard a familiar voice hiss quietly and furiously, ‘There’s nothing you can say to me that I want to hear, Marissa. Why don’t you save it for your husband?’

  ‘Don’t be like that, darling. If anyone should be furious, it’s me,’ Marissa hissed back to Johnny.

  Johnny.

  Marissa.

  And Verity, cowering where she sat, and in an agony of indecision. Should she reveal herself or would that make the situation even worse? Though she feared it was already worse. It was at least a full one thousand on the worse scale.

  She quietly closed her book and tried to will her mouth to open, her legs to move to the standing position.

  ‘Oh, what’s the matter, Rissa? Does it hurt to see me with another woman?’ Johnny taunted in a hateful way that Verity wouldn’t have believed was possible from the Johnny she thought she knew so well. ‘Well, now you know what it feels like.’

  ‘That insipid creature?’ Marissa made a noise in the back of her throat like she was about to hack up a hairball. ‘She’s even more dull than that Katie you were so taken with a few years back.’

  ‘Well, you got rid of her quick enough, didn’t you?’ Johnny snapped back. ‘One girly lunch with you and I didn’t see her for dust.’

  ‘Honestly, Johnny, we’ve been through this a hundred times,’ Marissa said in a more soothing tone. ‘She wasn’t good enough for you. Nothing would make me happier than you finding a woman who deserved you but it wasn’t Katie and it certainly isn’t the vicar’s daughter. She’s so basic. Just a boring little shop girl. You can do so much better than that.’

  Well, there was no way Verity could expose herself now. She’d hate to interrupt Marissa’s pithy character assassination. All Verity could do now was wait for Johnny to rush in and defend her, though he was taking his own sweet time about it.

  ‘This has nothing to do with her, she was just a means to an end,’ Johnny said and Verity put a hand on her heart, which felt as if it had suddenly caved in. ‘A little experiment, shall we say. How ironic that you’re jealous of someone I’ve known only five minutes when I’ve had to watch you with him for the last bloody ten years. I have tried to stay away from you, God knows I’ve tried, but we both know you get a sadistic kick in rubbing your supposedly happy marriage in my face. Well, I can’t, Rissa. Not any more.’

  ‘Don’t say that. Sssh. No, not another word.’ It sounded as if Marissa had her hand to Johnny’s mouth. ‘I love Harry, I’ve never pretended otherwise, but I still love you too. Not in the same way, but I’ve loved you fo
r so long that I don’t know how to not love you, Johnny. Not loving you would be torture.’

  Really? Really? Verity risked a sigh and rolled her eyes. She’d read a few torrid, overblown romances in her time, her grandmother had had a huge stack of them, and all this forbidden love crap that Marissa and Johnny were spouting could have been lifted straight from the pages of one of them.

  ‘I don’t know how to not love you either,’ Johnny said and Verity shut her eyes because she could hear the hitch in his voice and then the sound of material rubbing together as if they were embracing while she had to sit there hidden and hurting. ‘I wish I could stop loving you.’

  Verity heard a step in front of her and she opened her eyes, shut them, then opened them again so wide it was a wonder they didn’t spring from their sockets because standing at the open French doors was Harry with a face like thunder and lightning, gales and torrential rain.

  He walked towards Verity and she wasn’t sure if he’d even seen her but then he nodded as he passed her. ‘You want to stop loving each other? Well, here’s a tip. Try harder,’ he said loudly.

  Verity risked peering round the edge of the chair to see Johnny and Marissa standing a whisper apart from each other. Johnny looked sickened and ashamed (as well he might) and Marissa … Marissa looked kind of smug, as far as Verity could see.

  Then she pulled a pretty face, lowered her lashes as she gazed at her husband. ‘Darling, it’s not at all what it looks like.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. It’s exactly what it looks like,’ Harry said flatly.

  ‘I was just telling Johnny that he deserves someone much better than that Verity,’ Marissa explained earnestly.

  ‘What you really mean, my love, is that no other woman could ever measure up to you,’ Harry drawled. ‘But you shouldn’t be so sure of that. I might put it to the test myself.’

  Marissa was at his side in an instant, Johnny forgotten. ‘You wouldn’t! Don’t even joke about it. Johnny and I … we have history, you know that.’

  Harry ran the back of his hand along his wife’s cheek. ‘Oh God, do I know it. But enough is enough. Just … leave him be, give him a chance to be happy with someone else. This has gone on long enough and I am not going to put up with it any longer.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing.’

  ‘Harry, you know I love you,’ Marissa said, her voice trembling with the weight of her words. ‘You can’t be in any doubt of that.’

  ‘Ten years ago you promised to love me and forsake all others, Rissa. It’s about time you kept up your end of the deal. It can be your anniversary present to me: your undivided attention. We are going to have a serious talk about this. But now isn’t the time or place.’ He took a step away. ‘You should get back to our guests.’

  ‘Of course,’ Marissa husked. Verity risked another peek. Marissa was fluffing up her hair, then without a backward look at Johnny she picked up the train of her white liquid satin gown and hurried out of the room.

  And then there were three. ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ Johnny said. ‘Really I am. But I just can’t give her up.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, you’ve already lost her,’ Harry replied without any heat, as if his anger was spent. ‘I was smoking out on the balcony. Marissa hates me smoking so she insists I do it outside. We both have our little habits that irritate each other. You’re Marissa’s version of a packet of Marlboro Lights, but I’m going to be forty in a few years so it’s high time I gave up the smokes and it’s about bloody time Marissa gave up you.’

  Johnny made an indeterminate noise (disagreement, despair, it was hard for Verity to tell). ‘Isn’t that up to Marissa?’ he asked finally. ‘Anyway, I loved her first. I loved her long before you and you knew that and yet still, as soon as my back was turned, you—’

  ‘Enough!’ Harry’s deadly quiet command was worse than if he were shouting. ‘I don’t feel guilty, Johnny. Haven’t done for quite a while. Marissa and I have been married for ten years and you need to get over it, because I won’t be the bad guy any more. Ten years! You’re the bad guy now. So stay the hell out of my marriage.’

  ‘But she loves—’ Johnny insisted.

  ‘God, you poor bastard, you just don’t get it. She. Is. Using. You. She loves me, she married me. If Rissa still loved you as much as you seem to think she does, she would have left me a long time ago. She keeps you around because it feeds her ego, my friend.’ Harry laughed mirthlessly. ‘What’s the point in trying to get through to you? Maybe Verity can talk some sense into you where everybody else has failed.’

  ‘Leave Very out of it,’ Johnny all but snarled and Verity heard her cue and this time her legs obeyed her and stood up when she wanted them to.

  ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ Her voice was in full working order too though Verity hardly recognised the cold, bitter tone to her words.

  ‘So, you were eavesdropping, listening to my private conversation?’ Johnny had the nerve to spit out.

  ‘Listening to you and that woman rip me to shreds, you mean? Next time the pair of you are sneaking about behind her husband’s back, maybe you should check that you really are alone.’

  ‘Well, I’ll just leave you lovebirds to thrash things out,’ Harry said cheerfully, his work done, as he slipped out of the door.

  And then there were two.

  25

  ‘Angry people are not always wise.’

  Verity had come into the library to escape because she was overloaded, overstimulated, on the verge of shutting down, but now she was ready to go another round.

  In fact, she was furious. Itching with anger, it made her toes and fingers tingle, and she really wanted to start throwing things, preferably at Johnny’s incredibly dense head. The only thing stopping her was that they were in a library and it went against everything Verity believed in to start chucking books about.

  ‘I have never lied to you,’ Johnny said, folding his arms, face cold, his expression haughty as if he were entirely unrepentant. ‘You knew I was in love with Marissa. I was just fooling myself when I thought I wasn’t.’

  ‘Oh God, I am so over you being in love with Marissa,’ Verity snapped. ‘Marissa is not worthy of your love. Yes, she came through for you all those years ago but it seems to have escaped your notice that these days, Marissa is a spiteful, selfish, raging narcissist so if you’re in love with Marissa then it really doesn’t reflect well on you!’

  Woah! Verity had to steady herself on a conveniently placed side table because all this emotion … All of a sudden she was back in that hotel room in Amsterdam destroying someone by giving a voice to all the feelings she’d tamped down for so long.

  ‘You’re being ridiculous. You barely even know Marissa,’ Johnny said coolly because he was made of much stronger stuff than Adam. ‘She’s actually really lovely when you—’

  ‘She called me insipid,’ Verity interrupted, because that description would be etched into her cerebral cortex until the day she died. ‘A boring little shop girl. Basic.’

  Verity liked to think she had hidden depths. Everybody did. That though she liked her quiet life and routine, she still had imagination and potential. Well, Marissa had blown that notion away in two sentences.

  ‘You’re not basic,’ Johnny said impatiently. ‘It’s only natural for Marissa to feel a little threatened by you but that doesn’t mean that—’

  ‘And you said I’m a means to an end.’ Verity cut through the rest of his bluster. ‘This whole time I’ve been such a fool! You never wanted a pretend girlfriend to get your friends off your back; you wanted to make Marissa jealous.’ It was all so obvious now. This fake relationship of theirs, what Verity had thought of as a real friendship, was nothing more than a plot to make Marissa jealous and conquer the hard piece of carbon where her heart should be. ‘Oh my God, you couldn’t wait to introduce us at that wedding and even tonight, when you kissed me, kept looking at me, it was all for her benefit, wasn’t it?’

  It was dark outside no
w and the only light came from the lamps dotted about but Verity could clearly see the taut, tight set of Johnny’s mouth; the insistent muscle that pounded away in his neck, and also the hot red blush that had turned his face dusky.

  ‘That was never my intention, not at the beginning, you have to believe that, Very.’ Johnny took a step forward. He really was beautiful and yet so damned. Condemned to love the wrong woman for an eternity. ‘But Marissa was jealous. You heard what she said; that she still loves me. She doesn’t know how not to love me.’

  Incredible. Johnny was an intelligent man. He had a Cambridge degree, for God’s sakes, and yet he was one of the most stupid people Verity had ever come across. Her limbs twitched, heat rising up from her toes so her whole body felt as if it were on fire; she clenched her fists and pressed her lips together but couldn’t do anything to contain it.

  ‘SHE IS NEVER GOING TO LEAVE HARRY!’ It was a howl of rage and frustration that had Johnny clamping his hands over his ears so Verity made sure to shout even louder so he’d be able to hear the next part. ‘SHE’S BEEN MARRIED TO HARRY FOR TEN YEARS! WHAT PART OF THAT ISN’T REGISTERING WITH YOU? BRRRINNNGGG! BRRRIIINNGGG! EARTH TO JOHNNY! SHE IS NEVER GOING TO BE WITH YOU! IT’S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!’

  ‘Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Johnny took another step towards Verity, who tossed her head back to glare up at him.

  ‘Marissa doesn’t love you. If she did, she’d let you go. That’s just good manners. To think that I used to feel sorry for you. Not any more! Ten years, Johnny! This is entirely your own fault now.’

  ‘I said, shut up!’ Johnny was at Verity’s side now. He was close enough that Verity could smell the brandy he must have drunk after dinner. Could see the flush still dotting his cheekbones. Then his fingers were around Verity’s wrists. Not hard enough to hurt, not even close, but enough that she couldn’t get away. ‘And what about you? You’re not perfect either!’

  ‘I didn’t say I was perfect—’

  ‘At least I have the guts to love someone,’ Johnny said, lowering his head so they were practically nose to nose. ‘I haven’t locked myself away because of one mediocre relationship. All your “I’m an island” bullshit is pathetic!’