Читать книгу The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts: A feel-good funny romance - Annie Darling - Страница 6

Lavinia Thorndyke’s wake was held at a private members’ club for ladies of a literary persuasion on Endell Street in Covent Garden, which she’d belonged to for over fifty years.

In a wood-panelled reception room on the second floor, its windows looking out on to the bustling streets below, people gathered to remember. Even though the mourners had come straight from Lavinia’s funeral, there was a rainbow of colours on display. Women in floral summer frocks, men in white suits and crisp sherbet-coloured shirts, though one man was wearing an egg yolk yellow blazer as if it were his personal mission to make up for the lack of sun on this grey February day.

But then Lavinia’s instructions had been quite clear in the letter she’d left detailing her funeral arrangements – ‘Absolutely no black. Cheerful colours only’ – and maybe that was why the atmosphere was less funereal and more garden party. A very raucous garden party.

Posy Morland was dressed in the same shade of pale pink as Lavinia’s favourite roses. She’d unearthed the dress from the back of her wardrobe where it had hung limply for nearly a decade, hidden behind a leopard print fun fur that Posy hadn’t worn since her student days.

Over the subsequent years, there’d been a lot of pizza, quite a bit of cake and huge amounts of wine. No wonder the dress strained against her breasts and hips, but it was what Lavinia would have wanted, so Posy tugged ineffectually at the tight pink cotton and took another sip of the champagne, which had been another of Lavinia’s express wishes.

With the champagne flowing, the conversation in the room had reached a deafening crescendo. ‘Any fool can put on a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream but it takes real guts to do it in togas,’ she heard someone bray in a booming luvvie voice and Nina, who was sitting next to Posy, giggled, then tried to mask it with a delicate cough.

‘It’s all right, I think we’re allowed to laugh,’ Posy told her, because the two men in the corner behind them were guffawing so uproariously that one had to stop and clutch his knees. ‘Lavinia always said that the best funerals turned into the best parties.’

Nina sighed. She’d matched her gingham dress with her hair, which was currently a vibrant Prussian blue. ‘God, I’m going to miss her.’

‘The shop won’t be the same without Lavinia,’ said Verity, who was sitting on Posy’s other side and wearing grey because she’d argued that grey wasn’t black and that she didn’t have the complexion or the disposition to wear cheerful colours. ‘I still expect her to come barrelling through the door all excited about a book she’d stayed up half the night reading.’

‘And how she’d always refer to five on a Friday afternoon as champagne o’clock,’ Tom said. ‘Never had the heart to tell her I don’t like champagne.’

The three women and Tom, who comprised the staff of Bookends, clinked their glasses together and Posy was sure that all of them were taking time to scroll through their favourite memories of Lavinia.

The breathless, girlish voice, her perfect 1930s English, like a character from a Nancy Mitford novel.

How she’d read everything, met everyone, but was still excited at the thought of new books, new people.

The roses in the same shade of pink as Posy’s dress that she’d buy on Monday and Thursday mornings and arrange carelessly but so artfully in a chipped glass vase she’d bought from Woolworths in the 1960s.

The way she’d call each of them darling and how that ‘darling’ could sound affectionate, reproachful, teasing.

Oh, Lavinia. Sweet, funny Lavinia and the hundreds of tiny kindnesses she’d heaped on Posy. After Posy’s parents had died in a car crash seven years ago, Lavinia had not only given Posy a job but let Posy and her little brother Sam stay on in the flat above Bookends that they’d always called home, and so she was sad that Lavinia was suddenly gone, she really was. It was the kind of sad that sat deep in Posy’s bones and rested heavy in her heart.

But there was also worry. A gnawing anxiety that had taken hold of Posy’s internal organs and kept tugging at them every few minutes or so. Now that Lavinia was gone, who knew what would happen to Bookends? It was highly unlikely, verging on impossible, that a new owner would let Posy and Sam live rent-free in the flat above the shop. It just wasn’t good business sense.

On Posy’s meagre bookseller’s salary, they certainly couldn’t afford to rent anywhere other than the tiniest of shoeboxes somewhere far, far away from Bloomsbury. Then Sam might have to change schools and, if money was too tight to stay in London, they might have to move to Wales, to Merthyr Dyfan, where Posy hadn’t lived since she was a toddler, and camp out in their grandparents’ two-up, two-down and Posy would have to try and get a job in one of the few local bookshops, if they hadn’t all closed down.

So, yes, Posy was sad, desperately sad and aching from the loss of Lavinia, but also she was worried sick, hadn’t even been able to choke down a piece of toast this morning, and then she felt guilty for being worried sick when all she should have been feeling was grief.

‘Have you any idea what’s going to happen to the shop, then?’ Verity asked tentatively and Posy realised that the four of them had been sitting there silent and lost in their own thoughts for long, long minutes.

Posy shook her head. ‘I’m sure we’ll know something soon.’ She tried to smile encouragingly but it felt more like a desperate grimace.

Verity grimaced back at her. ‘I’d been unemployed for over a year before Lavinia gave me a job, and that was only because she said that Verity Love was the most splendid name she’d ever come across.’ She leaned closer to hiss in Posy’s ear. ‘I’m not a people person. I don’t do well in interviews.’

‘I’ve never even had a job interview,’ Posy said, because she’d worked at Bookends forever. She’d spent twenty-five of her twenty-eight years on earth at Bookends where her father had been manager and her mother had taken over the tearoom attached to the shop. Posy had learned her alphabet as she was shelving books, and her numbers as she counted change. ‘I don’t have a CV and if I did, it wouldn’t take up one sheet of paper.’

‘Lavinia didn’t bother to look at my CV – which was probably for the best, because I was fired from my last three jobs.’ Nina held out her arms for their inspection. ‘She just asked to look at my tattoos and that was that.’

On one arm, Nina had a trailing design of drooping rose petals and thorns that framed a quote from Wuthering Heights: ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’

On the other arm, for a change of pace, Nina had a full sleeve depicting the Mad Hatter’s tea party from Alice in Wonderland.

Then the three girls turned to look at Tom because it was his turn to confess his unsuitability for employment outside Bookends. ‘I’m a PhD student,’ he reminded them. ‘I could easily pick up some more teaching or research work, but I don’t want to. I want to work at Bookends. On Mondays, we have cake!’

‘We have cake every day,’ Posy pointed out. ‘Look, none of us know what’s going to happen so I suppose we’ll simply carry on as normal until … um, we don’t. Let’s just take today to remember how much we loved Lavinia and—’

‘Ah! There you all are! Lavinia’s waifs and strays! Her merry band of misfits!’ declared a voice. A deep, pleasant voice, which could have been described as attractive, if the things that were said in that voice weren’t always sarcastic and cutting.

Posy looked up at Sebastian Thorndyke’s face, which would have been a very attractive face if it wasn’t always sneering and she forgot that she was meant to be remembering how much she’d loved Lavinia. ‘Ah, Sebastian,’ she snapped. ‘The self-styled, so-called rudest man in London.’

‘Not self-styled or so-called,’ Sebastian said in the smug, self-satisfied high-handed way that he’d perfected by the age of ten and which always made Posy curl her fingers into fists. ‘The Daily Mail said I was and the Guardian too, so it must be true.’ He glanced down at Posy, eyes lingering over her breasts, which to be fair were testing the buttons of her dress to breaking point. Any sudden movements and she’d flash her M&S ditsy print bra to the room, which would be highly inappropriate at any time, but especially at a wake. Especially in front of Sebastian, but he’d now stopped gazing at her breasts and was looking around the room – probably to see if there was anyone present that he hadn’t insulted yet.

You could never tell with Sebastian, Lavinia’s only grandchild. Posy had fallen instantly in love with him when she’d arrived at Bookends at the age of three and first encountered the haughty eight-year-old with a sweet smile and eyes as dark as the bitterest of chocolate. She’d stayed in love with Sebastian, following him around Bookends like a devoted and faithful puppy, until she was ten and he’d locked her in the dank coal-hole under the shop where spiders and beetles and rats and all manner of horrible, diseased, crawling creatures lived.

Then he’d denied all knowledge of her whereabouts and it was only when her frantic mother was about to call the police that he’d confessed.

Posy had got over the Coal-hole Affair in time – though to this day, she refused to so much as stick her head through the hatch – but Sebastian had remained her arch nemesis ever since. All through his sullen, sulky teen years, then his cocky twenties when he’d made a fortune developing horrible websites (Zinger or Minger? had been a particular low point, even for him) and now his dissolute thirties when he was never out of the papers, usually with a beautiful blonde model/actress/whatever clinging to his side.

He’d reached peak notoriety after his first and last appearance on BBC’s Question Time when he’d told a red-faced MP, who was utterly furious about everything from immigrants to green taxes, that he needed a good shag and a cheeseburger. Then when a woman from the audience had embarked on a long, meandering speech about teachers’ pay, Sebastian had drawled, ‘God, I’m bored. I can’t do this sober. Can I go home now?’

It was then that the papers had started to call him The Rudest Man in London and Sebastian had been playing up to it ever since – not that he needed any encouragement to behave in an obnoxious and completely offensive manner. Posy suspected that the offensive gene made up at least seventy-five per cent of his DNA.

So, it was actually quite easy to hate Sebastian, but it was also very, very easy to appreciate his beauty.

When his lips weren’t curled in derision, he still had a sweet smile, still had those dark, dark eyes inherited from his Spanish father (his mother, Mariana, had always had a weakness for Mediterranean men). His hair was just as dark, and coaxed into cherubic curls made for women to wind around their fingers.

Sebastian was long-limbed and lithe (six foot three, according to Tatler, who insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he was one of the most eligible bachelors in the country) and he favoured bespoke suits that clung so lovingly to his body that they were approximately one centimetre away from being obscenely tight.

Today, in deference to Lavinia’s last wishes, Sebastian’s suit was French navy, his shirt red with white polka dots that matched his pocket square …

‘Morland, stop staring at me. You’re starting to drool,’ he said and Posy’s face flared as red as his shirt, and her mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped shut.

Then she opened it again. ‘I’m not. I wouldn’t. In your dreams!’

Her protest simply glanced off Sebastian’s Teflon-coated hide. She was working up to saying something really crushing to him, as soon as she could think of something really crushing to say, when Nina nudged her. ‘Posy, have a heart,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘We’ve just come from his grandmother’s funeral.’

They had. And Lavinia had always been the weak spot in Sebastian’s bespoke caddish armour. ‘Come on, Granny, I’m taking you to cocktails,’ he’d announce as he swept into the shop. He never entered a room when he could sweep into one instead. ‘How do you fancy a Martini bigger than your head?’

Lavinia had loved Sebastian, despite his many failings. ‘One has to make allowances,’ she was fond of saying when she caught Posy reading about his latest beastly act, whether it was an adulterous affair or his soulless dating app, HookUpp, which had made him millions. ‘Mariana always over-indulged the poor boy.’

Earlier, in church, Sebastian had read a eulogy to Lavinia that had had everyone roaring with laughter in the pews. As most of the women, and some of the men, had craned their necks to get a better look at him, he sketched a vivid, vibrant picture of Lavinia as if she were standing there next to him. But then he’d finished with a quote from Winnie the Pooh, a book he’d said that Lavinia had read to him countless times when he was a child.

‘“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”,’ Sebastian had said, and only someone who knew Sebastian as well as Posy could hear the break in his voice, a tiny, terrible fracture. He’d stared down at his notes, which he hadn’t looked at once, then raised his head and smiled his brilliant and careless smile and the moment had passed.

Now Posy realised that, as much as she was hurting, Sebastian must be hurting more.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We’re all so sorry for your loss, Sebastian. I know how much you’ll miss her.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind of you.’ His voice caught again, his smile slipped, but then it was back in the time it took Posy to blink. ‘Sorry for your loss. God, it’s such a clichéd sentiment. It doesn’t really mean anything, does it? I hate clichés.’

‘People only say that because it can be very hard to know what to say when someone’s di—’

‘You’re being very earnest now, Posy. It’s so boring. I much prefer it when you’re being bitchy,’ Sebastian said, and Verity, who hated anything that even faintly resembled a confrontation, covered her face with a napkin and Nina made another hissing noise and Tom looked expectantly at Posy, like he was waiting for her to cut Sebastian down with her rapier-like wit, in which case he’d have a very long wait.

‘Rude. Very rude,’ was what she did say. ‘I would have thought that today of all days, you might have taken some time off from being as thoroughly obnoxious as you usually are. Shame on you!’

‘Yeah, shame on me. And I would have thought that today of all days, you might have brushed your hair.’ Sebastian actually dared to lift up a piece of Posy’s hair, before she swatted him away.

Posy longed for hair that could be described as tresses or locks or even a silken fall. The reality was brown with reddish tones, which she liked to think was auburn in a certain light, but which attracted knots like bees to honey. If she brushed her hair, it transformed into a gigantic frizzy puffball and if she combed it, it was an exercise in pain and futility as she encountered tangle after tangle, so she tended to scoop it up and secure it with whatever was to hand. Usually pencils, but today Posy had made a special effort and used hairclips, even if they were all different colours. She’d hoped the overall effect was eclectic and Bohemian, but apparently it was neither of those things. ‘I don’t have the kind of hair you can brush,’ she said defensively.

‘That’s true,’ Sebastian agreed. ‘It’s more the kind of hair that birds love to nest in. Now, come on, get up!’

His tone, as ever, was so peremptory that Posy prepared to launch herself off the chair then stopped as she realised that she didn’t need to do anything of the sort. She was quite comfy where she was and besides, she’d already had two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach and her legs were doing a good impersonation of jelly.

‘I’ll stay where I am, if it’s all the same to you … What are you doing?’

Sebastian was manhandling her, that’s what he was doing. His hands were under her armpits and he was trying to heave Posy out of her chair, though as she was made of stronger, much denser stuff than the women he was usually seen with, she stayed exactly where she was, until his heaving and her struggling resulted in the inevitable: two of the buttons on the bodice of her dress gave up the good fight and suddenly, Posy was flashing her bra to anyone who cared to look in her direction.

As it was, most of the guests were staring at them because it wasn’t often you saw two people almost come to blows at a funeral.

‘Get off me!’ Posy growled as Verity shoved a napkin at her so Posy could protect her modesty. The two offending buttons had been flung to the far corners of the room with the force of their trajectory. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

She glanced up at Sebastian, who was looking at what he’d done, and not bothering to disguise his leer. ‘If you’d got up when I asked you to—’

‘You didn’t ask. You ordered. You didn’t even say please!’

‘Anyway that dress was too tight, I’m not surprised your buttons made a bid for freedom after the ordeal you’ve put them through.’

Posy shut her eyes. ‘Go away. I can not deal with you. Not today.’

Her words failed to register with Sebastian, who was tugging at her arm now. ‘Don’t be such a baby. The lawyer wants to see you. Come on. Chop, chop.’

The urge to put her hands on Sebastian so she could inflict grievous bodily harm upped and left, to be replaced with an unpleasant churning in her guts so that Posy was suddenly pleased that she hadn’t been able to eat anything.

‘Now? He wants to see me now?’

Sebastian threw back his head and groaned. ‘Yes! Jesus! Wars have been fought and won in less time than it takes to hoist you out of a chair.’

‘But you didn’t say. You just demanded and grappled.’

‘I’m saying now. Honestly, Morland, I’m losing the will to live here.’

Posy shut her eyes again so she wouldn’t have to see the anxious faces of the Bookends staff. ‘Why does he want to see me? We’re at Lavinia’s wake. Can’t it wait?’

‘Apparently not.’ It was Sebastian’s turn to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his elegant, aquiline nose. ‘If you don’t start moving, I will put you over my shoulder and God knows, I really could do without the hernia.’

That had Posy jumping to her feet. ‘I don’t weigh that much. Thank you!’ she added to Nina, who’d produced a safety pin from the depths of her bag and was waving it in Posy’s face.

Then, with Sebastian gripping her elbow, because he was incapable of keeping his hands to himself as Posy tried to reunite the two sides of her dress, she found herself hustled out of the room.

They walked – well, Sebastian strode and Posy scurried to keep up with him – down a long corridor hung with portraits of the late, esteemed lady members of the club.

Then, just as they reached a door marked ‘Private’, it suddenly swung open and a small figure swathed in black appeared, paused for a second then threw herself at Posy.

‘Oh, Posy! Isn’t this awful?’

It was Mariana, Sebastian’s mother, Lavinia’s only child. Despite Lavinia’s request, she was dressed in black from head to toe, her severe attire completed with a beautiful, full-length black lace mantilla, which was a touch of overkill, but then Mariana could never resist a dramatic gesture.

Posy closed her arms around the older woman, who clung to her as if she were the last lifebelt on the Titanic. ‘It is awful,’ Posy said with a sigh. ‘I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the church but I’m so, so sorry for your loss.’

Mariana had nothing sarcastic to say about Posy trotting out that well-used phrase. Instead, she clutched Posy’s hands tight as a tear trickled slowly down one baby-smooth cheek. She’d had some work done, but even some skilful and discreet fillers and a little Botox couldn’t dim Mariana’s fragile, delicate beauty.

She reminded Posy of a peony that had blossomed gloriously and was now one sunny day away from drooping gently and gracefully; its petals wilting ever so slightly under close scrutiny.

‘What am I going to do without Mummy?’ Mariana asked Posy mournfully. ‘We spoke every day and she always used to remind me when it was a rollover on EuroMillions so I could ask the butler to go out and buy a ticket.’

‘I’ll call you when it’s a rollover on EuroMillions,’ Posy said, even as Sebastian folded his arms and leaned back against the door with a put-upon sigh, as if he was about to be dragooned into EuroMillions servitude too.

People thought that Mariana was a silly woman because she cultivated an air of vague helplessness that had ensnared four husbands, each more rich and titled than the last, but she was also as kind as Lavinia had been. Sweeter too, because Lavinia had refused to suffer fools, whereas Mariana was so soft-hearted that she suffered along with anyone who was in pain.

When Posy’s parents had died, Lavinia and her husband Peregrine had been two rocks of utter steadfastness but it had been Mariana who had jetted in from Monaco and had swept Posy and her brother, Sam, off to Regent Street. She’d taken Posy – still stunned by the knowledge that suddenly she was an orphan at twenty-one, as well as legal guardian to a devastated eight-year-old – to Jaeger to buy a coat and dress for the funeral. As Posy had mechanically undressed and then dressed in whatever she was handed, Mariana had come into the changing room, cupped Posy’s face in her hands and said, ‘I know you think I’m a silly, vain woman, but the funeral will be hard, probably the hardest day you’ll ever have to get through, darling. A beautiful dress, a well-cut coat – they’re armour. And they’ll be two less things for you to worry about when I know you have the weight of the world on your poor, young shoulders.’

Once dress and coat had been purchased, Mariana had taken them to Hamleys Toy Shop and bought Sam a huge train set, which when assembled took over their entire living room and most of the hall.

Since then, every few months Mariana would send Posy beautiful designer clothes and Sam a huge box of toys. Although Mariana seemed to think that Posy could squeeze herself into an XS when she was an M at the least, and that Sam had remained eight for the last seven years, she had the best of intentions.

And on what had to be Mariana’s hardest ever day, Posy wanted to do what she could to ease her burden. She squeezed Mariana’s hands. ‘Honestly, if there’s anything I can do, anything you need, I’ll try to help. I’m not just saying it because it’s what people say in these sorts of situations, I really mean it.’

‘Oh, Posy, no one can help me,’ Mariana told her sorrowfully, and Posy tried to think of some other words of comfort, but she could feel her throat aching, eyes smarting, as if her own tears weren’t far off. So she said nothing but stared down at the safety pin that was anchoring her dress together, until Mariana slipped her hands out of Posy’s. ‘I need to be alone with my thoughts.’

Sebastian and Posy watched Mariana glide down the corridor, until she turned a corner and was gone. ‘I guarantee that she’ll be bored rigid after three minutes alone with her thoughts,’ he said to Posy. ‘Five, tops.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she won’t,’ Posy said, though she too doubted Mariana’s staying power. Someone who’d had that many husbands couldn’t be expected to do that well under her own steam. ‘This lawyer, then?’

‘In here,’ Sebastian said, opening the door and giving Posy a firm push, as if he suspected that she might bolt. She was certainly thinking about it. But Sebastian flexed his fingers against the small of her back and that was all she needed to propel herself forwards in an effort to get away from the burning brand of his touch through the cotton of her dress.

It was a small sitting room where the ubiquitous wood panelling had been ignored in favour of chintz. So much chintz; be-swagging and be-swathing everything from curtains and pelmets to the sofa and chairs. Posy stood uncertainly in the doorway as Sebastian sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. His socks were the same shade of red as his shirt and pocket square. Even the laces of his highly polished black brogues were red.

Posy wondered if Sebastian had different coloured laces to match each of his shirts, and whether he spent five minutes every morning threading them through his shoes or if he had a minion to do it for him …

‘Earth to Morland! Don’t tell me you need to be alone with your thoughts too.’

She blinked. ‘What? No! Your shoes.’

‘What?’ he echoed in an exasperated tone. ‘I do think you might say hello to Mr Powell. And to think that you always accuse me of being rude.’

Posy tore her gaze away from Sebastian to see that, sitting on the other side of the room, was a middle-aged man in a grey suit and half-moon spectacles. He waggled his fingers in a half-hearted greeting.

‘Jeremy Powell, the late Mrs Thorndyke’s solicitor,’ he said. He looked down at the sheaf of papers on his lap. ‘And you are Ms Morland?’

‘Posy. Hello.’ She took a deep breath and clutched her hands together. ‘Is this about the shop? We’ve all wondered … but I didn’t think we’d hear so soon. Are you selling it?’

They’d lost so much, she and Sam: their mother and father, Peregrine, then Lavinia and now Bookends, which was more than just a shop. It was their home. The place they always came back to. And now, they wouldn’t even have that.

‘Sit down, Morland, and stop hovering,’ barked Sebastian, indicating the sofa. ‘No one likes a hoverer.’

With a baleful glance at Sebastian, Posy skirted around the sofa and sat in the armchair opposite Mr Powell. Sebastian plucked a bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket placed next to him. He peeled off the foil, untwisted the cage then slowly eased the cork out with all the skill of a virtuoso, so it came free with a small but emphatic pop. Posy hadn’t noticed the delicate glass coupes on the table, but Sebastian picked one up, poured some champagne into it and handed it to Posy.

‘I shouldn’t drink any more.’ If bad news were imminent, then maybe brandy would be better. Or a cup of sweet tea.

‘Lavinia’s orders.’ Sebastian looked at her, and his scrutiny, combined with the knowledge that a savage remark was sure to follow, were too much for Posy. She looked away and although she had only been planning to take one sip, just to be polite, she ended up chugging the champagne down in one graceless gulp.

Then she had to concentrate very hard on not belching as Sebastian smiled smugly and gestured at the lawyer. ‘Mr Powell, will you do the honours now?’

Posy feared the worst, but she hoped the worst would be brief: ‘Please vacate the premises at your earliest convenience and don’t let the door hit you in the arse on your way out,’ Mr Powell would say, though he might be more polite than that. Instead he leaned forwards to hand Posy an envelope.

Smythson’s Cream Wove Quarto. Lavinia had a box of them in the back office of the shop. Posy’s name was written in Lavinia’s beautiful cursive script in the navy blue ink she’d always favoured.

All of a sudden, Posy’s hands didn’t want to work. She was shaking so hard that she could hardly open the envelope.

‘Let me do it, Morland!’

It turned out that Posy’s hands were in full working order when it came to slapping away Sebastian, then she was easing a finger along the flap and pulling out two sheets of the same cream paper, closely covered in Lavinia’s writing.

Dearest, dearest Posy,

I hope the funeral hasn’t been too grim and that they haven’t stinted on the champagne. I always found that the best way to get through both funerals and weddings was to be slightly tipsy.

I also hope that you aren’t too sad. I’ve had a good innings, as they say, and though even at this late stage in the proceedings I’m not sure that I believe in an afterlife, if there is one then I’m surrounded by the people I love that I’ve missed so dreadfully. Reunited with my parents, my beautiful brothers, all those fallen friends and, best of all, my darling Perry.

But where does that leave you and Sam, my lovely Posy? I’m sure that my death, my demise, my passing (no matter what word I choose, it still seems unthinkable, ludicrous, that I’ve shuffled off this old mortal coil) has stirred up memories of your parents. But then you’ll remember what Perry and I told you on that awful night after the policeman had left.

That you weren’t to worry. That Bookends was as much yours as it was ours and that you would always have a home there.

Posy, darling, that still stands. Bookends is yours. Lock, stock, and that copy of Men Are From Mars And Women Are From Venus that we haven’t been able to sell for the past fifteen years.

I know that the shop hasn’t been doing well. I’ve been so intractable and resistant to change since Perry died, but I have every faith that you’ll turn the shop’s fortunes around. Make it the success it used to be when your father and mother were running it. I’m sure you’ll think of all sorts of exciting schemes to transform the old place. With you at the helm, Bookends will start a new chapter in its life and I know that I couldn’t be leaving my beloved shop in better hands.

Because you, my dear, of all people know what a magical place a bookshop can be and that everyone needs a little magic in their lives.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that Bookends will stay in the family, because I’ve always regarded you and Sam as family. Besides, you’re the only person I truly trust to protect its legacy and keep it safe for future generations of booklovers. I’m counting on you, dear Posy, so don’t let me down! It’s so important to me – my dying wish, if you will – that Bookends will live on after me. However, if you feel that you don’t want to be burdened with it or, I hate to say this, if it’s not operating at a profit within two years, then ownership will revert to Sebastian. The last thing on earth I would want, darling Posy, is for you to be saddled with something that will grind you down into the ground, but I know it won’t come to that.

Now, don’t be afraid to ask Sebastian for help. I’m sure you’ll be seeing lots more of him anyway as he’ll inherit the rest of Rochester Mews, so you’ll be neighbours and, I hope, friends. Time to put all that bitterness about the Coal-hole behind you. Yes, Sebastian can be a little obstreperous, but he really does mean well. That said, don’t put up with any nonsense from him. I do think he’d benefit from a good clip around the ear from time to time,

So, goodbye, my darling girl. Be brave, be strong, be a success. Always remember to follow your heart and you won’t go astray.

Much love,

Lavinia xxx