‘Not yet,’ Katie replied cheerily. ‘These are your complimentary drink tickets. One each. And you’ll be at table eighteen. You are blue guests.’
‘Okay.’ Harri looked at the seating plan on its stand. Table eighteen was at the back of the room, furthest from the auction block, and it was coloured in blue like their drink ticket. The tables closest to the front were yellow. Harri guessed they were for the big buyers.
‘It’s too exciting!’ Annie didn’t seem to mind that they were very much the bottom of the bidding power pile. Katie handed Annie a card with a large number printed on both sides.
‘What’s this?’
‘That’s your registration card,’ said Katie.
‘Nope, still no clue.’ Annie flashed her white teeth.
‘You hold it up when you want to bid.’
‘Right, of course, sorry.’
‘Shall we?’ said Harri, crooking his arm. Annie accepted it with a gracious nod and they walked past the foot of a carved wooden staircase towards what a sign told them was the grand reception room, and where all the noise was coming from.
He’d resolved to try to match Annie’s energy the last couple of days when they’d been busy and peaceful in the bookshop and the volunteers had thankfully left them alone.
They had been re-treading the easy, well-worn grooves of their bookselling days in Aber. Thursday and Friday had been counted in cups of experimental latte recipes and iced hangover buns, modest daily totals (who knew the ninety quid takings of day one would be a record for their holiday?), and a continuous round of tidying and reshelving, shopping for cafe ingredients and cooking dinners eaten together. Harri had read in the evenings alone in his bed while Annie had held her book closed on her lap and watched the flames in the shop fireplace until she gave up kidding herself she wanted to read and took herself to bed to watch British soaps and quiz shows until she fell asleep.
Things had been easy once again, and today was set to be even easier. It’s not every day you get free rein to rummage through the contents of an ancient country pile.
‘Top three books about creepy-ass castles?’ Annie joked as they turned into the reception room, all dark wood panelling, ceilings as high as the room was wide, with antler chandeliers hanging above them.
‘Easy peasy,’ he began. Harri reeled off his favourites.Dracula, obviously.The Castle of Otrantowould come a close second place, and he couldn’t not haveHowl’s Moving Castlein there. He’d read that in high school, and it had stayed with him ever since.
Annie had been about to add her own favourites when a voice called out to them over the hubbub.
‘It’s the young’uns!’
The animated face of the elder Mrs Crocombe with her headscarf knotted under her chin loomed out of the crowd and following behind came Mr Bovis dressed as though for a day’s gamekeeping in tweed knickerbockers and long woollen socks. His Harris coat carried the smell of mothballs with it.
‘So, my dinner date didn’t go quite as planned?’ said Mrs Crocombe, blocking their entry further into the room.
You meanourdinner date, Harri wanted to say, but he only pulled his lips into a straight smile.
‘Turned out all right in the end, though, didn’t it?’ Bovis put in. ‘We saw young Kit and Anjali in here earlier. They were leaving when we arrived, looking every bit like love’s young dream.’
Mrs Crocombe was smiling thinly. ‘Not one of us had money on the pair of ’em, but we shan’t hold it against them. Love’s a funny thing, does what it wants.’
Annie wasn’t smiling quite so delightedly as Harri would have expected and she’d dropped Harri’s arm upon sight of the troublemakers. Maybe the novelty of the Clove Lore busybodies was wearing thin, or worse, maybe she still remembered the hurt he’d caused the night of their date with his jealous behaviour? He’d noticed Annie had been prone to quiet moments these last few days and he’d accounted for it by guessing she was still hurting for Cassidy, though he harboured a sneaking feeling there was still something he was doing wrong that was making Annie occasionally quiet and sad, even if she’d tried to hide it.
He watched her now.
‘Aren’t you going to stay for the bidding?’ Annie was asking.
‘Oh no, we’re only here for a nosy,’ said Mrs Crocombe.
‘Can’t be spending money willy-nilly,’ Bovis threw in, rocking on his feet. ‘Not when we’ve been saving up…’
Mrs Crocombe shot him a glare that was hard to miss.
‘Oh! Uh…’ Bovis collected himself. ‘Not when my old Land Rover’s needin’ new…’ he hesitated, ‘…brakes?’
‘Ah!’ Harri made the sort of interested sound he thought was expected of him, but really his attention was drawn to the extraordinary sights around the room.
A suddenly very flustered Mrs Crocombe was hastening Bovis away saying, ‘You young’uns be sure to enjoy yourselves.’
