His presence had been enough to bring nosy locals descending upon the bookshop to learn more about him, while Harri and Annie tried their hardest to keep the place running as normal.
Without the need to discuss it, William had remained tight-lipped about Harri and Annie being discovered in a compromising predicament in the library of Castle Lore long after the auction ended. Annie had taken his placid smile, aimed at her across the bookshop hubbub, as confirmation that their secret was safe with him.
After that she’d kept out of everyone’s way. There was the silent book club coming up that evening and a lot to prepare, or at least she made it look that way, fussing in the kitchen, rustling up her mother’s recipe for devilled eggs and cleaning the already very clean glasses, and she’d insisted on the shop opening as usual, even when there was a crowd of nosy parkers surrounding William in his armchair by the fire, no one more incredulous than Minty that he could have been living in their midst these fifty years and no one had laid eyes on him. William didn’t mind the news circulating about his former residence; as far as he was concerned it had never been a secret.
There’d been a few comments noting Mrs Crocombe’s absence. Why wasn’t she here to interrogate poor Mr Sabine when that sort of thing was right up her street?
‘She’s got the Ice Cream Cottage to run, and her Valentine’s flavours to perfect,’ Jowan concluded. ‘Never missed a day’s trading these thirty years,’ he added.
It was left to Izaak and Leonid to unravel the mysteries of the life of Mr William Sabine. They winkled it out of him that he was a French national and that he’d arrived with no passport and no papers with the rest of the backpackers and youth hostellers of the Seventies.
He’d received no formal education after the age of sixteen but was considered something of a genius by his teachers, though a worry to his mother, displaying an aptitude for ancient languages that really warranted a university career and could easily get him into the Sorbonne, but he’d struggled with the demands of directed study and preferred to suit himself.
Whilst visiting the libraries of the British Isles, he’d come across Courtenay’s appeal for a companion in private intellectual pursuits and with that he’d sunk into the pleasant daily rituals that kept him holed up at the castle, living in ease and contentment.
Jude Crawley, for she was here too, had wondered aloud about how they could have afforded to live, and William hadn’t liked the intrusion, pointing out that Nicholas Courtenay was a gentleman of some small means and although he had never paid William for his services, he’d taken care of all his worldly needs.
Elliot, Jude’s husband, had stopped the clamour of questions this provoked by pointing out that it was ‘no one’s business but William’s’ and they’d all pretended to be chastened until he left for work at the veterinary clinic, and they’d started up again.
Meanwhile, Harri was distracted.
‘Are we going to talk about it?’ he tried, catching Annie as she flitted between customers and her event preparations.
‘Can you make a batch of cookies?’ Annie replied, feeling the heat along her hairline, even in the February chill. ‘I know we told everyone to bring potluck baking, but it’s better to have too much than not enough.’
‘Annie…’
He’d tried to detain her but every fibre in her being was telling her to shut it down.
‘I don’t think we need to go over it,’ she hissed, checking for prying eyes and ears. ‘There was wine and firelight and a crazy Gothic library like a movie set, and we got carried away.’
‘Right, but if we hadn’t been interrupted…’ Harri had his hand clamped to the back of his neck and the tips of his ears were pink again. Only, he looked exasperated rather than embarrassed.
‘Thank god we were stopped!’ Annie cut him off. ‘We could have really done something stupid and spoiled things for good.’
This seemed to draw Harri up. She felt his eyes on her as she scurried away, folding paper napkins and piling them pointlessly on a tray. Annie wasn’t sticking around to dig deeper into her mortification.
As she bustled around, her phone rang in her pocket. Drawing it out, she saw the words that made her momentarily forget everything:Cassidy calling.
‘Cass? Are you okay?’ She’d grabbed her coat and headed right out the shop door into the noon drizzle.
‘I’m good, I’m good. You?’ Her friend’s voice vibrated with emotion like she’d been crying.
‘What time is it in Amarillo?’ Annie held her phone from her face to check. ‘Seven? You’re up early.’
‘I got your Galentine’s letter.’
‘You did?’ Austen must have mailed it expedited. These locals really took their roles as Borrower Support Team very seriously.
‘Remember last Galentine’s?’ Cassidy said, sniffing through tears.
Annie didn’t miss a beat. ‘Those watermelon cocktails? I could take a couple of those now.’
‘Right?’
Annie listened to the fresh silence down the line, not wanting to spook her friend when she was reaching out.
‘I kicked him out,’ Cassidy blurted.
