They moved to the table and Mia set down her things.
‘So tell me about this bottle. How does it link to Hope?’
‘Honestly, I don’t know. What I do know is that it seems unlikely my aunt was involved with an illicit substance in France, and then came to run a home for unmarried women and babies in London.’
‘And he’s sure it would have contained absinthe?’
Mia nodded. ‘He recognised it immediately, although I’m not sure how it’s going to help me.’
Georgia placed her hand over Mia’s. ‘Well, it’s lucky we’re here then, isn’t it, to help you figure it all out? Because after everything you’ve done for us, there’s absolutely nothing we wouldn’t do to help you.’
Mia sighed and linked her fingers with Georgia’s. If anything, locating the seven women whose grandmothers had been connected to Hope’s House had given her a group of extraordinary friends to call on, and the fact that Georgia was sitting across from her was testament to just how close they’d become. She often thought about finding those boxes, and the chain of events that led to her sitting in a lawyer’s office, trying to explain why they’d summoned seven strangers to join them, and just how much it had changed all of their lives.
‘Heads up,’ Georgia whispered as she leaned in. ‘Your gorgeous bartender is heading this way.’
3
Mia hoped her cheeks weren’t too red as she tried to look unsurprised by the attention. The bartender was, indeed, heading their way, and he was carrying a tray of drinks, with Charlotte trailing behind.
‘He insisted on carrying them for me,’ Charlotte said with a shrug.
But his smile told Charlotte that perhaps the drinks weren’t the only reason he was coming over. And the nudge she received from Georgia on her left told her that she likely wasn’t imagining it. She just wasn’t sure how to make it clear to everyone involved that she wasn’t interested in anything more than a little flirting.
‘Ladies,’ he said, winking at Mia as he set the drinks down.
‘I’m not sure I need a second yet, but?—’
‘Apparently yours are on the house,’ Charlotte interrupted, one eyebrow arched, making Georgia laugh.
‘Just this one more,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s not every day I have a mysterious customer in possession of an even more mysterious bottle.’
Mia thanked him for the drink, surprised when he dropped to one knee beside her so that they were at eye level. Her heartbegan to race, and she started to think of all the ways she could gently let him down.
‘Do you have a pen and something to write on?’
She nodded and took one out of her bag, along with Hope’s diary. She opened it to the back, his eyes meeting hers as she passed it to him, regretting almost instantly that she was allowing him to scribble something in the back of Hope’s personal notebook. She’d been so protective of it, and now she was just letting a stranger write in it.
‘If you have any questions about the green fairy, or where that bottle of yours has come from, this is who you need to talk to.’
He took out his phone and copied a name and the name of a restaurant onto the page, before closing the notebook and sliding it back to her, the pen on top. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t given her his number; but she was going to go with relieved. It was a long time since she’d been with a man romantically, and as nice as it might be to flirt, she was very happy to leave it there. She was also immediately feeling less guilty about letting him write in the book, especially if this turned out to be a useful clue.
‘Joe’s family distils gin and you’ll find him at this place in Paris. If anyone can help you solve your mystery, it will be him,’ the bartender said, standing and giving her a quick grin before returning to the bar.
‘Well, that was unexpected,’ Georgia said, fanning at her face. ‘He seems very invested in your journey.’
Mia took a sip of her drink, relieved that her cheeks were finally cooling down. ‘I’m not going to lie, it’s been a long while since I…’ Her voice drifted away, not sure what she was trying to say or how much she even wanted them to know. She hadn’t talked to any of the seven women about her past, and as far as she knew, they didn’t really know anything moreabout her personal life. She cleared her throat. ‘Since I was in a relationship.’
‘I get it. You don’t have to explain,’ Charlotte said. ‘Before I met Harrison, it had been a long time between dates. I’d convinced myself that I just wasn’t destined to have a partner.’
‘I second that. Meeting someone was completely unexpected for me, too. I think that’s probably why it worked, because it wasn’t something I was even looking for,’ Georgia said, holding up her drink so they could clink glasses. ‘Now, explain to us what your handsome bartender was talking about. How is this green fairy linked to Hope?’
Mia pushed the diary to the middle of the table, open at one of the pages with the drawings, and then placed the bottle beside it. ‘The more I try to find out about Hope and her past, the more curious I get. But in a nutshell, I’ve been wanting to understand the link to this drawing and this bottle,’ she said. ‘It seems to be the clue to the past that needs to be solved, but it feels like a needle-in-a-haystack situation. I just keep thinking that it must have been so important to her, for her to hide it with all the boxes.’
‘So you want to find out about Hope’s pastbeforeshe opened her house?’ Georgia asked. ‘And please tell me if I’m overstepping, but isn’t there someone in your family who could point you in the right direction? Is there no one you could ask?’
Mia shook her head. ‘Unfortunately not. Hope became estranged from her family when she was very young. My great-grandmother Claudette, her sister, found an unopened letter Hope had sent to her family from London after their parents had passed away, otherwise they might never have found each other. Claudette eventually moved to England and she and Hope slowly reconnected after decades apart,’ Mia said. ‘The only family member who might have truly known her story was their uncle. He left his entire estate to Hope when he died, including thehouse, as he passed away unmarried and with no children. But the plot twist there is that he was estranged from his family as well.’
Georgia frowned and Charlotte reached out to her. ‘Well, I guess it’s even more reason for you to figure this mystery out. And maybe you’ll find out more about Hope’s uncle, too. Maybe there’s a story there—a mystery about him as well.’
