“I’ll tell him it’s urgent. I promise.”
“And how am I to pass the morning while you are gone? I cannot be expected to sit idly by all day. Am I to read?” He pulled a book off the nearest shelf, and my heart almost stopped when I saw it wasSense and Sensibility. I snatched it out of his hands.
“I’m not sure that’s really your cup of tea. How about I introduce you to the concept of TV?” I grabbed the remote control, and the screen burst into life.
“Lord have mercy on me!” Darcy cried, leaping back onto the sofa in terror.
“This is television. It was invented about a hundred years ago and has become very popular.”
“But where… How…?”
“Think of it like the theater, only transmitted into people’s homes,” I said. “And look, there are lots of different channels you can watch, with everything from current affairs to sports.”
I flicked throughStorage Wars,The Real Housewives of Miami, and an old episode ofFriendsto demonstrate. Darcy was staring at the TV with his mouth hanging open.
“I think you might enjoy documentaries,” I said, bringing up BBC iPlayer and searching forPlanet Earth. “This program tells you all about the natural world.”
“And the people cannot…escape…from the box?”
I smiled. “No, you’re perfectly safe. Now, I need you to promise me you won’t touch anything in the flat while I’m out. The last thing I need is you blowing the place up.”
Darcy didn’t answer, his eyes transfixed on the screen like a toddler shownPeppa Pigfor the first time.
“I’ll only be a couple of hours,” I added, and he let out a faint grunt but didn’t turn to look. “OK, bye then!”
I grabbed my bag and left the flat, locking the front door behind me so he couldn’t escape and get himself in trouble, or steal all my belongings and disappear. Then I crept down the stairs and out the front door before Mrs. Atallah could stop me for a blow-by-blow account of my night.
I spent the Tube ride to Baskerville Books trying to come up with a cover story for why I was returning that wouldn’t arouse the bookseller’s suspicion but that would allow me to try to find out how and why Mr. Darcy had suddenly magicked himself out ofPride and Prejudice. But by the time I arrived at the shop, my mind was still blank; I was going to have to wing it.
As I walked in, I was struck once again by how cozy and inviting the shop was once you got past the bleak front window. If only the owner wasn’t such a romance-hating knob, I could happily have spent hours browsing here. The knob himself was standing behind the counter, his head bent down as he flicked through a book. He was wearing jeans and a faded Fleetwood Mac T-shirt, and his hair was even more disheveled than last time, as if he were standing in front of a wind machine in a1980s pop video. It should have looked ridiculous, and yet, much to my annoyance, there was something undeniably attractive about this man. Hateful, but hot.
He looked up and spotted me, and I saw his cheeks flush slightly pink, no doubt with rage. I waited for him to shout and demand I return his precious magical book, but when he spoke, there was no anger in his voice, only curiosity.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you in here again.”
“I fancied a bit more shoplifting,” I said, reaching toward the nearest table and grabbing the first book to hand, a huge hardback that, unfortunately, turned out to be Boris Johnson’s autobiography.
“If you want to steal that, you’re going to need a bigger bag,” the bookseller said, and when I glanced over at him, I saw a sparkle of mischief in his eyes.
“I would never stealanythingwritten by this man,” I said. “Not unless I’d run out of toilet roll.”
The bookseller laughed, a deep, surprisingly joyful sound, and I felt my own cheeks color. And then I remembered this was the person who’d called romance novels “toxic.” I put the book down and turned back to the counter. It was time to get down to business.
“Actually, I’m not in a shoplifting mood today. In fact, I’ve come to pay for that copy ofPride and Prejudice.”
He stopped laughing, his face clouding over. “I told you, it’s not for sale.”
“But it’s just a tatty old secondhand book, why wouldn’t you want to sell it?”
The man didn’t answer straight away, and I held my breath, waiting for him to come out and say it:Because there’s a chance Mr. Darcy might escape from its pages while you’re reading on the bus.
“The book’s not for sale because it’s my mum’s. It should never have been on the shelf in the first place.”
Ah, so perhaps she might be able to explain what was going on. “Is your mum here?”
I saw his jaw tense, and he looked away. “No. She’s no longer with us.”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry.” I knew all too well the world of pain behind those words, and I was about to change the subject when he cleared his throat.
