Page 9 of Bookshop Cinderella

If he had intended his words to be a rebuke, the indulgent tone of his voice as he spoke quite spoiled the effect and did little to improve Evie’s opinion of him; and when one of his companions bumped into a display table, tumbling several more of her books to the floor, she began to wish she really did possess a willow switch so she could shepherd the lot of them into the street before every book was upended.

“Now then, gentlemen,” Westbourne went on, “since we’ve already caused Miss Harlow enough aggravation for one day, why don’t you put all the books back where they belong and go on to the Savoy? I’ll join you when I’ve finished here.”

His friends seemed amenable to his suggestion, much to Evie’s relief. With the unsurprising assurance that Westbourne would find them in the Savoy’s American Bar, and after tossing the books, including Brontë, haphazardly back onto the display table, they started for the door.

“I fear the claret cups at Lady Hargrave’s afternoon-at-home were stronger than they realized,” Westbourne remarked as his friends departed. “Please allow me to apologize on their behalf. I hope you can forgive them?”

That smooth question seemed to take her forgiveness as a foregone conclusion. Sadly, it was a correct one. “Of course,” she said, repressing a sigh as her usual common sense reasserted itself. “How can I help you, Your Grace?”

“I am here on behalf of my cousin, Lady Stratham. I understand you have some information for her, and she has asked me to fetch it.”

She blinked, taken aback, for she would never have imagined the delightfully charming Delia to be a relation of this man. “Lady Stratham is your cousin?”

“Yes. She’s been called away to Rome, and in her absence, she has asked me to fetch the information you were to provide her for an upcoming dinner party. For the Epicurean Club?” he prompted when she didn’t reply.

She’d forgotten all about it, she realized in dismay. Rory’s return had filled her mind so completely that she’d given no thought to anything else, but now, the details of what she and Delia had planned came roaring back, spinning through her head like the flotsam of a tornado. Strange and exciting dishes of the Far East. Table decorations of pagodas and dragons. Big vases of lovely pink cherry blossoms.

“Ah, yes,” she murmured, feeling oddly wistful as she imagined it. “The party.”

Another big, elaborate affair for the smart set, where women wore beautiful gowns and men wore white tie, where glasses of champagne sparkled beneath the glittering light of crystal chandeliers. It was the sort of event she had often helped Delia plan, but not the sort she’d ever be able to attend.

Not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to wear a silk evening dress and flowers in her hair, to drink fine wine and eat luxurious food, to talk of the Riviera and Rome and the events of the season beneath the crystal lights.

But such was not for the likes of her. Her days at Chaltonbury had made that fact brutally clear. No, her life was here—had always been here, in these three stories of crumbling brick and plaster fifteen feet wide.

With that thought, she felt a sudden, unexpected stirring of discontent and longing. Not longing for life among the nobs, of course, but something that wasn’t only these rooms and the day’s work, something beyond her little flat upstairs with its gas ring and tiny windows that looked straight into the brick walls next door, something even her beloved books could not provide. Something...more.

The Duke of Westbourne was looking at her, waiting, and Evie shoved aside such nonsense, reminding herself that there was no “something more.” There was only this, and that was quite all right with her. “Yes...um...yes...” she stammered, working to recover her poise. “I believe Lady Stratham did ask me to procure some information for her.”

“And?” he prompted when she fell silent. “May I have it?”

“No.” Such an abrupt reply caused him to raise his black brows in surprise, but Evie wasn’t about to confess her inexcusable lapse of memory. “It’s not ready, I’m afraid. It’s taking longer than...ahem...longer than I’d thought it would to find the information. I’m sorry.”

“I understand.” He glanced at the crumbs on the tea tray. “You’ve been busy, no doubt.”

That flicked her on the raw, partly because it was the truth. Rory’s entrance back into her life two weeks ago had turned her upside down, inclining her to bouts of daydreaming rather than work, to silly longings for parties, entertainments, and romance, to discontent with the life she had.

Mortified by her own irresponsibility, angry with him, and thoroughly annoyed with herself, Evie had to take a deep breath before she could reply. “I should have Lady Stratham’s information ready in another day or two,” she said, her voice coolly polite even as heat rushed into her cheeks.

“I shall return on Thursday, then.” He tipped his hat and turned away. “Good day, Miss Harlow.”

Deprived by her own good sense of any chance to tell this man what she thought of his irritating remarks, his appalling views on romance, his presumptions about her friends, and the bad taste he had in choosing his own, Evie expressed her frustration in the only way open to her. She stuck her tongue out at his back as he walked away.

“I say, Miss Harlow?” He stopped abruptly by the door, forcing Evie to school her features into a more benign countenance as he turned around. “Been having problems with street thieves, have you?”

Evie’s suppressed irritation faltered a bit at such an unexpected question. “I beg your pardon?”

He grinned, a flash of brilliant white teeth in his dark, lean face, as he lifted his hands to point at the two mirrors she’d positioned in the upper front corners of the shop. They were there to catch fingersmiths in the act, but Evie appreciated that she was the one who’d just been caught, and the blush in her cheeks deepened to what was surely a vivid shade of scarlet.

Still grinning, he reached for the door handle. “Until Thursday, Miss Harlow.”

With that, he opened the door, gave a nod of farewell, and departed, leaving Evie staring after him in hot chagrin.

3

The American Bar was one of the Savoy’s most popular features, and its creative head barkeep, Frank Wells, was one of the main reasons why. His intoxicating concoctions, made possible by the addition of ice, bitters, and various liqueurs to such mundane libations as whisky, gin, and rum, had brought the American cocktail to the posh and privileged palates of British high society.

After one hour and four rounds of something Frank called a “Manhattan,” however, Max’s head felt a bit foggy, his enthusiasm for American cocktails was waning, and he wondered how many more Manhattans it would take before he had fulfilled his promise to Helen.

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