On the other hand, she thought he was just a chap, looking for Dickens – a rich boy playing around who was just hanging out with her because she was fun and he didn’t have too much to do. She thought he was, what, a diversion?
Whereas of course he knew. When they found the book ... he didn’t want to look that far ahead. Of course he wouldn’t. Nothing would happen and this ridiculous wild goose chase wouldn’t go anywhere. But he knew what he’d have to do. He’d have to overbid for it. Or somehow get his hands on it. Otherwise, he knew what would happen. Him losing his home was one thing. His family suffering because of him was quite another. His father had been so pathetically grateful when Philip had extended his offer. This was his last chance to get something right. And if she did find the book, iftheydid, particularly if he helped, well ... this would be newsworthy. It would be something.
Also, having met Mirren, he couldn’t bet against her succeeding. He remembered her again, soaking wet, with a determined set to her face that said she would go on looking, regardless.
And now he’d got to know her, he couldn’t help himself: he liked her. He just liked her. No way around it. He was still going to make sure he got the book, he had to. It was just business. She’d understand when they got there. Plus, he’didentified the photograph. He basically was on the way to finding it anyway. Really.
He thought of his uncle again – ‘Honeytrap, eh?’ – and shuddered. He didn’t want to be like his uncle or his father, a silver worker, only just keeping the wolf from the door. He had broken his father’s heart when he’d studied English instead of something ‘useful and lucrative’, like medicine or law. He knew what Mirren meant about feeling like a disappointment to her family; he felt the same way about himself. He would have loved a bookshop, working in one; he had enjoyed the places they’d been. He just didn’t want to be as sharp and mean as his uncle. Or so desperately in need of money.
And if he went back now ... he’d be out on his ear, he supposed, while his uncle found someone better suited to the nastier side of the business. He’d have to take a job with his father, and even then he’d still have to live at home, he wouldn’t have any choice. While being berated by basically the same voice. This had felt like a little respite from a life he felt he was not handling terribly well so far. The pretty girl, the lovely restaurants. Some fun, in a life without much of it.
He glanced at the snowy window again. It felt like the entire hotel, this oasis of warmth and light and good cheer, could disappear like a mirage, leaving him huddling like the Little Match Girl on a street corner.
But there was one decent thing he could do, in his deceit.
Chapter 18
Mirren felt instantly crestfallen as she saw Theo’s dark eyes slide off hers and stare out of the snowy window. Perhaps she’d misjudged things? She thought back to asking him what sold well through his uncle, and he’d explained that the most lucrative was often quite startling seventeenth-century pornography, but his uncle didn’t like discussing this, and she’d laughed aloud and said,For example, what?And Theo had said, trust him, she didn’t want to know, but it was basically the internet porn of its day, except with rather more saddlery, and she’d laughed again and ... well. It had seemed, Mirren thought, quite provocative at the time.
Was he gay? Or maybe just didn’t fancy her? Which she knew was obviously completely okay and everything ... well, obviously, she’d much rather he was gay, in the scheme of things, but that hadn’t been the vibe she’d got at all. But then ...
As if he’d made his mind up about something, Theo switched his attention back to her, and she was struck, again, by how dark and penetrating his eyes were. Hard to read.
He made a slight bow.
‘Milady,’ he said. ‘Whilst all my earthly instincts would compel me to approach you, my chivalry never could. I shouldbe delighted to take the trundle, and trust we shall both sleep soundly.’
There was a moment of silence during which Theo wondered if he’d been able to pull it off. If there was one thing, he had thought, he could do in his lamentable moral code right now, perhaps it was this; at least he wouldn’t sleep with her under false pretences.
Mirren stiffened, as if he’d insulted her, which he knew, of course, he had. He would have liked very much to tell her what he felt about her, but that would just make things worse, not better.
‘Of course,’ she said.
And after that, they took turns to go into the bathroom and undress, more or less in silence.
Mirren lay in the four-poster, determined to be a bit annoyed, but her very, very long day, the dousing, the whisky, as well as the extraordinarily cosy duvet, firm mattress and crisp white sheets, the thick brocade curtains keeping out all light and noise from the snow-softened streets, meant that she found herself completely incapable, and drifted off to sleep incredibly quickly.
Theo, on the trundle, his long legs sticking out the bottom, took a little longer, wondering on their plan of attack for the next day, how on earth they could find something so rare and special in such a big book country as Scotland, and also thinking of the absolute unlikelihood that anyone in the entire place would have somehow overlooked an undiscovered book by Edinburgh’s own famous son, Robert Louis Stevenson.
His thoughts also strayed to Mirren, her breathing slow and quiet, but he damped down those thoughts immediately and tried to focus on the task in hand.
Chapter 19
The next morning, the fresh snowfall had rendered the little coastal town beautiful; trapped in time. Shiny aluminium cars were covered in white – including, alas, the tiny Fiat, with nobody from a car-fixing company considering being able to come out in the near future to anyone not in immediate danger, given so many people had come a cropper on A roads.
There was, however, a stop there for the train that would take them across the border, which Theo suggested during a delicious but somewhat muted breakfast where, feeling her head rather twingey from the night before, Mirren was glad she hadn’t jumped into bed with this thoughtful bookish man she barely knew at all. It had seemed a great idea the previous evening; now, she was grateful for his restraint, and pleased he thought they should go on together. Theo, for his part, buried himself in the paper and occasionally passed the marmalade.
‘Okay,’ he said, as they got up to leave. Then smiled at her. ‘You okay?’
She nodded. ‘Sorry about last night.’
‘Not at all,’ said Theo. ‘I was really flattered.’
Mirren nodded, still feeling very stupid.
‘Have you got, uh, someone?’
And Theo said ‘no’ at exactly the same time as Mirren said, ‘No, don’t tell me, I’ll just feel worse’.
