“Sure, why not—I’ll have tea.”
Aurelia tossed her coat on the desk and went to the back room to turn on the kettle.When she came out, he was standing at the Recommended Reads table, looking over her selections.
“What’s this, then?Books of the month or something?”
“More of a ‘staff picks’ table.”
“Does anyone else work here?”
“No.So just my picks, then,” Aurelia laughed.
“Anna Karenina—not surprising.”He looked up at her with that teasing smile of his.“But why the rest?Seems a bit of a jumble.”
“Not really… There are a few themes that could tie them together.Disappointed in love, but happy in love by book’s end?”
She went into the back room at the sound of the kettle switching off.
He followed, stopping at her desk and calling after her, “And Vronsky?”
“Well, no—obviously he wasn’t happy in love by book’s end,” she answered as she made their tea.“Levin was, though—eventually.”
After a minute, she brought out two mugs and offered him one.Oliver took a sip and cast his eyes around the shop.
“Shall we go upstairs?”he asked.“I’d like to see the rest of the place.”
He walked to the spiral staircase without waiting for an answer and Aurelia followed.Once at the top, he walked straight toward the window seat and sat down, then looked expectantly at her.
Aurelia hesitated, then walked to the window seat and sat at what seemed like a respectful distance.But then she realized that the space she’d left was much too large.She stood up to move closer to him, then felt that might send the wrong message, and sat back down again.But, of course, the problem remained—they were still miles apart.After another awkward moment, she kicked off her shoes, pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged on the seat, turning toward him.No way to explain away or rescue the moment; she’d looked like an idiot.When she looked up, shaking her head at herself, he had both eyebrows fully up, and a smile threatening to turn into an all-out laugh at her expense.
“Just never mind,” she scolded, though a smile crept at the corners of her mouth.
Oliver let his laughter escape, and she couldn’t help laughing too.
“You’re comfortable, then?”he asked.
“I am.And you?”
“Very comfortable.”
He took a sip of his tea and gave her a moment to collect herself.Once she’d taken a sip from her own mug, he ventured a question.
“You mentioned before that the shop’s been in your family?”
“Mm-hmm.My great-great aunt, Cristobel, opened the shop in 1919.Then her niece, Lucy, took it over when Cristobel died in 1945.”
“Tough time to run a bookshop,” Oliver said, shaking his head.
“I know.Lucy was a star keeping it going.She ran the shop until she retired, and then my aunt, Marigold, took it over.Marigold was young, in her twenties, and really into the London music scene.I have some of her old concert posters on the walls upstairs.”Aurelia pointed at the door to her flat.
“Upstairs?Is that part of the shop too?”
“No, I live upstairs—there’s a flat.Marigold lived there until she died.That’s when I took over.”
Oliver looked toward the door and Aurelia had a panicked moment of feeling as though she ought to offer to show him upstairs.But she resisted the urge to be polite, knowing that if he took her up on the offer it would only double her discomfort.
Oliver turned his gaze back to her.
“Were you and your aunt close?”
