Page 18 of Love Walked In

“Are you?” Tommy said, the words bone-dry.

He looked at me and smiled kindly. “You made a good speech, Mari, but I’m still not certain you haven’t wasted your time.

Why should I travel all the way up to London to speak at this festival of yours, when I have no investment in the shop continuing to exist?

My books sell perfectly well in other places.

I certainly won’t miss Ross and Co. if it closes.

” He picked up his mug, like he’d just played his ace and the hand was over.

Time for my trump card. “Judith would,” I said quietly.

His teacup froze in front of his mouth, then he took a long sip.

A log popped and sparked in the stove. A crow cawed outside. Leo’s eyes burned into the side of my face. I hadn’t told him this part of the plan.

“You’re old friends, right?” I asked carefully, not wanting to break the spell. “She said you were.”

A blush swept over Tommy’s cheeks. “Yes, we were friendly once upon a time.”

I sat forward, waiting for him to make eye contact with me again. “Before you started writing as Cliff Thomas, you wrote a literary novel under your own name. Unwisdom ?” I kept my voice low and warm, like I would tell him a secret if he told me one.

He waved a hand at me in dismissal as he put his mug down. “Oh, that pile of rubbish. I’d been reading far too much Updike and Cheever. Juvenilia. It’s a blessing that it’s been out of print for three decades.”

But his red cheeks were telling me something else. “I found a copy and read it. I thought it was beautiful,” I coaxed.

He mumbled, “I’m not certain what that says about your taste, but thanks very much all the same.”

Leo’s eyes on me were wide as I sneaked up to the line between literary discussion and prying. “You wrote about a young sculptor in love with the woman married to his much older patron.”

Tommy turned his cup a precise inch to the right. “It’s called fiction for a reason,” he told it. “Couldn’t sculpt my way out of a paper bag.”

I opened the side pocket of my purse, took out and placed the picture of Judith and Elizabeth Jane Howard in front of him. I tapped young Tommy’s narrow face in the background, his eyes totally focused on Judith. Like he was soaking her in. “That’s you,” I said quietly. “Looking at her.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow, then he sighed. “Such a terrible cliché, to fall madly in love with your benefactor’s wife.”

I could sense the held breath next to me, the words Leo was keeping back. His knee started to jiggle, and I put my hand lightly on top of it. He stilled instantly. “They call them tropes, these days,” I said to Tommy.

“I mean, all of Alexander’s young men fancied her, you see how ravishing she was.

” Tommy scratched his unshaven cheek. “But we could talk endlessly, she and I, about anything. She teased me into reading Georgette Heyer, you know. When we met, I was a snobbish bore, only wanted to read Great Literature.”

“So what made you pull back from her? From them?” Leo asked.

“I couldn’t tell her how I felt, though I suspected she knew and was trying to be gentle with me. But I watched her and your grandfather together and finally understood it was hopeless.” Tommy shook his head. “They loved each other, even though he treated her like a dolly bird.”

My brain caught on the new phrase. “Is that like arm candy?”

He nodded. “I finally had to leave London, I was going to go round the bend otherwise. I picked a fight with Alexander, said writing literary fiction was bollocks. I would write books that millions of people would read and make piles of money and that would be life for me.” He smiled a little.

“And I have enjoyed myself, don’t get me wrong. ”

“But life has gone on,” Leo said. “You’re not the same person, and neither is she. She’d really appreciate your friendship.”

“Then why isn’t she here asking?” Tommy asked, hurt in his voice.

Leo knit his fingers together, let his worry show on his face. “She’s in a lot of pain, these days, from her arthritis. Going into town is a major achievement for her, even with the best medicine. Some days she can’t even make it down the road from her flat.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tommy said, looking a little mournful. “I remember her as a whirlwind, always in bright dresses, half running from place to place.” He glanced over at me. “How do you fit into all of this, then?”

I surfaced out of the sad fifty-year-old story and shrugged. “I’m just here until mid-April to help out. Then I go back to real life.”

Tommy gazed at me, and I suddenly felt like he could see my bones and the lonely spaces in between. “Real life? That’s a pity. I think you might be good for them. The Rosses.” He turned to Leo. “I have one more question for you, boy. What do you think of Alexander, truly?”

Leo shifted in his seat, his mouth turning down, and uncertainty had me gripping the couch. Would Leo talk about the grandfather he loved and missed, or would he step back and look at the bigger picture of Alexander Ross?

“Alexander was important to me,” he finally said, his voice a little wistful. “But he wasn’t an easy man, or a perfect one.” Leo sighed. “For a very long time I thought he was always right about everything. But… I think he was much more complicated than he let on.”

I could see what it took out of him to be honest about the person he loved, and something in me wanted to honor that bravery. I put my hand on his shoulder and he smiled at me gratefully.

Tommy nodded once. “All right. Send me more information about this festival of yours and I’ll see if I can clear space in my diary. It’s usually very full, you know.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. I’d bet money his calendar only had doctor’s appointments in it, but if this was how he was going to play, I’d go along. “We appreciate you taking the time.”

“A pleasure to meet you both,” he said. Gravel crunched outside the house. “That must be your cab.”

Tommy waved us off, and when we were in the back seat of a station wagon returning to Frome, Leo turned to me. “It worked,” he said, sounding both elated and exhausted. “I can’t believe that worked.”

I shrugged. “I can.” Leo raised his eyebrows in question, and I continued, “If he definitely wasn’t going to say yes, he would have called and told us where to shove the whole idea. He just needed to know we weren’t going to waste his time.”

Leo’s brow furrowed. “I’m not certain whether you’re the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met, or the most perceptive. How do you get away with talking to people like that?” But he didn’t sound scared at all. He sounded… respectful. Almost a little pleased.

And I liked pleasing him. The realization was a hot little shock, static in wool.

I grinned at him. “I like both those options. And I guess it’s because I’m not from here. You guys have all these unspoken rules, but maybe being American gives me a pass.”

“I suppose it does.” He looked out the car window at a horse running through a meadow. “I rather like having a secret weapon. Now I know how James Bond feels.”

“You can call me Q,” I said with a smile.

“Not Moneypenny?” He shook his head at himself, chuckling. “Absolutely not Moneypenny, don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re Q. Never thought I’d be the brawn of an operation.”

The laugh bubbled up inside me. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Me too.” After a few seconds, our laughter faded, and he said again, his voice softer, “Me too.”