Page 17 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“Handbags at dawn,” joked Ross when Petra told him about the book club. “If you’re there to keep the peace, I’d arrive armed if I were you. Those little old ladies can be vicious when they fall out over protagonist motivations.”

“Will you come?”

“No way,” he said unhelpfully. “I value my life. Anyhow, what excuse would you make for me being there?”

“You could be helping me set out the tea and biscuits. Or you could say you were joining the club.”

Ross scoffed. “No thanks,” he said.

“You could recommend your own book?” Petra teased.

“Because that wouldn’t be monstrously egotistical at all,” he replied, but his face clouded over, and Petra regretted prodding Ross’s only sore point.

“Sorry,” she said. “Tactless.”

“Nah, you’re fine,” said Ross, but he was frowning and failing to meet her eye.

Chapter Eight

Conversation had stalled after that, Petra remembered when she was lying in bed later, regretting her quip. She had been trying hard, since arriving in Portneath, but there was seemingly no end to her talent for saying the wrong thing.

Perhaps it was because she was a literary agent—an ex-literary agent—but she was pining to know more. Ross had definitely been given a two-book deal, so what had happened to his advance for book two? Had he been made to pay it back? It was rare, but she had heard of that happening. He didn’t seem to be working but clearly had some money . . . she mustn’t be nosy . . . But—ooh—she wondered how much that book had made him? Probably not as much as the man on the street thought, she told herself, knowing the industry too well.

Feeling mildly ashamed of her nosiness, and not able to sleep, Petra reached for her phone. She googled his name—not for the first time—and found the Bookseller article about the signing, and then—of course—there had been all the coverage about the debut book’s extraordinary success. These all basically said the same thing. He was from a tiny village in the Scottish Highlands. His father was a postman; his mother worked in a factory; he had been exceptional in school, receiving a full scholarship to a prestigious Edinburgh academy and then getting a scholarship to Oxford; he completed his creative writing MA with distinction by his mid-twenties, debuting his first novel at just twenty-nine years old, and then . . . tumbleweeds. He had no LinkedIn profile, or any other social media presence, come to that: no writing website, no Amazon author page, and his agent no longer listed him as a client on the agency website.

So, she concluded, putting her phone down with a sigh, as before, Ross McCloud, darling of the literary world, had deliberately and thoroughly scrubbed himself from the map. And the single thing she was dying to know was also the one topic of conversation she dared not bring up with him. People didn’t suddenly lose their abilities for no reason. If she knew anything about storytelling, it was that when something dramatic changed, there was always an inciting incident. So . . . what had been his?

In the same ballpark, she admitted to herself as she snuggled down to sleep, were other hopelessly impertinent, unaskable questions such as—their now almost-daily catch-ups notwithstanding—what was he doing with himself for the rest of the time? She was increasingly sure he was writing again. He had hinted as much.

Now, that was something her re-emerging literary agent self was dying to read.

Petra would do most things to avoid conflict, so when Tuesday evening came around, she was genuinely nervous. Flo’s instructions were to do very little in preparation, so after closing Petra just fiddled around, clearing a space in the middle of the shop and putting out some chairs. She gave the mugs a good wash too, as they were quite stained, and dug out a couple of plates for the chocolate biscuits to go on. She had splashed the petty cash for some fancy chocolate ones, hoping to quell any violence via distraction.

Flo arrived first, with Diana and Mungo in tow.

Having only ever seen Diana from a distance, Petra discovered she was just as elegant up close: a tall woman in her sixties or seventies with an armful of tinkling silver bracelets, a glamorous mane of blond-gray hair, and a general impression of trailing chiffon scarves. She smelled absolutely delicious too.

Mungo, a man of a similar age to Diana, was also pristine, with his pressed woolen trousers and a scarlet sweater that looked so soft it could only be cashmere. He responded to Flo’s introductions in a deep, gentle voice, taking Petra’s hand in both his own. She would have avoided this if she could without being rude, as—through nerves—her paw was so cold and sweaty.

“You’re freezing,” he exclaimed, rubbing her hand between his warm, dry ones with their impeccably clean nails. Nobody got their nails that shiny without buffing, Petra thought. “You poor thing,” he went on, chafing briskly and then insisting on repeating the maneuver on her other one. “Is there some heating you can put on? Would you like to borrow my jersey?” he added, making as if to strip it off there and then.

“I’m fine!” Petra assured him, but he insisted on fetching the little electric space heater from the office and then went to find her in the tiny kitchen behind the shop to help with the coffee and tea.

“I can do all this,” he assured her, waving her away. “Why don’t you go out and talk to Diana. She loves having new people to boss around.”

Flo and Diana were deep in intense conversation. “The peasants are revolting,” Diana was declaring. “There are ‘factions.’ There will be blood before the evening’s out,” she added darkly. “’Specially as it’s Beatrice’s turn to choose the next book and she always chooses such dreary ones.”

“Goodness, so she does,” agreed Flo, turning to Petra. “Well, that’ll get everything out in the open, at least. Something has got to give.”

“There won’t be actual fighting, will there?” asked Petra anxiously, remembering Ross chuckling over the “handbags at dawn” suggestion. God knows what passed for normal behavior in these circles.

Diana and Flo both broke into peals of laughter. “Absolutely not,” Flo said at last, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. “Poor child. We’ve frightened her half to death with our dramas.”

“It’ll be fine,” Diana reassured Petra, rubbing her upper arm bracingly. “Leave it to me. I’m used to making people behave themselves.”

“It’s ‘do as you say, not as you do,’ then,” Mungo interjected cheekily as he came into the shop with a laden tray of mugs and chocolate biscuits.

Diana threw him a quelling look, but it didn’t look to Petra as if he took much notice. Clearly this was all just the normal banter between the two of them, much like the relationship she had with Ross. Was she allowed to call it a “relationship”? she wondered. What was it now anyhow? A friendship? Something else?