The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts: A feel-good funny romance. Annie Darling

must be hurting more.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We’re all so sorry for your loss, Sebastian. I know how much you’ll miss her.’

      ‘Thank you, that’s very kind of you.’ His voice caught again, his smile slipped, but then it was back in the time it took Posy to blink. ‘Sorry for your loss. God, it’s such a clichéd sentiment. It doesn’t really mean anything, does it? I hate clichés.’

      ‘People only say that because it can be very hard to know what to say when someone’s di—’

      ‘You’re being very earnest now, Posy. It’s so boring. I much prefer it when you’re being bitchy,’ Sebastian said, and Verity, who hated anything that even faintly resembled a confrontation, covered her face with a napkin and Nina made another hissing noise and Tom looked expectantly at Posy, like he was waiting for her to cut Sebastian down with her rapier-like wit, in which case he’d have a very long wait.

      ‘Rude. Very rude,’ was what she did say. ‘I would have thought that today of all days, you might have taken some time off from being as thoroughly obnoxious as you usually are. Shame on you!’

      ‘Yeah, shame on me. And I would have thought that today of all days, you might have brushed your hair.’ Sebastian actually dared to lift up a piece of Posy’s hair, before she swatted him away.

      Posy longed for hair that could be described as tresses or locks or even a silken fall. The reality was brown with reddish tones, which she liked to think was auburn in a certain light, but which attracted knots like bees to honey. If she brushed her hair, it transformed into a gigantic frizzy puffball and if she combed it, it was an exercise in pain and futility as she encountered tangle after tangle, so she tended to scoop it up and secure it with whatever was to hand. Usually pencils, but today Posy had made a special effort and used hairclips, even if they were all different colours. She’d hoped the overall effect was eclectic and Bohemian, but apparently it was neither of those things. ‘I don’t have the kind of hair you can brush,’ she said defensively.

      ‘That’s true,’ Sebastian agreed. ‘It’s more the kind of hair that birds love to nest in. Now, come on, get up!’

      His tone, as ever, was so peremptory that Posy prepared to launch herself off the chair then stopped as she realised that she didn’t need to do anything of the sort. She was quite comfy where she was and besides, she’d already had two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach and her legs were doing a good impersonation of jelly.

      ‘I’ll stay where I am, if it’s all the same to you … What are you doing?’

      Sebastian was manhandling her, that’s what he was doing. His hands were under her armpits and he was trying to heave Posy out of her chair, though as she was made of stronger, much denser stuff than the women he was usually seen with, she stayed exactly where she was, until his heaving and her struggling resulted in the inevitable: two of the buttons on the bodice of her dress gave up the good fight and suddenly, Posy was flashing her bra to anyone who cared to look in her direction.

      As it was, most of the guests were staring at them because it wasn’t often you saw two people almost come to blows at a funeral.

      ‘Get off me!’ Posy growled as Verity shoved a napkin at her so Posy could protect her modesty. The two offending buttons had been flung to the far corners of the room with the force of their trajectory. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

      She glanced up at Sebastian, who was looking at what he’d done, and not bothering to disguise his leer. ‘If you’d got up when I asked you to—’

      ‘You didn’t ask. You ordered. You didn’t even say please!’

      ‘Anyway that dress was too tight, I’m not surprised your buttons made a bid for freedom after the ordeal you’ve put them through.’

      Posy shut her eyes. ‘Go away. I can not deal with you. Not today.’

      Her words failed to register with Sebastian, who was tugging at her arm now. ‘Don’t be such a baby. The lawyer wants to see you. Come on. Chop, chop.’

      The urge to put her hands on Sebastian so she could inflict grievous bodily harm upped and left, to be replaced with an unpleasant churning in her guts so that Posy was suddenly pleased that she hadn’t been able to eat anything.

      ‘Now? He wants to see me now?’

      Sebastian threw back his head and groaned. ‘Yes! Jesus! Wars have been fought and won in less time than it takes to hoist you out of a chair.’

      ‘But you didn’t say. You just demanded and grappled.’

      ‘I’m saying now. Honestly, Morland, I’m losing the will to live here.’

      Posy shut her eyes again so she wouldn’t have to see the anxious faces of the Bookends staff. ‘Why does he want to see me? We’re at Lavinia’s wake. Can’t it wait?’

      ‘Apparently not.’ It was Sebastian’s turn to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his elegant, aquiline nose. ‘If you don’t start moving, I will put you over my shoulder and God knows, I really could do without the hernia.’

      That had Posy jumping to her feet. ‘I don’t weigh that much. Thank you!’ she added to Nina, who’d produced a safety pin from the depths of her bag and was waving it in Posy’s face.

      Then, with Sebastian gripping her elbow, because he was incapable of keeping his hands to himself as Posy tried to reunite the two sides of her dress, she found herself hustled out of the room.

      They walked – well, Sebastian strode and Posy scurried to keep up with him – down a long corridor hung with portraits of the late, esteemed lady members of the club.

      Then, just as they reached a door marked ‘Private’, it suddenly swung open and a small figure swathed in black appeared, paused for a second then threw herself at Posy.

      ‘Oh, Posy! Isn’t this awful?’

      It was Mariana, Sebastian’s mother, Lavinia’s only child. Despite Lavinia’s request, she was dressed in black from head to toe, her severe attire completed with a beautiful, full-length black lace mantilla, which was a touch of overkill, but then Mariana could never resist a dramatic gesture.

      Posy closed her arms around the older woman, who clung to her as if she were the last lifebelt on the Titanic. ‘It is awful,’ Posy said with a sigh. ‘I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the church but I’m so, so sorry for your loss.’

      Mariana had nothing sarcastic to say about Posy trotting out that well-used phrase. Instead, she clutched Posy’s hands tight as a tear trickled slowly down one baby-smooth cheek. She’d had some work done, but even some skilful and discreet fillers and a little Botox couldn’t dim Mariana’s fragile, delicate beauty.

      She reminded Posy of a peony that had blossomed gloriously and was now one sunny day away from drooping gently and gracefully; its petals wilting ever so slightly under close scrutiny.

      ‘What am I going to do without Mummy?’ Mariana asked Posy mournfully. ‘We spoke every day and she always used to remind me when it was a rollover on EuroMillions so I could ask the butler to go out and buy a ticket.’

      ‘I’ll call you when it’s a rollover on EuroMillions,’ Posy said, even as Sebastian folded his arms and leaned back against the door with a put-upon sigh, as if he was about to be dragooned into EuroMillions servitude too.

      People thought that Mariana was a silly woman because she cultivated an air of vague helplessness that had ensnared four husbands, each more rich and titled than the last, but she was also as kind as Lavinia had been. Sweeter too, because Lavinia had refused to suffer fools, whereas Mariana was so soft-hearted that she suffered along with anyone who was in pain.

      When Posy’s parents had died, Lavinia and her husband Peregrine had been two rocks of utter steadfastness but it had been Mariana who had jetted in from Monaco and had swept Posy and her brother,