“I totally want to meddle.” I clenched my teeth together, expression sheepish, as I let myself back into the store.
I wanted to Much Ado About Nothing the crap out of Viola and Lucas’s situation.
But I shouldn’t interfere. I shook my head, slumping into the armchair by the unlit fire. West Elliot was clearly a giant man-child who couldn’t give a rat’s ass that he’d divided a village with something that happened decades before. A man like that wouldn’t sit back calmly while his youngest son fell in love with his ex’s only daughter.
Viola’s sad eyes flashed across my mind again.
She was such a great girl. She deserved happiness, in whatever form that came.
Moreover, Lucas Elliot had just gone up quite a bit in my estimation.
“I shouldn’t meddle,” I murmured. “I definitely shouldn’t meddle.”
Meddling was bad.
Oh crap.
“I’m totally going to meddle.”
Fifteen
A shade of angry purple had bled through the sky above Alnster, causing it to weep torrentially. Rain pounded off the road outside, and the sea rumbled its displeasure, foaming and discontent.
The damp brought such a chill, I’d lit the fire in the bookstore.
I’d woken up to the rain, and it hadn’t let up in its ferocity. Viola had braved it to join Caro and me at the store, but no one else had ventured near Much Ado About Books.
Somehow it was one of the most perfect days I’d spent in England. Caro was curled up on the armchair by the fire with a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, while Viola lay sprawled on a faux fur blanket I’d brought down from upstairs. She lay on her side, elbow bent, head in her palm, flicking through the pages of Wuthering Heights.
I was on the other armchair, my feet tucked up under me. Still determined to make my way through every Shakespearean play during my stay in England, I was rereading Hamlet.
“I’m just going to say it.” Viola slammed Wuthering Heights closed. “Everyone in this book is unlikable. How am I supposed to care about this romance when I don’t like the main bloody characters?”
I grinned. “Maybe because you’re reading it as if it’s a romance when it’s not.”
She frowned. “I’ve seen the movie. It’s definitely a romance.”
Laughing, I lifted my legs off the counter and turned toward Viola. “Movies and TV adaptations always angle it like an epic romance, thus the misconception that the novel is a romance. If you try to read it like it’s a romance, you’ll hate it. Wuthering Heights is a book about not-very-nice people doing some not-very-nice things. It’s not about two people who are in love. It’s about two people who are obsessed with each other to the point of utter destruction. It’s gothic and surreal and addictive once you let go of the idea it’s a romance. It’s a love story. There’s a difference.”
Viola thought about this and then nodded. “Okay, maybe I’ll give it another shot. Another time, though. I’m in the mood for something a little more romantic.”
Indeed.
In fiction or in real life?
“Missing that from your life, are you?”
At my question Caro lowered her book to hear Viola’s answer. Viola sighed and sat up, curling her arms around her knees as she drew them toward her chest. “I dumped my boyfriend two weeks before the end of semester.” Her upper lip curled into a sneer. “Noah. He plays for the basketball team. He was cheating on me with one of the bloody cheerleaders.”
“I’m sorry, Vi,” Caro offered gently.
“Yeah, me too. He’s a complete moron.” I frowned at her self-conscious wince. “You’re one of a kind, Viola. Smart, funny, loyal, kind, witty, and although it’s not important, you’ve got the type of stunning beauty that stops people in their tracks.”
Caro nodded. “What she said.”
Viola smirked. “Well, when you put it like that, I sound fantastic.” She glanced between us, her expression somewhat sheepish. “If you want the truth, I think I needed the comedown Noah’s cheating gave me.” At my glower, Vi explained, “Caro will tell you that it hasn’t always been easy growing up in a small village the daughter of a white woman and a black man. Don’t get me wrong, most people are fine. They don’t see my dad’s skin color or mine. But there are some—and I hate to say it—of an older generation, who made it clear they didn’t approve of us.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “It wasn’t just the feud that divided folks here thirty years ago. It was