Mr. Smithfield - Louise Bay Page 0,76

But ask yourself whether or not you can sleep at night, knowing you ruined Bethany’s chance of having a mother and Gabriel’s chance of having his wife back.” She turned and walked up the street. I watched her, fingering the neck of my sweater.

Had I taken her place? And if I walked away, would it leave a vacancy she would fill? Would my absence force Gabriel to finally, at long last, give someone a second chance?

Thirty-Three

Autumn

How didn’t I know until now how awesome libraries were? They were particularly awesome if you wanted to know everything there was to know about travelling in Europe.

I glanced around to find nothing had changed in the hours since I’d last looked up. There were still a couple of librarians behind the main desk, none of whom ever seemed to speak to each other. There was a man on the computer on the far side, behind the thriller hardbacks. And the desk in front of me was still covered in piles of travel books.

All I knew was that I was definitely starting in Paris. Nope. A flight to Amsterdam. That would be better. And then on to Copenhagen and Stockholm. The pictures of Stockholm looked so different from London. That would be good. I would need distance by the time I left.

“You going travelling?” A bearded guy with a weird accent asked as he approached my desk.

I nodded. “Can you tell?”

“Make sure you’ve got Oz on the itinerary.”

“Because I want to see the wizard?”

“Not that Oz.” He chuckled. “Australia.”

“Oh wow, no. I’m staying closer to home.” London did feel like home to me now. Maybe it was because Hollie was here. Maybe it was because I was so pleased to be out of Oregon. Maybe it was because of Gabriel. But I couldn’t think about him right now. “Just around Europe this summer,” I said. “I take it that’s where you’re from—Oz, I mean.”

“Absolutely. You can’t tell from the accent?” he asked. “But if you’ve not been down under, then make sure you put it on your list,” he said, pointing at the notebook I had open. “And don’t leave out the west coast. Shark Bay, mate. Best place on earth.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll make a note of that.”

He saluted and carried on walking, taking his books to the circulation desk.

Shark Bay? I’d never even heard of it. And I hadn’t even considered going to Australia. Europe had always been the plan. It was still. I had two weeks left before I was due to fly out, and I’d been putting off the planning for too long.

The conversation with Penelope had brought with it a lot of questions. I still didn’t have answers. But burying myself in travel books was a good distraction until I decided I wanted to figure out what was next.

My phone flashed with a message from Hollie. What am I doing outside the Shoe Lane Library?

I scampered to gather up my things. I’d lost track of time and forgotten I was supposed to be meeting her.

I emerged from the basement level to find Hollie outside, looking up at the sky.

“You okay?” I asked.

She snapped her head straight. “Fine. I didn’t even know this place existed.”

That was one of my favorite things about London. There was just so much of it. And it came in layers. The touristy sites—the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral—would take a couple of weeks if you did nothing else. Then there were the lesser-known things to see, like Portobello market, the Inns of Court, and Banqueting House, that would take months to do. Then there was everything else. The web of interesting things that bound the city together. Thousands of places that would stay hidden unless you tripped over them. One of the few buildings to withstand the Great Fire, the house Benjamin Franklin lived in, the street Dickens based Fagin’s lodgings on. I loved it all.

“London’s old but there are always new things to discover,” I said.

“I’m so hungry. Where are we going?” she asked, linking her arm through mine. “I don’t come over this way a lot, so I have no idea where to eat.”

“Up here,” I said as we headed up the hill. “We’re going toward Smithfield Market.”

“Eww, isn’t that a meat market?”

“It should be gross but it’s really beautiful. Look,” I said, pointing at the huge building ahead that looked like one of London’s Victorian railway stations, rather than a working meat market. “It’s beautiful.” The building was trimmed in