Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham (ebook reader for surface pro .txt) 📕

“He’s never been the reading sort, my dear.” Mother followed Clara’s gaze to the door, her expression softening into a compassionate frown. “Can you imagine how dark it must be inside his mind? It’s a good thing Robbie has us in his life or else the poor boy would have been cast into the pitch of numbers and nonfiction without a spark of fiction to light his way.”

Clara laughed and slid her arm around her mother’s thin shoulders. “Between you and Father, I had no choice but to fall in love with thousands of worlds and characters and creatures before the age of ten.”

“Ah, but we were determined to prepare you.” Mother patted Clara’s hand against her shoulder, the glimmer resurrecting in her eyes.

“Prepare me?”

“For life.” Her brow rose in slow preparation. “As Mr. Barry put it, ‘To live will be an awfully big adventure.’ What better way to become armed than with thousands of stories?”

“What do you mean there isn’t a deed for Blackwell’s?” Clara couldn’t remember one story she’d read in her entire life that armed her for Mr. Lawson’s declaration.

She had hired Mr. Lawson to settle Dad’s affairs, since the previous lawyer Granny Sadie had kept for years had passed his prime long ago and hovered on a century birthday in some beautiful retirement home in South Carolina. And despite Mr. Lawson’s sharp navy suit, and his intelligent hazel eyes looking back at her from where he sat behind his desk, his statement didn’t make any sense. No deed? How was that possible?

He braided his hands in front of him and steadied his attention on Clara. “I know Mr. Everett managed Sadie’s affairs for years and even took over the transfer of Blackwell’s to your father after her passing, but either by oversight or a belief that ownership could be somehow grandfathered in, he never secured the transfer of the deed. In fact, I’ve not been able to locate one for Blackwell’s at all.”

“What does that mean?”

He shifted in his chair before continuing. “We need to find legally binding documentation that Blackwell’s belongs to you or your mother via Sadie Blackwell. If we can’t locate the actual deed, we need secondary evidence as proof.”

Clara rubbed the well-worn hem of her sleeve, attempting to quell the knot twisting tighter in her stomach. “Like what?”

“The deed would be preferable, of course.” His tight smile did nothing to allay Clara’s heightened blood pressure. “I’ve searched every place I can think of and it’s nowhere within my resources, but anything that would directly link Sadie to the purchase of the property could build our case, especially, God forbid, if anyone ever contests your ownership or you wish to sell the bookshop. But if you can locate historic letters, bank statements, anything that will provide a link between Sadie and ownership, we can secure a new deed.”

Clara pressed back into the chair, her palms up as if waiting for an answer to fall into them. “Where do you suggest I start looking?”

“Since the bookshop went directly from Sadie to your father, I’d recommend searching anywhere you think they would have stored important documents or historical information. A lockbox? Some special room in the house or within a keepsake? Is there any place like that?”

Clara knew every part of Blackwell’s, from the books on the shelves to the files in the office, and she’d never come across a deed, but there was one place she hadn’t been in for at least ten years. Blackwell’s cavernous attic.

When she was a teenager, she’d gone up there once with her dad, and a half-clothed mannequin in a clown wig left her with nightmares for weeks. Her entire body cringed at the memory. “I can think of one place.” She hoped her smile communicated confidence because between the possibility of losing Blackwell’s and of getting locked in the dark and dusty unknown of the attic, hers had dropped to an alltime low. “But it may take awhile, and there’s a possibility I may never return.”

“Whatever it takes, Clara.” His gaze bore into hers, sobering her attempt at humor. “Because if you don’t find this deed, or something equivalent, there is the real possibility that you and your mother could lose Blackwell’s.”

Chapter 3

For the entire afternoon, I waited for a summons to meet with Mrs.

Vanderbilt, but the fateful moment never came. My smile grew as the night wagon made its jerking descent into Biltmore Village with a few other servants on their way to the tidy houses lining the far street of the quaint village. Perhaps the grand lady dismissed the accusations without another thought. After all, I’d given the guests exactly what they were searching for, hadn’t I?

My smile fell as another thought nudged the more hopeful one out of the way. Mrs. Vanderbilt could have been furious, but due to her guests, she didn’t have time to sack me today, so she’d wait and do it first thing in the morning. My stomach vaulted and I gripped the side of the wagon bed as the horses came to a stop on All Souls Crescent, just behind the church, where a long line of limestone houses with their copper-colored slate roofs glowed pale in the gaslight of the streetlamps.

“Sadie, you gonna sit there all day staring at nothing, or are you gonna get home?”

I shook from my thoughts and turned to see Carrie Macon standing outside the wagon, staring up at me, bemused. Her husband, Eric, a dairy worker, looked on with a matching expression.

“I’m sorry.” My face scorched hot. “I was just lost in thought, I guess.”

Eric helped me down from the wagon, his wry grin growing. “I think you find a way to get lost there more times than not.”

“Must be a mighty fine place to be then, if she gets lost there so much,” Carrie added. She linked her arm through Eric’s and winked at Sadie as they said their good nights and walked down