Someone to Love by Jude Deveraux

library door, he realized he hadn’t so much as a pen with him. He couldn’t pretend to be an author doing research if he didn’t have pen and paper.
    Turning, he looked about the village, and across the street was a stationer’s shop. He crossed the street and went inside. As with most shops in English villages, it had two of each item rather than twenty-five of each as American stores carried, and there wasn’t a piece of Plexiglas in sight.
    “Here you are,” said a tall, thin, gray-haired woman from behind the counter as she shoved a box toward him.
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “It’s all there,” she said. “Take a look.”
    “I think there’s been a mistake. I haven’t purchased anything.”
    “Alice Browne called and said you’d seen the ghost outside in the garden. No one’s done that before, so we knew your next stop would be the library to find out about her, and of course you’d be wanting something to take notes on, so here’s everything you need.”
    When Jace didn’t move, she pushed the box until it was about to fall off the counter.
    “Go on,” she said. “It’s been put on your account and I’ll send young Gladys Arnold a statement at the end of the month. Mind you, though, I don’t take kindly to her buying some of her supplies in Aylesbury. You can tell her from me that it doesn’t pay to antagonize the local vendors.”
    When Jace still didn’t move, she looked impatient. “Is there something else you want?”
    “No,” Jace said slowly, then took the box and headed for his car. Shoving the box onto the passenger seat, he got behind the steering wheel. He needed some time to calm himself. Even though he’d told Mrs. Browne that he had not seen the ghost in the garden, she hadn’t believed him. She’d called the local stationer’s shop and told the clerk that Jace would stop in there on the way to the library.
    His impulse was to call Mrs. Browne and tell her off, even to fire her. How dare she blab to the whole village what he was doing?
    After a few minutes of anger, it occurred to him that this was good. He wouldn’t have to work to make people believe he was interested in the ghost and thereby cover his real interest. No, it was assumed that Jace was just like everyone else.
    “Good,” Jace said. “This is good. A premade cover.”
    Relaxing his tight muscles, he looked at the box on the seat beside him and began to go through it, shaking his head in wonder. It was filled with all that a researcher could want: six black pens, four colored pens, two notebooks, one with lines, one without. On and on. There was even a little battery-powered book-light in the bottom.
    Jace took out a large paper wallet with a string tie, and stuck in the unlined notebook and two black pens, then headed toward the library.
    The librarian, a woman about the same age as the stationer clerk and Mrs. Browne, greeted him with, “I have everything you want right here.” She pushed a box toward him. “We call it the Priory House box and we don’t even put the books away anymore. I hope you have a video player. Alice said you don’t have much in the way of furniture, just the leftovers of the last owner. If you need video equipment, we can rent some to you.”
    “Thank you,” Jace said as sincerely as he could, but it was difficult not to make a smart retort. “I have video equipment on order.”
    “Oh? Alice didn’t tell me—”
    “Mrs. Browne doesn’t know everything about my life,” Jace said stiffly.
    The woman blinked at Jace a couple of times. “I see. Perhaps you don’t want these books,” she said and started to take them off the counter.
    In spite of his intentions, it seemed that Jace had offended yet another English person. “I very much want the books,” he said, picking up the box before she could take it away. “And it was kind of you to assemble this for me.”
    She didn’t soften. “I didn’t do it for you. I put them together for Mrs. Grant.”
    “Oh?”