He allowed Grace to leave early that afternoon, to set off on her mission to see how best to get in touch with the owners from the bookshops on Paternoster Row. It would be Grace’s first time seeing the booksellers’ hub since the fires the night before, and her trepidation grew with every demolished building she passed. The odor of smoke preceded her arrival, and her stomach sank at what would meet her eyes.

NINETEEN

There was hardly anything left of Paternoster Row. Its remains lay beneath a shroud of smoke where fires still smoldered deep within the wreckage. The once busy street was nearly leveled. Buildings that had risen high on either side were now little more than bricks and dust while several single walls stood uselessly with empty squares where windows had once been.

Grace approached a man in a suit pacing before a flattened plot of land that had once been an elegant shop with glossy green paint lettering on its sign and small newspaper birds hanging from the interior of his display windows. “Are you the owner of Smith’s?”

He looked at her, dazed with a numb expression she saw far too often in her ARP work. His nod was almost imperceptible.

“Smith’s was such a lovely shop. I’m so sorry.” She approached him carefully. “I’m with Primrose Hill Books on Hosier Lane.” She regarded the devastation that had most likely been the man’s livelihood. “We are setting aside shelf space to aid the bookshops impacted by the bombing. You can...” A band of emotion tightened at her throat. “You can bring any of your stock to us, and we’ll ensure you receive the profits when they’re sold.”

She handed him a small card where she’d written the information for the bookshop.

He accepted it wordlessly and stared.

“I’m so sorry,” Grace said again, feeling helpless once more and hating it. “I wish there was more I could do.”

“Thank you.” He spoke softly and turned his sad gaze from her to the rubble of his establishment.

She saw only one other person, to whom she made the same offer and received the same bewildered response.

Not that any of it mattered. Surely no books had survived.

Dejected, she turned from the remains of London’s book district and made her way home to give in to the fatigue grinding at her eyes like grit. On the way to Britton Street, however, it occurred to her that she knew of exactly one bookshop owner who did have a supply of books that were unmarred by the night’s conflagration.

Mrs. Nesbitt.

A war played out in Grace’s mind, with one side arguing that it would be the right thing to do, fighting with the spiteful side that had been hurt by Mrs. Nesbitt’s sharp words and wanted to retaliate with more spite. Exactly as Mrs. Nesbitt had done.