Free I'll See You in Paris by Michelle Gable Page A

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    â€œYikes,” Annie said, accidentally catching a glimpse in the mirror. Once again, she envied her mom’s horses and their slick, shiny, never-frizzy manes.
    â€œDid you eat anything?” Laurel asked. “Please tell me you had more than the so-called biscuits Nicola lays out each day.”
    â€œYes, as a matter of fact. I went to this pub? The George and Dragon?”
    â€œRight. I think I’ve seen it. Nice place?”
    â€œIt was okay. Mostly I drank tea and read. Had a few bites of a sandwich.”
    â€œWas it good?”
    â€œThe sandwich?”
    â€œNo,” Laurel said. “The book.”
    â€œOh.” She paused. “It’s funny. It’s a book you have, I think. The one about the missing duchess? I mentioned it the other day?”
    Laurel stared at her blankly.
    â€œI found it locally,” Annie continued. If the lie was good enough for Gus, it was good enough for Laurel. “I happened upon a used bookstore owned by a woman named Trudy and recognized it from your library.”
    â€œHow odd.”
    â€œMom, have you been here before?”
    â€œAnnie…”
    â€œNo offense, but you’re not a big reader. Yet you have this book. And it’s about a woman who lived in Banbury. Now we’re in Banbury and it turns out you own a piece of land in this very spot. But I’d never heard about any of this until now.”
    â€œI’ve been here,” her mother said and stood. She looked not at Annie but over the top of her head, toward the cross. “I came through Banbury years ago. Decades.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me?”
    â€œThere’s nothing to tell, really. During college I did the, um, backpacking-through-Europe thing.”
    â€œYou,” Annie said, amused. “You, who wouldn’t let me join Girl Scouts because of the camping requirement? You went backpacking? Voluntarily?”
    â€œI know. It was a bit of an ill-fated trip.” Laurel shook her head. “In multiple ways. I came to Oxfordshire because … well, because I had the vague notion of some people I should see here, folks who might be family.”
    â€œThe people associated with the land you’re trying to sell?”
    â€œYes. Exactly.”
    â€œDid you track them down?”
    â€œNot really. The trip was a waste. I never found what I wanted, which is how most poorly planned odysseys end up. I left here feeling pretty dejected.”
    â€œWell, at least you got some free property out of it.”
    â€œYes. At least there’s that.”
    â€œIs that when you bought the book?” Annie asked. “ The Missing Duchess ? When you visited Banbury?”
    â€œI don’t remember exactly.” Laurel’s eyes flittered away. “Probably, though. The duchess was big talk in this town, her own tourist attraction, though she’d died by the time I came through.”
    â€œSo you remember the book.”
    â€œYes. No. I mean. It’s not … it’s hard to explain, Annie.”
    â€œYou lied to me.”
    â€œI didn’t lie. It’s hard to explain.”
    â€œYeah, you mentioned that. I thought lawyers never found anything hard to explain.”
    â€œI was a different person then. Seeing the book.” Laurel bit down on her lip, then exhaled. “It’s not about the book. It’s about the memories the book brings up.”
    â€œProust,” Annie said.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œProust talked about the importance of memory when reading, the effect of setting and circumstance.”
    â€œDid he? Well, you would know,” Laurel said with a smile. “I guess that’s why I paid the big bucks for your schooling.”
    â€œYes, so I can have knowledge of dead writers. A very useful life skill. It is so very perplexing that I don’t have a job.”
    Annie didn’t mention that the knowledge came not from her spendy education but