The Mayfair Bookshop

A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness

Eliza Knight

• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9780063070592
• Print ISBN:
  9780063070585
• Subtopic: American Drama

One of Hasty Booklist's Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novels!

USA Today bestselling author Eliza Knight brings together a brilliant dual-narrative story about Nancy Mitford—one of 1930s London’s hottest socialites, authors, and a member of the scandalous Mitford Sisters—and a modern American desperate for change, connected through time by a little London bookshop.

“An absolute must-read!”—Madeline Martin, New York Times bestselling author The Last Bookshop in London

1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.

Present Day: When book curator Lucy St. Clair lands a gig working at Heywood Hill she can’t get on the plane fast enough. Not only can she start the healing process from the loss of her mother, it’s a dream come true to set foot in the legendary store. Doubly exciting: she brings with her a first edition of Nancy’s work, one with a somewhat mysterious inscription from the author. Soon, she discovers her life and Nancy’s are intertwined, and it all comes back to the little London bookshop—a place that changes the lives of two women from different eras in the most surprising ways. 

Chapter One

Nancy Mitford

Mid-March 1931

Darling Evelyn,

There is no place more perfect to wear a divine coral tiara than one’s own fabulously orchestrated book launch party. Especially when the evening crush is hosted by my own famous younger sister, Diana, Lady Guinness.

Though I would have been happy to drink from a bottle running through the street dressed as a character in my book, my sister—you know how she is—has insisted on throwing a soiree, and will no doubt outdo herself. A sentiment felt deep in my heart since my parents have always looked down their noses at my prose. But not you, my darling friend, not you.

Until then . . .

Love from,

Nancy

IN THE HOUSE ON Buckingham Street, a stone’s throw from the royal palace, golden light dripped from every crystal chandelier. Gardenias, roses and lilies overflowed from dozens of Waterford vases. An eight-piece jazz ensemble played a mixture of the latest hits and older, less jazzy, favorites sure to get even the elder generation dancing.

The posh four-story brick manse was elbow-to-elbow with amusing people, grasping crystal coupe glasses from the champagne tower. Half the guests were clever; the other half hoped to be photographed. All of them were here for the free champagne and delicate canapés being passed by footmen outfitted in Guinness livery—how patrician.

Upon first entry to the famed house, there were stacks of hardback copies of Highland Fling with my name in bold across the jacket. Each invitee would take home their copy of my first novel, my neat autograph scrawled inside and a caption I’d brilliantly coined myself: For the illusionists in us all, with love, Nancy Mitford.

Amongst the one hundred or so acquaintances in attendance, there were only a slight few who would understand the meaning behind the words. And oh, how they grinned like mischievous fiends.

While the guests and entertainment attested to my sister and her husband’s joie de vivre, the house’s furnishings were stiff—and so were at least a dozen old biddies—and dripped of my mother-in-law decorated. How very miserable for my sister.

One piece leapt out—the abstract art from the hoax the lot of us had played on society two years ago—where it hung prominently in the drawing room. We still laughed about the creation of the anonymous and talented artist “Bruno Hat” and subsequent bogus exhibition that had scores of our friends bidding on a unique and quite hideous corkboard and rope-framed piece.

There was only one thing missing from the celebration—my love, Hamish St. Clair-Erskine. My sometimes fiancé and sometimes not. Right now, we were not. Still, I longed for his return. Longed to laugh again as he made me laugh. But after his latest debacle at uni, his parents had sent him off to New York City. Oh, bother, why did they seek to destroy a perfectly extraordinary man?

With the last of the books autographed, I smiled at those guests hovering near the marble table I’d used to sign. I stretched my fingers, in dire need of a champagne coupe, or maybe something a little stronger: a cocktail with a dash of cherry.

Squeezing through the horde of bodies, I made my way to the tower of bubbly only to be intercepted by one of my dear friends.

“Why, if it isn’t the brilliant Evelyn Waugh,” I gushed, tugging him into my arms. Looking dapper and tan from his recent trek across the globe, he seemed in good spirits after the not-so-unfortunate demise of his marriage to that horrible cow who’d so sorely abused him.

“And if it isn’t my equal in clever articulation as well as good looks, Nancy Mitford.”

I laughed, the first true one of the evening. We’d kept in touch over the months through letters, and thank goodness for that. Evelyn encouraged my pursuit from writing columns in The Lady to becoming a novelist.

“Have you thrown us all aside yet for a life of luxury and success?” he teased.

“Never! It’s a silly book. Really, darling, I only wrote it because I wanted one hundred pounds.” I laughed and tapped him on the hand clasped in mine, as the sound of another champagne bottle being popped sent out exuberant cries from the occupants.

“I daresay you will see a lot more than one hundred, and we will all be insanely jealous,” Evelyn teased as our friend Nina Siefield joined us, swirling an olive in her martini glass.

“As long as it keeps me dressing better, what more could I care for?” I flashed a playful smile. I spoke the truth, but also not the truth. Writing Highland Fling had been uproarious fun, and while I wanted to have the same success as Evelyn for his novel Vile Bodies, I truly gloried in finally having some extra funds.

Being from upper-class stock didn’t always bode well for pin money. While Diana now lived a life of divine luxury with her new, wealthy husband—heir to the Guinness fortune—our parents had always kept a tight rein on what meager means their noble titles afforded them. We were cash poor always, to the point where our mother sold eggs from the family hens.

“Indeed,” Nina mused. “You will be a literary star, darling. Incomparable. Now, Evelyn, come dance with me, for I’m growing bored as sin.”

“I’m next, Evelyn, darling. I want to hear all about your exploits in Africa,” I called after them.

Evelyn took Nina’s nearly empty martini and guzzled the last dregs.

Nina flashed me a wink and dragged our friend toward the dance floor, where the band struck up a rousing song full of trumpets and saxes blowing, drums beating. The entire room was a veritable who’s who of Bright Young Things, as the grouchy old set liked to call us. We were the prominent youths born to aristocrats and socialites. That coveted set of young persons who cared not a whit for being followed and photographed.

The grouches thought us wicked, an absolute disgrace to all the rules of the older generation. We threw extravagant parties to excess, laughed a little too vulgarly, traipsed about London in costume on elaborate treasure hunts, drank an unhealthy amount of champagne and showed entirely too much ankle and leg. In short, the Great War was over, and we were determined to enjoy ourselves.

In need of air, I searched for an exit, my gaze scanning over another of my good friends, who happened to be the cover illustrator for Highland Fling. Mark Ogilvie-Grant waved me toward the floor, where the rest of our friends tapped their feet and swung their arms in time to the music.

I turned away as if I’d not seen him at all. I couldn’t face his knowing look of sympathy. Mark alone was privy to me putting my head in a comrade’s oven last month, prepared to let the anesthetic sensation of the gas take me away from a world that made me miserable. I’d not even had the courage to share it with Evelyn.

Tears struck the backs of my eyes, but I downed my champagne, reaching for another with the dazzling smile I’d been able to perfect since birth.

“Darling Nancy!” a thick male voice said from behind. “Dance with me, you gorgeous creature.”

With a smile I didn’t feel, I whirled into the outstretched arms of the ruggedly handsome, and utterly dull, Hugh Smiley. Charming and rich. Everything a woman should want in a husband. I almost said yes when he’d asked me. But I could never marry another when I pictured myself with Hamish. I had this vision of me penning passages in my latest novel, while he regaled our growing family with stories of the hunt.

“Only because you look so dashing in your new dinner jacket.” I tossed back all of my champagne and then gave him my hand.

“You are the very vision of glamour.” Hugh kissed my hand and placed it on his muscled shoulder—larger, I suspected, from his time as a grenadier—our bodies rocked into the glee of a Charleston that Adele Astaire had taught us one night out on the town a few years back.

“Glamour is but a dizzying illusion, darling.” I winked. “Don’t you read the papers?”

Hugh laughed, though his eyes widened with the slightest hint of befuddlement—witty chatter always did bog down the slow-grinding gears of his brain. “Do you mean to say waking with a headache and blisters on your feet is not the picture of opulence?”

“It is much more fun to imagine us all playing bridge until we’re sliding under tables, too drunk to keep our seats. Or running amok through the streets of Piccadilly dressed in royal costume.”

“Or gambling away our fortunes,” he followed with a toothy grin.

I laughed because I had no fortune to lose, and because Hugh was at least smart enough not to do as he suggested. Poor lamb worked so hard to prove he wasn’t a dullard. A big blond oaf with gobs of money. If I married him, I could go about town in the latest fashions, ride in fancy cars and dine nightly at the Ritz, but I’d much rather have my mind tingle in delight of someone with a modicum of intelligence than a bursting purse.

“May I cut in?” Mark’s intelligent blue eyes sparkled, a touch on the wicked side, with his blond hair a bit disheveled.

If only he had asked me to wed him, I might have been persuaded to let Hamish slip away. Rakish and clever, he was a friend I could always count on when I wanted to have a rollicking good time, or an ear to divulge my darkest secrets.

Hugh flashed an irritated smile. “We’re not—” he started to argue, but I took my hand from his shoulder and passed it to Mark.

“Now, darlings, there’s plenty of Nancy to go around.” A lie, a bitter lie, for there was barely enough of me for myself.

“I’ve saved you from that half-wit,” Mark said in a conspiratorial whisper.

“We are but a lot of beautiful butterflies.”

Mark looked about him suddenly, then turned back with a wicked grin. “Apologies, for a moment I thought your father had walked into the room.”

“Oh, Mark, you are one of Farve’s favorites, not like the other puppies.”

“Now a question for the witty author. Tell me, dear, who is this hero in Highland Fling based on?” Mark’s eyes skipped about the lively room, coming back to me. “Or is he not in attendance?”

Was it so obvious? Hamish could always draw a crowd—ever the hero. Flamboyant, loud and charming. He was as likely to down five brandies and call for a game of charades as he was to announce they were all going shooting at his family’s castle in Scotland.

Oh, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter One: Nancy Mitford
• Chapter Two: Lucy St. Clair
• Chapter Three: Nancy Mitford
• Chapter Four: Lucy
• Chapter Five: Nancy
• Chapter Six: Lucy
• Chapter Seven: Nancy
• Chapter Eight: Lucy
• Chapter Nine: Nancy
• Chapter Ten: Lucy
• Chapter Eleven: Nancy
• Chapter Twelve: Lucy
• Chapter Thirteen: Nancy
• Chapter Fourteen: Lucy
• Chapter Fifteen: Nancy
• Chapter Sixteen: Lucy
• Chapter Seventeen: Nancy
• Chapter Eighteen: Lucy
• Chapter Nineteen: Nancy
• Chapter Twenty: Lucy
• Chapter Twenty-One: Nancy
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Lucy
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Nancy
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Lucy
• Acknowledgments
• P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
• Praise
• Also by Eliza Knight
• Copyright
• About the Publisher