Page 122 of The Last Library of Paris

‘Tonight,’ said Lara.

‘Absolutely.’ My stomach fluttered with nerves and excitement and relief that we were going to go and put right – hopefully – what had gone so very wrong. ‘What about coming back to Lisbon? We don’t want to end up stuck in Paris.’

‘There’s a return train leaving Paris at nine o’clock on Friday morning,’ he said. ‘That gives us just under a whole day and night to find Frances.’

‘That’s enough time,’ I said, confidently. ‘What do we need to do, Henry?’

‘I’ve reserved two tickets but they won’t hold them all day,’ he said.

‘We need three,’ Lara corrected. ‘I’m coming.’

Henry nodded as though that wasn’t a surprise. ‘Then we need to be even faster. We have to come up with those names as quick as we can.’

‘Characters,’ said Lara.

Henry blinked at her. ‘Pardon?’

‘Not just names,’ she said. ‘We need characters. We can’t travel under the papers belonging to Lady Penelope Potato and then talk like we’re plain old Lara Hope from the Tram Stop Bookshop.’

I chuckled at the thought, while Henry simply looked a little bewildered. ‘Penelope …’

‘Potato,’ I said. ‘It’s Lara’s default name for anyone a bit posh.’

Henry gave a small, confused laugh. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Good. So we need characters.’

‘Ideally we’d have backstories, paperwork, someone in London to verify us,’ I said. ‘But none of that’s going to happen in ten hours.’

‘Especially not if Digby doesn’t know about it,’ Lara pointed out.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘So we need to come up with plausible names and backstories ourselves.’

Lara slid off her chair and stood up. ‘Allow me,’ she said.

‘She’s good at this,’ I told Henry.

Lara was gazing at Henry thoughtfully. ‘You’re Welsh?’ she said.

‘I am.’

‘Do you speak Welsh?’

‘I do.’

‘Brilliant. Is there a middling sort of aristocrat whose title you can borrow?’

‘Hughes is actually a noble Welsh name,’ said Henry.

I shook my head. ‘Hughes is your real name, and it doesn’t sound noble.’

‘Fine,’ said Henry. ‘If a little rude.’

I chuckled.

‘There are quite a few barons,’ said Henry. ‘I could be one of those. And Morgan is a good, strong noble surname.’

‘Good,’ said Lara. ‘Let’s go with some Welsh first name …’

‘My father is Rhodri,’ said Henry.