COPYRIGHT

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2014

      Copyright © Elizabeth Edmondson 2014

      First published as The Art of Love in 2008 by HarperCollins

      Cover images © Shutterstock.com Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

      Elizabeth Edmondson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007283705

      Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780008104153 Version: 2016-02-17

      DEDICATION

      For Rosie Buckman

      With love and gratitude

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Part One

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Part Two

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      Chapter Twenty-Eight

      Chapter Twenty-Nine

      Chapter Thirty

      Chapter Thirty-One

      Chapter Thirty-Two

      Chapter Thirty-Three

      Chapter Thirty-Four

      Chapter Thirty-Five

      Chapter Thirty-Six

      Chapter Thirty-Seven

      Chapter Thirty-Eight

      Chapter Thirty-Nine

      Chapter Forty

      Chapter Forty-One

      Chapter Forty-Two

      Chapter Forty-Three

      Chapter Forty-Four

      Chapter Forty-Five

      Chapter Forty-Six

      Chapter Forty-Seven

      Chapter Forty-Eight

      Chapter Forty-Nine

      Chapter Fifty

      Chapter Fifty-One

      Chapter Fifty-Two

      Chapter Fifty-Three

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      Also by Elizabeth Edmondson

       About the Publisher

      ONE

      ‘If I’m not Polly Smith, then who am I?’

      ‘What a profound question,’ said Oliver Fraddon.

      The two of them were standing side by side in a gallery at Somerset House, home of the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths for all the counties of England.

      ‘The world in little, one might say,’ Oliver went on, looking along the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with thousands of large red ledgers that contained the transitions of millions of lives, present and past. ‘All of us written down here, captured, immortalized. Volumes full of names and identities, A to Z, plain and extraordinary. We’re born, we marry — or some of us do — and we die, and each time we are set down on a page in here. A frightening thought.’

      ‘Never mind the frightening thought, what concerns me is that I’m not among those immortalized here,’ Polly said.

      ‘Very true. I suggest we go back to the desk and ask the recording angel for help.’

      He led the way down the metal spiral staircase, warning Polly to watch her step. ‘Or you’ll end up as a new entry under Deaths.’

      The clerk standing behind the long wooden length of the main counter had not a touch of the angelic about her. She wore pince-nez attached to a thin chain and had a harassed air. Oliver addressed her. ‘This young lady seems to have gone missing.’

      The clerk looked at Polly with worried, faded grey eyes, eyes that were kinder than her pinched mouth. ‘Oh dear. Can’t find yourself? Not where you should be? Your name is Smith, you say. Well, there are rather a lot of Smiths, but in the end there’s only one of you. It comes down