The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(11)

Freddy had successfully avoided working with Sadie for the past few years, which was no mean feat in the tiny inner sphere of the West End, especially when they were signed to the same agency.

She wouldn’t use the word hate. She didn’t throw that around lightly. She strongly disliked Sadie.

Strongly.

Lisa. Mate. A little heads-up on the final cast would not have gone amiss here.

Freddy pulled her phone out of her bag on the pretext of having to take a vitally important and nonexistent call, which could not be interrupted under any circumstances, and realised there were still twenty-five minutes until the scheduled cast meeting.

With this team, there were going to be enough provoking moments over the next few weeks. She wasn’t racking up the first ones in the boiling heat.

She glanced uncertainly back at the main house, where a staff member had shown her to a bedroom in the left wing. Odds that she’d remember how to get back there without wandering into the wrong room and invading the Ford family’s privacy? Slim. The staircases were twisty and confusing, and she’d been distracted by some very questionable carvings on the railings. Highbrook looked like a typical posh, grade-II-listed mansion on the outside, but seemed to be full of small pockets of lurid eroticism, and she no longer had any trouble imagining Henrietta and the former Ford patriarch going mad for each other. Evidently, Sir George Ford had been more of a mirrored-ceilings-and-furry-handcuffs chap than a tweeds-and-pipe man.

That was the brilliant thing about life. It was never what you expected.

Freddy walked in the direction that was instinctively tugging her closer. Any theatre felt like a second home to her, but she was itching to see this one. The Henry was divided from the house by a thick line of trees, but she could hear the sounds of construction. Lisa had said the renovations would be complete before rehearsals began, which gave them about eighteen hours to wrap things up. Considering that redoing her London flat had taken five weeks longer than the builders had estimated, she’d be seriously impressed if the construction firm had cleared out by the morning.

Coming out of the shadow of the tall oaks, she stood for a moment, admiring the theatre. Amidst the fields and trees and wildflowers, the square stone structure rose into four turrets, the exterior walls dotted with arching windows. It was as if someone had shrunk the White Tower and plunked it down in the Surrey countryside. She half expected to hear jousting and trumpets rather than hammers and drills.

It was one of the most over-the-top things she’d ever seen. Photos didn’t do it justice. She loved it.

The entrance was still boarded up, but she found an open door behind a balustrade, and followed a winding corridor until she came back out into the sunshine in an open courtyard, and was hit with the full splendour of the stage.

It was wooden, and had been polished and varnished to a high shine. Stairs led up from the open stands in front, and ornate pillars held up the false proscenium. In her mind, she could already hear the echoes of feet stepping across the boards and projected words carrying up to the box seats above.

With her hand to her lips, she turned in a full, happy circle, taking in the atmosphere. It felt...warm. Comforting. Like good memories could be made here.

She could put up with a script the size of the Oxford English Dictionary and Sadie’s strychnine tongue for the opportunity to perform here. Breathing in deeply, she inhaled the weirdly attractive combined scents of paint and wisteria. She closed her eyes, feeling far, far away from the creeping stresses of the city and the weight of history and expectation. She just...enjoyed.

How lucky was the Ford family, to be able to come here any time they liked.

Her momentary peace was interrupted by a crash, followed by a very creative curse that she was going to steal and use at the soonest possibility. As the distinctive voice registered, her brows shot together and then lifted.

Ford.

No way...

Walking around a column, she peeped gingerly into a small room, the function of which was undetermined. There was some sort of cage situation going on in the corner, which suggested either a menagerie or a sex cave. Either seemed feasible on this property.

And, standing on a ladder, one of her very favourite things in life, a handsome man nailing stuff.

Apparently Highbrook was now owned by Sir George’s grandson, who had a reputation for being an uncompromising, despotic dickhead.

She ought to have made the connection based on that description alone.

After the initial surprise, Freddy recovered the ability to speak. “Did you accidentally take a wrong turn on your way to a meeting at the bank?” she asked politely, and the critic who had every performer in the West End shaking in their tap shoes turned his head sharply to look over his shoulder.

When he saw her, J. Ford-Griffin’s lips flattened and thinned, and his whole body seemed to withdraw with an intense, deeply psychological sigh, like a doom prophet steeling for the incoming apocalypse.

Look at that, her mere presence could make a man’s entire being go instantly flaccid. As superhuman powers went, she didn’t really rate it up there with invisibility and flight.

“The bank?” He eyed her like she’d just arrived to repossess the property.

He could breathe easy on that one. As much as she coveted his theatre and his flowers, she had a plan for her first proper house and it didn’t involve fellatio carvings on the stairs.

“I’ve never seen anyone do DIY in a tie.” Freddy glanced at the beam he was fixing, then walked over and bent to grab another handful of nails from the bag at the foot of his stepladder. She held them up for him, and after a pause, he took one and drove it into the wood with one vigorous bang of his hammer.