The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(43)

“If you were putting me out, I would say so,” Wanda said, and she probably would. She even favoured them with a smile before she bustled out “to check there were enough Brussels sprouts.”

“I think she’s grateful for the company,” Freddy said, and Griff propped his hands on his waist and released an annoyed breath.

“Yes. If the conman at the garage finds that the spark plugs have mysteriously disappeared, we’ll know what she was doing in the driveway.”

Despite everything, Freddy couldn’t help smiling. “I hope you weren’t this rude to her face.”

“She thinks I’m very personable.” He returned her stare. “What?”

“Acting lessons with Freddy. I am now demonstrating ‘boggled.’ This is my boggled face.”

By the time Arthur served them a very delicious roast dinner in a very scary dining room, the fog had grown even thicker.

“Did you call Highbrook?” Freddy asked, trying not to keep making eye contact with the stone gargoyle head on the wall.

Griff picked up his wineglass. “I spoke to Charlie. The weather’s packed up at home, too. The Littlebourne Fog has got ambitious reach today.”

“Pity you weren’t getting some location shots. Very atmospheric.”

“Indeed. Eventful things often happen during the fog. It descended the weekend of the house party in question,” Wanda said through a mouthful of potato, and added unexpectedly, “Many a love affair has begun under cover of the Littlebourne Fog.”

Freddy’s eyes met Griff’s over a vase of poorly looking roses. He quirked a brow, and she was horrified to feel herself blush. She hadn’t blushed around men since she was sixteen, and now it was becoming a regular occurrence.

Fortunately, Griff chose to exercise some tact and changed the subject, asking Wanda the question Freddy had been wondering all day. “Why did the affair between my grandfather and Henrietta Carlton end, do you know? Who broke it off?”

“George did,” Wanda said, categorically. “Henrietta was furious about it. It was probably the first time she’d ever been thwarted in something she wanted.”

“So she did still want him.” Griff rubbed his thumb lightly along his jaw, and Freddy could practically hear the gears whirring as he slotted new information into place. “Why did he end it?”

“I imagine the infatuation wore off enough that he got a clear glimpse of her personality. It was a clean break, by all accounts, but not a pretty one. To my knowledge—” which Freddy guessed would be extensive on any matter of scandal “—neither of them ever spoke of the other publicly again.”

“That suggests something quite dramatic,” Freddy said, and her voice sounded odd. She laid down her fork. “Something must have gone badly wrong.”

Griff’s laser attention moved to her, with a flicker of a frown.

“Probably a small nonsense that got blown out of proportion.” Wanda placed an entire yam in her mouth. “George was the unforgiving type, and Henrietta was good at stirring up trouble.”

Yes.

Or taking advantage of it, perhaps.

As the old house creaked and the wind blew the fog closer around them, Freddy could feel the basic roots of her life starting to tear free.



Chapter Nine


Wanda kept them up talking trivialities and plying them with brandy until close to midnight. Freddy tried a few subtle yawns, and then Griff managed, in about thirty seconds, to pack the woman off to bed in her own house and make her think it was entirely her own idea.

“I find you a fairly frightening person sometimes,” she said on the landing outside the little bedroom that poor, overworked Arthur had made up for her.

Griff stood leaning against the wall of the hallway, hands tucked into his pockets, somehow still immaculate even after several trips outside. Freddy had gone out for a total of three minutes to see what it was like and had come in with a ball of frizz on her head that made her look like a shocked poodle. He’d done a bad job of concealing his amusement.

“Likewise,” he said now, and the word fell into an atmosphere that had been increasingly taut ever since the comment about romantic interludes in the fog. He regarded her with a deep, dark frown in his eyes before he turned on his heel and headed for his own room.

She was still awake an hour later, lying curled up on the hard mattress, listening to the rain on the roof. It was a sound she usually loved, but that level of soothing wasn’t going to cut it in her current frame of mind.

With a sigh, she turned over, her legs tangling in the sheet, making her feel frustrated out of proportion with the minor annoyance. She lay for another few minutes, hands spread on her ribcage, trying to do the deep breaths they preached about in the yoga class that Sabrina occasionally dragged her to in Notting Hill.

Yoga was not one of her more successful hobby attempts. She was not Zen.

In a sudden rush of movement, she threw off the covers and reached for the dress she’d left draped over a carved chair. Best not wander about the house in her bra and pants. If Wanda caught her, she’d probably be disapproving of anything less than a wimple when there was A Man in the house. Two, counting Arthur, although it was a push to imagine anyone seeing him as A Potential Seducer. Poor bloke.

Her footsteps seemed to be very loud in the hallway, but nothing was going to drown out the snoring that she hoped wasn’t coming from Griff’s room. It was like a deep-sea drill.