The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(54)
“What happened to your leg?” Dropping the annoying jokiness, Ferren lowered his head and his hand to investigate her thigh, and right on cue, Sadie appeared on the path through the trees.
In other circumstances, with a different man, and on a day that wasn’t turning to absolute shite, it would be so ridiculous it would border on funny—things going vaudeville on her again—but Freddy wasn’t up for a giggle, and Sadie certainly wasn’t.
Ferren made a little whistling noise when he saw the vindictive expression aimed in their direction, then went straight into self-preservation mode and hopped it. One minute he was there, the next he’d scarpered into the building, and Sadie was right up in her face, close enough for Freddy to see where she’d messed up the left wing of her eyeliner.
With that poisoned-honey voice, Sadie said, “Did I, or did I not, just tell you to keep your distance from Ferren?”
The phrasing was so similar to the infantilising language that Rupert had used in Henrietta’s office that Freddy’s temper finally unravelled. “Oh, go do one, Sadie. Ferren just took one look at you and scuttled back under a rock. Take the hint.”
Sadie grabbed her arm again, and Freddy yanked it free. She was getting very tired of people pulling her in various directions. “I suggest you concentrate on your relationship with Lionel Grimes. The effort/reward ratio is better. Ferren loses most of his money in casinos and he’s not big on advancing anyone’s career but his own. He might wrangle you a bit part in one of his films, but the most women get to do in those scripts is wave their cleavage about and scream during car chases.”
A narrow smile spread across Sadie’s face. “Are you insinuating, ever so delicately, that I have to sleep my way up the career ladder?” She shook her head. “Oh, honey. Pot and kettle.”
Freddy dialled back the force of her response when a rigger walked past them. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sadie curled her red nails, examining them with a studiedly casual air. “I mentioned, didn’t I, that I just did a run of Cymbeline? I was working under Drew Townseville.”
Freddy stiffened.
“It seems to be a popular position.” Sadie looked up through her lashes. “Working under Drew.” There was nothing subtle about the insinuation. “I believe you scored a job with him a few years ago. On High Voltage. Your first big dramatic role, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Freddy said after a pause that felt too long.
“Quite a change for you at the time.” Sadie flexed her claws again. “You’d mostly been doing musicals until then, hadn’t you?”
The world seemed to have narrowed to a tunnel between her and Sadie, paved with the memories she’d buried deep, and it was a shock when a new voice intruded, a production assistant calling Sadie back to rehearsal.
“I’m just coming,” Sadie said sweetly. And, to Freddy: “Anything for the job.”
The breeze was getting up. It blew renovation dust around Sadie as she disappeared inside, and fluttered the skirt of Freddy’s dress. On autopilot, she looked down. She still needed to get changed.
It was quiet and shady on the path to the house, which existed in a bubble of calm between the chaos of people and construction at each end. As she passed the grand old oak that marked the halfway point, Freddy had a crazy vision of being able to climb into the huge knothole in the side and disappear into another world, like in Allegra Hawthorne’s books. A world where parents didn’t foist their own ambitions onto their children, and grandmothers were just little old ladies who handed out sherbet lemons and knitted handmade jumpers, and Sadie Fosters were shoved into cannons and fired off into space. And the revelation of secrets turned out well in the end.
Griff’s parents were still on the east lawn, directing operations for their expensive flight of fancy, but there was no sign of Griff. Fleetingly, as she let herself in through the side door, Freddy covered her eyes with her hand. From physically craving his presence, she was now glad that she wouldn’t have to see him just yet. She felt bruised, like every encounter in the past hour had torn away yet another raw strip of flesh.
In her room, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the Violet and Billy love letter she’d hidden there this morning, while Charlie and Griff had been nursing the car back to health.
She turned it over in her hand, then dropped it on the vanity table.
A headache was starting to spread from the base of her skull up to her temples.
She’d just pulled a silk camisole over her head and was reaching for a clean skirt when a hard gust of wind blew through the side window. The curtain snapped out like a matador’s cloak, and several papers on the tabletop went flying. Even Dorothy’s tornado wouldn’t have moved her brick-like script, but the letter got back at her for her theft by sailing straight out through the open door onto her small balcony.
“Shit.” In her cami and knickers, Freddy scrambled out onto the balcony and looked over the balustrade, then saw the paper lodged in the ivy that ran up the wall. Bracing her foot on the railings, she stretched her arm as far as she could.
Just out of reach.
Cautiously, she pushed on the next rung of the railing, testing its strength. As much as she was growing to love Highbrook, she didn’t trust any part of it not to suddenly crumble. The iron seemed to be solidly bolted, so she stepped up, and, clinging to top-most railing with one hand, reached out over the abyss. It suddenly seemed vitally important to at least accomplish this. She was making a royal fuckup of enough things so far. Her fingertips touched the edge of the letter, and knocked it farther away. With a frustrated noise, she made a snatch for it, her supporting foot wobbling on the rail.