The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(81)
Griff closed the door behind him. “Carlton.”
“Ford-Griffin.” Rupert had a way of pronouncing Griff’s name that pushed his mouth into a shape like he’d just smelled a rotten egg.
There was no love lost between them—and this conversation wasn’t going to endear them to each other—but the fact was, this was Freddy’s father. And she loved him.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t quite keep the edge of sarcasm from his voice. “I see you got my message. Eventually.”
Rupert closed his hand into a fist where it rested against the papers on the desk. “I believe you wanted to discuss this aborted film of yours.”
“The film comes into it.” Griff walked over to the bookshelves and bent down, scanning the spines, looking for the book. His own copy was still over in the office at The Henry, but he remembered there being a copy—There. Pulling it from the shelf, he joined Rupert at the desk.
He set All Her World down on the desk in front of its author. “But I think we’d better talk about this first, don’t you?”
Sadie was tormenting Maya again. After absolutely bouncing onto the stage ten minutes late, with such a bubbly attitude that even the telling-off from Maf hadn’t fazed her and Freddy had actually wondered if she was drunk, she’d resorted back to type.
From her position in the stands, Freddy watched with growing concern as Maya pulled at the label of her water bottle, looking close to tears. She’d never seen Maya falling apart like this. She was holding it together onstage so far, but she was a total mess between scenes. God, Sadie had a nasty streak the length of the Nile. And besides everything else, she was jeopardising the whole production by undermining cast morale, and this was going on her CV as well.
Cross-legged, Freddy reached for her own water bottle and a couple of the paracetamol tablets she had left. Her leg had almost healed, but her stress headache was thumping. Fruitlessly, she checked her phone again.
She wondered if her father was even planning to come to the performance tonight.
She heard voices as a group of people came into the rear stalls, and for a moment thought it was Griff, but when she turned, saw Charlie. He was talking to the TV crew, but as he caught her eye, he winked.
Actually—he looked a bit...furtive. Guilty, even.
Freddy frowned, swallowing down her tablets. She could hear the resonance of his voice, but not the words. He did have a similar voice to Griff. It was one of their few physical similarities. Otherwise, you’d never know they were related. Charlie hadn’t been blessed with her favourite nose on the planet, the glorious hooked bridge Griff shared with Violet, and his smile was—
At that moment, Charlie grinned at something the head producer said to him, and Freddy stilled.
It was the most extraordinary sensation, like a veil of fog had been resting over the final piece of the puzzle, and she’d been too blind to see it. With that same buzzing feeling in her ears that she’d experienced in the old nursery at Mallowren Manor, she checked the time on her phone. Fifteen minutes until her next cue.
Long enough.
In a rush of movement, suddenly driven to just know all of it, she hurried across the theatre floor to the side door that led to the rear passageway. As she slipped through it, she caught a glimpse of Charlie looking startled and a bit concerned.
The back hallways were empty, and she made it to Henrietta’s office without anyone stopping her for a chat or to deliver more instructions in the chaotic final lead-up to the performance.
The room felt echoing and eerie in the quiet. In the air above the shattered tile wall, little dust motes were still dancing in the dim light. Griff had left a few scattered materials on the desk, including a stack of books.
Freddy checked the spines and found the one she was looking for. His copy of All Her World.
Sitting down at the desk, she flipped through until she found the chapter that included Rupert’s own childhood recollections of Highbrook. The weeks that he had spent here while his mother was supposedly writing The Velvet Room.
She had forgotten. In the shock of everything, and the confusion, and the increasing performance pressure, she’d forgotten that her father hadn’t just written about Henrietta and the creation of the play in general terms. He’d actually described—
Once she began writing, she sank into the script and didn’t emerge for days. I still remember seeing her there at the desk, hand flying, ink splattering, page after page thrown into a messy pile that would later require meticulous reorganizing. And all the while, that strange little triangular smile on her face. Her expression throughout was part cynicism, part determination—and underlying it, the oddest sense of despair. Even as a child, I felt it as a chilled atmosphere that seemed to permeate the very walls.
Freddy stared down at the page, her fingers resting on two words.
As the numbness cleared, a creeping fury began to sidle in.
She slammed the cover closed, and stormed towards the door.
Outside in the drizzling rain, she passed a few people on her jog down the woodland path, but they all took one surprised look at her expression and gave her a wide berth.
When she reached the house, more cars were rolling into the driveway, and she was forced to stop briefly as the tall man emerging from an Audi hailed her in a deep voice. Fisting her hands to hold back her nervous energy, she stood still as Nick Davenport snapped open an umbrella and came to hold it over both their heads. He was broad-shouldered and long-legged, with dark skin and eyes, and his bone structure was unbelievable. He might have been carved by Michelangelo rather than sprouting from cells like other mortals. The designer of that suit should be paying him advertising commission. He was also a human fox terrier when it came to sniffing out potential stories, and one of the last people on the planet she wanted to make forced small talk with right now.