The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(83)
She looked at her father again.
If he’d known that Griff knew the truth—Griff, the nominal head of the family with a rightful claim to The Velvet Room, and all the money and prestige that came with it—she could see now why he’d been MIA all week.
Absent, like Violet, who had simply been allowed to fade out of existence. The amazing Invisible Woman, whom nobody could ever remember when they named the members of the Wythburn Group, who had supposedly achieved nothing, had an impact on nobody.
A woman who’d been such a biting, witty, beautiful writer that she’d penned one of the greatest dramatic works in a hundred years. A woman who’d loved and been loved so hard that a portrait painted after her death resonated off the canvas with the force of her lover’s grief.
“You described Henrietta’s office in the book,” Freddy said quietly, and Rupert pushed a hand through his tumbled curls, an uncharacteristically uncertain gesture. “There’s a poignant passage where you talk about feeling ‘the oddest sense of despair’ in that room. And you describe her triangular smile.”
Walking forward to where he stood at the desk, she picked up one of the few close-up photographs of Violet. She turned it around so Rupert had to meet Violet’s gaze. “Her triangular smile,” Freddy said again. “Henrietta had a heart-shaped face, so it’s a reasonable description of her smile, at a stretch. But Violet—” Griff’s great-aunt had deep dimples and a cleft in her chin, and when she smiled, her lower face compressed into the distinct, carved-out lines of a triangle. “Griff’s brother has that same smile.” Freddy carefully set the photo down. “I read it back. That whole section where you described the actual writing process. You never once use Henrietta’s name in the action sentences. It’s always ‘she.’ You saw Violet writing the play that summer, didn’t you?”
A second of silence ticked into another, and then another. It seemed an interminable time before her father answered. “Even now,” he said, his gaze returning to the photo, “I can see her smile in my mind, but the rest of her face is always a blur. She seemed such a...nonentity.”
The tragedy of Violet Ford’s life. Fortunately, not everyone had seen her that way, and she’d died with the security and comfort of knowing herself loved. Knowing that she was strong enough to fight for that love.
“It’s so hard to believe she was responsible for the brilliance of The Velvet Room,” her father murmured, his eyes momentarily glazed, looking back into the past. Then they sharpened as his attention returned to Freddy. “Your grandmother read the draft while Violet was still alive. I heard them discussing it. She was so enthusiastic about it, was determined to star in it when Violet sold the performing rights.”
Suddenly, Rupert’s mouth quirked wryly. “Mam didn’t recognise herself in the play.” It had always been an eye-blink moment when Rupert used that term for Henrietta, the only time—then—that she was suddenly humanised from the glowing golden idol of Freddy’s childhood to a real woman, with multiple sides to her personality, just like everyone else. “It wasn’t until critics started wondering if the play was partly autobiographical that she realised how personal the satire was. She wasn’t too pleased. I think she saw it as partial justification for what she’d done. Like Violet owed her something.”
“When did she decide to take the play and pass it off as her own?” Griff cut bluntly through the pause that followed, his dark eyes still on Freddy. He’d pushed his fists into his trouser pockets, and she could see the outline of tense knuckles through the fabric.
Rupert’s face hardened momentarily, but...well, the Carltons were on shaky ground in this tale, and there wasn’t a lot to take umbrage about. Facts were facts. “I don’t know. When we returned to London after that summer, my mother was still involved with George. He was besotted with her.” Slowly, he added, “He could be very charismatic. I remember being fond of him for a while.” He shook his head. “And then, not long after, came Violet’s accident. Mam came here, to Highbrook, for the funeral, and I remember when she came back she was excited. Anxious. More temperamental than usual. A few months after that, an announcement for The Velvet Room appeared in the papers. A new play by Henrietta Carlton, the West End’s most successful actress.”
“And the Wythburn Group’s most rubbish writer, it seems.” Griff effectively put paid to any budding sentiment. “I assume my grandfather wasn’t too pleased about the new Carlton script?”
“He ended the affair.” Rupert actually sounded annoyed on Henrietta’s behalf, but even when Freddy had thought she’d be the one delivering the revelations about this, she’d never imagined her father would suddenly renounce Henrietta. She was his mother. Freddy’s grandmother. The Ford-Griffins weren’t the only ones with a strong instinct to protect family. That was the core of the whole problem.
“Did he never speak to her again?” she asked, and her dad made a dismissive movement.
“For all intents and purposes. Mam was never one to take rejection lightly. And she had a tendency to fixate on a particular person,” Rupert said, with no awareness of irony. “She raged and stormed, but George was set in his decision. He’d keep quiet about what she’d done, but he couldn’t continue their relationship. For all his infatuation with Mam, all the attention he lavished on me, he was able to walk away very easily. I saw his face when he left the flat that last day. He was like stone. It didn’t upset him in the least.”