by Lucy Parker
“Empty the family coffers?” Luc supplied readily. “No, he fell out with Dad when—” He came to an abrupt halt.
Lily eyed him. “I appreciate the hesitation, but if it was over a woman, you can say so without shattering my delicate illusions. My mother was a twenty-five-year-old aspiring lounge singer and Jack was a fifty-year-old married club mogul when I was born. Infer for yourself.” There was a sound from the backseat, but she could just see in the dim light that Bridget was still asleep with her mouth open.
It was so quiet in the car. She could hear Bridget’s snuffling, Luc’s deep, even breathing, and tiny puppy snores. It was relaxing, stroking the silky ears. “I’m his daughter and I love him unconditionally, but he’s not a good husband and his wife shouldn’t have to love him unconditionally. I don’t know why she didn’t file for divorce decades ago.”
She forgot where she was and who she was talking to for a second. The dark stillness seemed to invite confidences and a sense of unreality, like a fifth shot of tequila. It probably ended similarly in oversharing and regret. She sensed his glance burning into her ear and decided to stop rambling while she was behind.
“Jack obviously has an eye, or an ear, for singers.” Luc unexpectedly turned her embarrassing monologue into a dialogue. “He made a pass at my mother and Dad was understandably pissed off. According to Célie, your father was shot down in flames and took it ‘charmingly.’” There was a note of amused affection in his voice when he spoke of his mother, the French classical soprano Célie Verne.
Why had she even begun this conversation? In no profession was it appropriate to air your family’s ancient dirty laundry to the person paying your salary, even if there was something of a memory lane crossover.
He was her boss. She’d had a preview of his drill-instructor, slave-driver approach to direction and was going to be existing under it for weeks. And he thought she was a medical marvel: the amazing walking, unfortunately talking, brainless woman.
All things considered, she still had no idea why she was in his car and not back on the audition circuit. It only underlined the fact that she needed to concentrate on the role and nothing else.
She felt all odd and prickly again.
It was the most bizarre reaction she’d ever had to a man. Not quite antipathy, not just bog-standard physical attraction, definitely not intimidation. She couldn’t define it, and she wasn’t happy about it.
For the remainder of the trip, she kept her breaths shallow. Even as the car was crunching over a long gravel driveway, and polite people were coming out of the glowing facade of an impressive stately home, and she was walking in ghostly footsteps up stone steps where Elizabeth I had once tread, she told herself it was because Bridget’s perfume had made her nauseated in the stuffy heat of the car.
Not because she could smell the warm, spicy undertones of male skin.
*
Luc folded his arm behind his head. It was two minutes past two.
There had been four more construction delays before he’d left the theatre. After an eleven-hour workday, followed by a road trip he could only assume was some kind of karmic punishment, he should have fallen asleep within minutes.
He had to be in the library at nine to make sure the cast played nice. The crew were usually fine. It was the actors who tended to behave like opposing parties in a parliamentary debate, until they found their rhythm as an ensemble and started working off one another.
Dylan Waitely was likely to be the biggest problem. The twentysomething was aging down a decade to play Guildford Dudley, Jane Grey’s husband, but he already had the arrogance and immaturity of a teenager. He was an extremely skilful actor, and unfortunately he had the worst possible temperament to ground that level of ability. He was energetic, hard-working and could put emotive power into any character. He was also entitled, impatient and a cocky little bastard with anyone he considered beneath him. He was going to kick hard against the restraints of a comparatively minor role in a female-dominated play.
Amelia was resident den mother for the company once the casting was final, and she would have her hands full. Of the female cast, Luc was most concerned about Lily, the unknown factor. Bridget’s ego would never allow her to flub her part, and Freddy Carlton, their Jane Grey, was at nineteen already an eight-year veteran of the West End. She never seemed fazed by anything that was thrown at her. He cast her whenever possible; she missed brilliance by a hair’s width, but she was popular with audiences and the safe bet to Lily’s wild card.
Lily, whose voice had been strained with cynicism when she’d spoken of her parents. If Margo had ever revealed that hint of vulnerability, his mind would probably have gone to how she could use it in her performance—because he was that much of a bastard.
His reaction to Lily in that moment had been entirely different, totally inappropriate and a blow to the gut.
He could swear that he still smelled the elusive scent of her perfume.
In a rush of movement, he threw off the expensive coverlet and snapped on the light. It cast a golden glow over a suite that was opulent and luxurious but far too sensual for his current taste. Aston Park was a popular wedding and honeymoon venue, and he could see why. Everything from the California king-size bed to the cushioned bay window and sunken hot tub was set up for endless hours of sex and infatuated cuddling.
He pulled on his discarded trousers and a crumpled T-shirt, then quietly left his room and padded barefoot down the corridor. He’d left the set sketches and character mood boards in the library. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well kill time with unnecessary tweaking of minor details.
The hallways were peaceful until he passed Dylan Waitely’s bedroom door, which was reverberating with moans and squawks. It sounded like half a dozen amorous parakeets had been let loose.
Luc shook his head. He couldn’t care less what his cast did behind closed doors if that was where it stayed, but he was fairly sure Dylan had only been married for about six months. Partners weren’t invited this weekend, so obviously those marriage vows had been given a swift heave out the window. Of course, this was the PR nightmare who’d once ranked his former sexual partners by body type and performance on live radio, so not a massive surprise.
He wasn’t sure why anyone bothered to get married in this business. It wasn’t so much “until death” as “until I don’t feel like it.” Fidelity was no guarantee of a lasting commitment, either. He and Margo shared an identical philosophy on cheating—wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t forgive it—but they’d still come unstuck. After their last-ditch attempt at making it work, Margo had claimed that he would always put work first, that she was the perpetual understudy in his life—and admitted it was the same for her.
She was right. There hadn’t seemed anything left to say after that.
She’d developed stronger feelings for Alberto in one week than she’d had for Luc in eight years. He was human, he had an ego, and it stung. But it didn’t gut him the way it should have, after that many years.
God, he was actually jealous. Not of Alberto. Of Margo, of his chronically devoted parents, of anyone who could inspire that level of feeling.
Caught up in conflicting emotions, he shoved open the library door with enough force that it banged against the frame—and scared the living shit out of Lily Lamprey, who instinctively retaliated by chucking a book at his head. He didn’t duck in time and swore when it caught him full on the chin and thudded to the ground. The noises echoed in the silent house, carried along beautifully by centuries-old stone acoustics, and they both froze.
A few tense seconds ticked by, but no other doors opened within hearing range. Luc exhaled, then bent to pick up the book and glanced at the spine. Jane Austen. He inwardly groaned. In his experience, women didn’t get up in the middle of the night and start reading Pride and Prejudice unless they were in a serious emotional funk. He was in a shitty enough mood himself that he had no patience for patting a histrionic actor on the head.
He
also wasn’t thrilled to encounter Lily at this particular moment. She…jarred with his recent thoughts.
He looked at her properly. She was curled up on a huge window seat, cushions propped behind her back. She wore pyjama bottoms and an enormous fuzzy pink jumper that made her look like a Muppet. Her silvery-blond hair was spiking out in all directions, which he assumed was from being pressed against a pillow, not because she reacted like a puffer fish when startled.
“Holy shit.” She lowered the hand she’d pressed against her chest. “I was this close to needing mouth-to-mouth.”
It was another of those painful moments when unfortunate words seemed to crystallise in the air around them. Luc naturally glanced at her lips. Lily turned bright red and clashed with her jumper.
“Although,” she added, grabbing hold of her nose for moral support, “it would be a little difficult to administer when I keep sticking my foot in there.” She pushed a mess of hair back behind her ear. “Sorry about smacking you in the face with a book. It’s my knee-jerk reaction when something scares the bejeezus out of me. I throw things. Spiders enter my flat at their own peril.”
“Let’s hope no one opens a door when you’re ironing or bricklaying.” His chin was still throbbing. He had no compunction about the sarcasm.
She made a humming noise. “Opens a door. Tries to wrench one off its hinges like The Incredible Hulk. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”
Amelia would be disappointed to learn that his death stare wasn’t infallible. Lily smiled blandly in return.
He tossed back Mr. Darcy and Co., who packed a solid punch for their age, and she caught the book neatly and laid it on her lap.
Despite his resolve to collect the mood boards and leave her to it, he heard himself asking, “Can’t sleep?”
She shook her head. She was tracing patterns on the book cover with her fingertips; he found it difficult to look away. “First-night nerves a little early.” She snorted softly. “I don’t know why I tell you these things. It’s not exactly going to instil confidence, is it?”
“I’d rather you were honest, so I know where we are.” He meant “you” in a widespread, all-members-of-the-company context, but it came out completely singular and personal.
Jerkily, he walked over to the desk where he’d left the mood boards. He lifted the displays for the principal character costume designs and the first three scenes of Act One.
“Oh.” There was a rustling noise as Lily got up from the window seat and padded over to him. “Is that—Can I see, or is it confidential?”
Her hair was tickling his jaw. He moved away, but tilted the boards where she could see them. “We’ll be presenting them for the cast and crew tomorrow.” He glanced at the grandfather clock by the fireplace. “Later this morning.”
Lily bent closer to examine the drawings for her costumes. Her hand came out, fingertips hovering an inch away from the fabric samples.
“You can touch.”
She looked up with a quick smile before she stroked the royal blue velvet. “Beautiful.” She studied the first-scene mock-up. “That’s weird. It’s a completely different visual, so why does it remind me of the procession scene you did for The Armada?”
He looked at her speculatively. “The basic layout is almost identical. Well spotted. Even the design team haven’t realised that.”
“Well, I did see The Armada about five times. Unapologetic theatre buff. Actually, I went so many times that the Digital Mail posted some crap story that I was having a fling with Adrian Blair.” She straightened, and they ended up nose to nose. “I wasn’t.”
Her eyes were deep brown, almost black, and shadowed with fatigue.
She frowned a little.
His brain suggested that the natural course of action was to reach out and smooth it away, and what the everlasting fuck.
This wasn’t him.
He wasn’t his brother. He didn’t make a dick of himself running after women half his age. He wasn’t even attracted to younger women as a rule; they tended to be at such a different place in life that there was no connection.
Although most women he spoke to went all out with the gushing and lash-fluttering, in the hope he might be bowled over by their star quality and give their career a leg-up.
Lily usually looked as if she’d rather knee him in the balls.
Apparently he found that an attractive quality, since his mind was continuing down inappropriate channels, telling him that her monster jumper looked very touchable and he’d probably quite enjoy nuzzling her neck.
Her eyes skated away from his. “I should go back to bed.”
Fuck, he hoped his face hadn’t reflected his thoughts.
He nodded. “You’ll have to keep a regular sleep schedule throughout the run or you’ll burn out. Best to start now.”
That equally applied to him, at least for pre-production and rehearsals, which she would obviously like to retort.
“Right,” she said, with just a hint of meaning. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They moved at the same time, and she collided with him for approximately the twentieth time since they’d met. They were like a couple of bloody magnets. He discovered for himself that her jumper was incredibly soft, and that his body control regressed about twenty-five years when her breast momentarily flattened against his ribs.
“Good night,” she said in a strangled, warm rush of breath to his collarbone, and disappeared out of the room like she’d been propelled from a slingshot.
She’s on your payroll. And she was probably watching the Muppets while you were blocking your first show. You fucking pervert.
Luc bent his head, shoved his fingers through his hair, and swore.
Chapter Four
Lily crashed into a solid male torso and hit the ice with a thump. Suddenly, the cushioned bubble-butt leggings Freddy Carlton had insisted she borrow—not so embarrassing. This would have been the last time she could sit down for a week otherwise. The lively teen had turned up at her bedroom door after lunch with “arse-saving products” and was clearly a genius.
She could almost feel Luc’s scowl from here. He had not been a happy bunny this morning when his casting director, Amelia, suggested they all try out the private skating rink on the grounds. A muttered conversation had devolved into a furious, whispered spat, with stray sentences thrown out of the kerfuffle: “…already lost one idiot to broken legs…” and “…such a killjoy, they’ll be fine…”
Amelia had finally turned her back on him and announced with a smile, “There’ll be a hot chocolate bar and outdoor fires. Try not to snap any limbs or die of hypothermia. Enjoy!”
A large hand appeared in front of Lily’s face. She grabbed it and let Dylan Waitely haul her to her feet. As she should have expected, he refused to let go, so she was left wobbling on the spot, trying to shake him off like a stubborn piece of cling film.
“Still playing hard to get?” he asked, grinning, and she was glad she wasn’t playing Jane Grey, because even standing next to him onstage was likely to be a trial of uninvited groping. Poor Freddy.
She had seen Dylan recently in Singin’ in the Rain, her favourite musical, and he’d been so good that she’d been looking forward to meeting him. The reality was a let-down.
“Still married?” she returned, and managed to free her hand.
Dylan shook his head sadly. “And here I thought seducing other people’s husbands was your forte, lovely.”
“Yes, well, I’m not really a man-eating homewrecker and you’re not really a puddle-dancing Gene Kelly. Life is full of these small disappointments.”
Luc appeared at the fence nearby. There were snowflakes caught in his hair, so that he appeared to have aged a few more years in the past half hour. When she’d woken after three hours of sleep and stumbled groggily to the lush velvet drapes, the countryside had been transformed into a glistening whiteout. This was, bar none, the nicest place she’d ever stayed. The grounds around her father’s home in Chesham were beautifu
l too, but she rarely even visited there. As a young child, she’d followed her mother on tour; in her teens, she’d gone to a surprisingly fun city boarding school. When she’d spent holiday weekends with Jack, it had been at the London flat he kept for business guests.
She might have had a tiny Elizabeth-Bennet-at-Pemberley moment while walking down the grand staircase this morning.
“Have you hurt yourself?”
She liked the way he phrased that, just to emphasize that it was her own fault if she had. He sounded slightly concerned, but probably had thoughts of recasting for a third time, with an additional level of difficulty. Two Elizabeths down with shattered limbs would generate jinx rumours. She could imagine how impatient he’d be with theatre superstitions. He probably stalked around backstage bellowing “Macbeth” at the top of his lungs.
“No. Not at all.” She almost mentioned her well-padded backside but caught herself in time. She had no verbal filter around him. Her instinct was to blurt out whatever came into her mind, which was not only out of character, because she’d been burned enough times in the media to be guarded around strangers, but unlikely to be appreciated. His picture was situated under “workaholic” in her mental dictionary. Right under her father’s image, slightly above her mother’s. If it wasn’t directly related to the production, she doubted he wanted to know.
Anyway, it seemed like a bad idea all round to mention her arse in front of Dylan. He’d already tried to cop multiple feels of it while she was toasting marshmallows in the outdoor fire, and had almost added a skewered testicle to his never-ending store of anecdotes.
Luc narrowed his eyes.
“Really. Not even a bruise. I won’t be limping around rehearsals.”
“You could,” Dylan said. “Bridget has her gyp knee. There’s room for all sorts of imaginary ailments.”
She bit the end of her thumb to cover a smile. “I think I’ll go back inside for a while, though. It’s getting a bit chilly.”