Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  I’m about to reply when we turn into the driveway of my parentsʼ house. It’s something of a spread, all white columns and twining ivy and gray stone. There’s a fountain in the center of a circular gravel driveway. Lisbet, just fourteen, is lying in the grass reading a book. My elder sister, Mona, appears at the sitting-room window, and I see her peer at the car and then turn and call over her shoulder, probably to our other sister, Therese.

  I realize that if I stay where I am I’m going to get mobbed by the whole family. Why are you in the car with Monsieur d’Estang? What happened to you? You fell? Oh, Evie, how funny you are! Everyone, come and look.

  “Well, thanks for the lift!” I cry, grabbing my shoulder bag and jumping out of the car.

  Lisbet looks up from her book as I scurry past. “Who’s that?”

  But I just push into the house and run upstairs. It’s not until I’m standing in my bedroom with my back against the door that I remember I’ve left all my books and notes in Monsieur d’Estang’s car.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Drinks!”

  My father’s voice is a roar up the stairs. I glance at my phone: six thirty. He’ll have been banging around in the kitchen for the last hour and will want everyone to come and have a gin and tonic before we eat. I pull off my T-shirt and shorts and yank the first sundress I lay my hand on over my head.

  Lisbet, Mona and Therese are occupying all the good spots in the sitting room when I go in, and they’re arguing about whether this year’s Dancing with the Stars contestants were as good as last year’s. Monsieur d’Estang is standing in the door to the kitchen, his back to us, talking to my father.

  “He was rubbish, Lisbet,” Mona is saying. “The producers wanted to keep him on because he’s weird, and weird means ratings. Don’t look at me like that, Evie said it.”

  Lisbet turns her red-cheeked glare on me as I sink into the scratchy embroidered chair by the fireplace. “Sorry, Betty-bun.” I did say that, but mainly because I was miserable about Adam and it felt good to be nasty about a stranger.

  I wait for my sisters to screech at me about falling down in front of Monsieur d’Estang’s car, but they don’t so perhaps he didn’t tell them.

  Mum comes in through the French doors, pulling gardening gloves off her hands. “Frederic, I didn’t know you were here.” Monsieur d’Estang turns around at the sound of his name and breaks into a smile. My mother is attractive and blonde, and her eyes are very blue. She kisses him on both cheeks. “How simply wonderful. Are you staying the week?”

  “Just a day or two, if I may. I have to be back in Paris on Monday.”

  Lisbet’s voice rises in outrage in defense of her favorite dancer, and Mona and Therese laugh.

  “Keep it down to a dull roar, you lot,” Dad says, coming in. Then cheerfully to Monsieur d’Estang, “I’m sorry for the dreadful gaggle of women in this house. Everyone’s come home to roost for the summer holidays.”

  “Not at all,” Monsieur d’Estang replies, smiling round at us.

  Mona and Therese give him coquettish glances. It’s so easy for some people, flirting. I finger the scrape on my knee, trying not to think about Adam. The scrape hurts. I press it harder.

  “Have you all got drinks?” Dad asks. “Mona, Therese, Evie?”

  They ask for gins. I ask for sparkling water.

  “Go on, have a proper drink,” Therese urges me.

  “I have to write later,” I say, accepting the water from my father. Out of the corner of my eye I see Mona roll hers.

  Therese looks up at Monsieur d’Estang. “Dad says you’ve been cast in a new production. What is it?”

  He turns to her with a smile. “I’m playing Rochester in a new musical production of Jane Eyre.”

  I look at him from beneath my lashes. Well, he’ll be perfect. Stormy, dark features, penetrating eyes and high cheekbones. He’s in a crisp white shirt now, but I can just imagine his broad figure in a frock coat and his legs in leather riding boots. Musically he’ll be good too. His singing voice can rattle windows with fury or caress with love.

  Mona frowns at me. “You’ve read that book, haven’t you, Evie?”

  About a thousand times. “Oh, that book. Yes, I should think everybody’s read that book.”

  “Evie loves that—” Lisbet begins.

  “A musical adaptation, that’s different,” I say. “What made you interested in the part?”

  Monsieur d’Estang accepts a gin and tonic from my father. “It’s just such a different sort of role for me. When I was a young man I was called elfin and allowed to grow my hair out and play romantic leads. But then someone noticed what an excellent scowl I have, and my face began to harden with age, so they sheared off my curls, et voilà.” He sweeps his hand in a little flourish. “I am a villain. And, I thought, typecast for life. So it was a surprise, and a pleasant one, to be invited to play a romantic hero once more.”

  I’ve seen photographs of Monsieur d’Estang as a very young man, and he was elfin, but very striking all the same. I think about the role and whether you could call Mr. Rochester, so driven by his passions, so contemptuous of the laws of society and the Church, a hero. “Some would say Mr. Rochester is a villain,” I muse out loud.

  He tilts his head to one side. “Oh, that’s interesting. Would you say so?”

  I’m not used to being asked to speak my opinion out loud in this house, and certainly not about something as achingly dull, as Mona would say, as nineteenth-century literature. “I don’t know,” I say, plucking at a loose thread on the side of the chair. “Maybe.”

  We all finish our drinks and are herded into dinner. The talk is dominated by my father and sisters, particularly Mona and Therese. Mum and I eat and listen, and Lisbet, who hates being left out of anything, tries desperately to edge herself into the conversation.

  “And what do you all do when you’re not summering here?” Monsieur d’Estang asks us.

  Lisbet tells him about her dressage ribbons and Therese her law degree. Then Mona brings up her upcoming audition with an opera production company in London, and the talk inevitably becomes music-focused.

  Finally Monsieur d’Estang turns to me. “You’re a writer, Evie. What are you working on?”

  Therese cuts across me. “She ghostwrites autobiographies for old ladies and things.”

  Thanks, Therese. You make it sound so interesting. She catches my baleful look and opens her eyes wide in a well, you do expression.

  “Now, there’s a thought,” Dad says to Monsieur d’Estang. “Your Canadian agent emailed me yesterday and said he’s been trying to convince you to write your memoirs. Get Evie to do it for you,” he says, laughing. “She can cast a good sentence.”

  Monsieur d’Estang gives him a tight smile. “Martin told you that, did he?”

  Oh, Dad, shut up, please… I’m counting the number of weeks until the university opens again when Mona’s phone buzzes. An email has just come in. She’s got the audition she was hoping for. “God, it was like, the most perfect thing. I saw the director in a café so I went in and I just started singing. No hello or anything, I just burst into the aria and then left her my email address.”

  Dad purses his lips, but his eyes are glimmering with amusement. “My daughter. I have to work with these people, you know.”

  Tapping a reply into her phone, Mona mutters, “What? It worked, didn’t it? You understand, don’t you, Monsieur d’Estang?”

  I’m fairly certain Monsieur d’Estang always had too much class to make a twit out of himself like that, but he just smiles and says, “Anything for a part.”

  After dinner Lisbet goes straight to the living room and hunts through the DVD collection for one of Monsieur d’Estang’s recorded performances, which she’s never been interested in before. She chooses The Phantom of the Opera. I know it well. The man who plays Raoul is romantic in a bland sort of way. The Phantom, played by Frederic d’Estang, is manic, bold and powerful.

  Lisbet’s mouth is open as
she watches him on the screen. I’m familiar with the sensation she’s feeling: She’s in the early throes of her first proper crush, an innocent, naïve infatuation that will cycle from daisy-plucking to wistful diary entries and back again.

  Little idiot, I think, and stalk upstairs.

  Chapter Two

  Frederic

  “Now, Frederic. About that memoir.”

  I accept the tumbler of whisky from Anton, but my heart sinks. That again. Martin promised he wouldn’t talk about the book deal he’s negotiating with the Canadian publisher with anyone. I know what he’ll say if I complain. Anton isn’t just anyone, he’s your British agent. I suspect he told Anton about the book so there’d be someone else to nag me to do it.

  “What about it?” The casement windows are open and the scent of daphne is wafting in on the night air. I was just starting to relax but now I feel on edge again.

  Anton sinks into the armchair next to mine. His youngest daughter—Lisbet, I think her name is—is watching Phantom on the television on the other side of the room. She’s cross-legged on the carpet, and I would find her rapt attention sweet if I couldn’t hear myself singing.

  Anton gives me an arch look. “I sense you’re not keen on the idea.”

  “I’m not,” I say heavily.

  “It would sell.”

  “That doesn’t make it a good idea.”

  Anton grins. “Tell that to Martin. No, but seriously, why don’t you like the thought of a book?”

  If I tell Anton the truth, he’ll ask a hundred more questions that I can’t answer. What can I say instead? “I don’t know. Who wants to read me banging on about my stage career for four hundred pages? I did this, I did that.” In a way that’s the truth, or at least a secondary truth. And I’m too young to publish an autobiography. I’m forty-one. I haven’t done everything that I want to do yet. “And it’s not like I can even write.”

  “Then hire someone to write it for you.”

  I grimace. “That would be worse. I’d have to read someone putting words in my mouth.”

  Mona comes in and plops herself on the sofa behind her sister. Bored and hot, she seems to cast about for something to do. After a moment she scoops up a handful of Lisbet’s long hair and starts working it into a complicated braid.

  Anton sips his whisky, thinking. “Do a biography then. Third-person. Someone interviews you and the people who know you best and writes it up. All the dirt along with all the bragging. I’m sure any biographer worth their salt could dig up a few dozen people who hate the very sight of you. It’s what’s called a balanced view, I hear.”

  “People in the theater world who hate the sight of me? Oh, easily. The problem with a biography, though, is how do you end it? I’m not dead.”

  Anton waves this away. “Oh, that’s the writer’s problem. They’ll figure something out, and it doesn’t need to be flashy. Marianne Faithfull’s book ends with a recipe for chicken.”

  It’s not the writer’s problem. It’s mine. I have no idea what happens next.

  Mona’s been half listening to our conversation, it seems, because suddenly she turns to us. “Honestly, get Evie to do it. She knows your career back to front and she’s read every character you’ve ever played. She could probably write half of the book off the top of her head.”

  Anton gives me an appraising look.

  More to put an end to the conversation than anything else, I say, “Have you got anything she’s written?”

  Mona thinks for a moment. “Good question. All her ghostwritten books must be at college because I haven’t seen them here. She’s so private about that stuff. There’s probably something on her hard drive…” She makes an exasperated face, as if asking her sister about this is more trouble than it’s worth. Then she brightens. “I know! Give me your email address and I’ll send you a link.”

  Anton digs his phone out of his pocket. “I’ve got his address, Mona. I’ll send it to you now.” Once he’s done this and laid his phone aside he looks back at me, thoughtful. “Why is Martin so keen for this to happen? Why now?”

  I consider whether to tell him. I should tell him, as he’s going to find out sooner or later. But an irrational fear grips me. You have to get on the stage in this country in a few months’ time. Do you really want to speak it aloud? I thought I was immune from silly theater superstitions, but it seems I’m not.

  “Wants his cut, doesn’t he?” I say, forcing a smile. “Been talking about getting a holiday house for the last year. Then he comes up with this book idea.”

  Anton grins. “That sounds like Martin.”

  Once I’ve finished my whisky I head upstairs. It’s very still outside, not even the slightest breeze stirring the net curtains on this hot, sticky night. I check my email on my laptop and see that Mona has sent me a link. I click through and frown at the screen. I’m not sure what I’m looking at. There’s a list of pieces and their characters and word counts. A name catches my eye. That’s curious… I click through and start to read.

  Two hours later I sit back, bewildered and amused. Evangeline Bell. Who would have thought?

  Closing the laptop, I ponder things for a moment. The book’s a pain in the ass but it’s not going to go away. Maybe, with Evie, I’ve found a way to make it a worthwhile project after all.

  SOFT LIMITS is available now in Ebook and Audiobook

  Also by Brianna Hale

  LITTLE DANCER

  PRINCESS BRAT

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you first and foremost to Huw, who’s with me through the good, the bad, the tears and the laughter, and who’s always got my heart.

  Thank you to Antje who read this book countless times and through several versions, one of which brought us together as friends and resulted in many jaunts around London and Paris together. Thank you for all your sensitive feedback and corrections. Thank you for correcting my German, too, and any language errors that still exist in the book are all my own.

  Thank you to Melinda for your invaluable insight and feedback.

  Thank you to Marcin for telling me all about growing up behind the Wall.

  And thank you finally to the Berlin crew, who let me tag along on their weekend and without whom I would never have had the inspiration to write this book.

  About the author

  There's nothing Brianna Hale likes more than a large, stern alpha male with a super-protective and caring streak, and when she's not writing about them she can usually be found with a book, a cocktail, planning her next trip to a beautiful location or attending the theatre. She believes that pink and empowerment aren’t mutually exclusive, and everyday adventures are possible. Brianna lives in London.