The Austen Playbook

by Lucy Parker

  “Violet collected illuminated manuscripts.” Griff tucked his hands back into his pockets as he turned, taking in the full effect, and Freddy remembered that small cluster of books in the Highbrook library.

  As he spoke, the moon came out from behind a cloud.

  And as the silvery light hit the walls, it seemed to sink into what Freddy realised were countless embedded fibres, and the entire scape of murals suddenly gained the illusion of a rich, plush texture that defied the crumbling plaster beyond. She could swear that if she reached out her palm, she’d feel the smooth nap of fabric rather than the cold rasp of paint.

  The Velvet Room.

  Her gaze fell on the small snapshot on the mantel. Walking over, she picked it up, already suspecting what she would see.

  Violet stood beside a young man with messy hair, a pleasant face, and dancing eyes. The dark bob of her hair was familiar, the nose was very familiar, but here there were no hidden shadows and the gaze that looked out of the picture was happy.

  Griff’s hand came to rest on Freddy’s hip.

  Setting the photograph back in place, she reached into her bag and felt for the folded piece of paper that was still safely tucked into her planner. Carefully, she tucked Violet and Billy’s letter behind the snapshot.

  “Thank you for not completely vilifying Henrietta in the film script,” she said quietly, and turned to look up at Griff.

  “In Violet and Billy’s story, Henrietta was the antagonist.” Griff smoothed back Freddy’s hair, his touch very gentle. “And she made some extremely questionable choices. But she wasn’t a villain. It’s the same with everyone, isn’t it? We’re all a hundred different things at once. A different person to everyone who knows us. And there are very few people we’ll ever love and trust enough to let them have—well, as much of the whole of ourselves as another person can know.”

  Their hands twisted together.

  Her words were still barely a thread of sound when she said, “I think you let me know you.”

  “Yes.” His brief response was a murmur against her mouth as he kissed her.

  The easy passion between them flared hot and...well, hard, and Freddy dragged enough of her mind back to remember where they were. “I think we’d better hit the pause button until we get home,” she muttered into the kiss.

  He lifted his head with a muffled sound. “Stop pushing your hips into me, then.”

  Teasing, she gave him one last nudge with her pelvis. “‘Is that a ring in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’”

  It was a direct quote from Anathorn, and she expected Griff to recognise it.

  She did not expect every muscle in his body to go stiff.

  Pulling away, frowning, she looked up into his face, and her breath caught. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “Freddy. Jesus.” Griff rested his hands on his hips and glowered down at her. For the most part, he was a dedicated film producer now, but at this moment: full-on Grumpy Critic in the house. “There’s candlelight and champagne waiting at home. I was not planning to ask you in an attic. Albeit a very nicely decorated attic.”

  “Oh my God.” She’d turned into a stuck record, and her hand went to her mouth as, with an enormously resigned expression, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a light blue, appropriately velvet box. When he opened it, the moonlight had something else to sparkle on.

  And it was fucking huge.

  “Frederica Carlton.”

  “Well, that’s not a good start, is it?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Freddy.” Griff looked more annoyed than ever.

  “Better.” Finally managing to draw in a deep, shaking breath, Freddy shoved her left hand at him, and he caught it automatically.

  “There was a little more to come.”

  “Oh, sorry.” She started to pull her hand away, but he held on, and reluctantly, his grin broke through.

  He shook his head, then cupped the back of hers and tugged her up on her tiptoes to smack a hard kiss on her mouth. “Oh, fuck it. I love you like hell, you brilliant, beautiful, exasperating woman.” Her eyes stung when she realised that the hand holding the ring box was ever so slightly unsteady. “You’re the light of my life, and I can’t imagine a future without your infuriating presence front and centre.”

  Freddy held on to his wrist, shaking much harder than he was.

  The hand on her head moved to her cheek, and Griff’s thumb rubbed gently. “Marry me?”

  Her response was very simple. “Yes, please.”

  He kissed her again, then broke away to press his lips to the sensitive spot on her neck, where he spoke in a tone so ardent and husky that she didn’t initially register the words. “We’ll bring it full circle. You can walk down the aisle to Springsteen.”

  He twisted away from the swift movement of her foot, and she remembered that she’d once wondered what he would look like when he laughed.

  Diamonds in the moonlight had nothing on it.

  * * *

  To find out about other books by Lucy Parker, and to sign up for her newsletter to be alerted to new releases, please visit Lucy’s website at www.lucyparkerfiction.com.

  This just in: romance takes center stage as West End theatre’s Richard Troy steps out with none other than castmate Elaine Graham.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Act Like It

  by Lucy Parker.

  Chapter One

  London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 10h

  West End actor Richard Troy throws scene (and a plate) at the Ivy...goo.gl/Pr2Hax

  Almost every night, between nine and ten past, Lainie Graham passionately kissed her ex-boyfriend. She was then gruesomely dead by ten o’clock, stabbed through the neck by a jealous rival. If she was scheduled to perform in the weekend matinee, that was a minimum of six uncomfortable kisses a week. More, if the director called an extra rehearsal or the alternate actor was ill. Or if Will was being a prat backstage and she was slow to duck.

  It was an odd situation, being paid to publicly snog the man who, offstage, had discarded her like a stray sock. From the perspective of a broken relationship, the theatre came up trumps in the awkward stakes. A television or film actor might have to make stage love to someone they despised, but they didn’t have to play the same scene on repeat for an eight-month run.

  From her position in the wings, Lainie watched Will and Chloe Wayne run through the penultimate scene. Chloe was practically vibrating with sexual tension, which wasn’t so much in character as it was her default setting. Will was breathing in the wrong places during his monologue; it was throwing off his pacing. She waited, and—

  “Farmer!” boomed the director from his seat in the front row. Alexander Bennett’s balding head was gleaming with sweat under the houselights. He’d been lounging in his chair but now dropped any pretence of indifference, jerking forward to glare at the stage. “You’re blocking a scene, not swimming the bloody breaststroke. Stop bobbing your head about and breathe through your damn nose.”

  A familiar sulky expression transformed Will’s even features. He looked like a spoilt, genetically blessed schoolboy. He was professional enough to smooth out the instinctive scowl and resume his speech, but with an air of resentment that didn’t improve his performance. This was the moment of triumph for his character and right now the conquering knight sounded as if he would rather put down his sword and go for a pint.

  Will had been off his game since the previous night, when he’d flubbed a line in the opening act. He was a gifted actor. An unfaithful toerag, but a talented actor. He rarely made mistakes—and could cover them better than most—but from the moment he’d stumbled over his cue, the additional rehearsal had been inevitable. Bennett sought perfection in every arena of his life, which was why he was on to his fifth marriage and all the principals had been dragged out of bed on their morning off.


  Most of the principals, Lainie amended silently. Their brooding Byron had, as usual, done as he pleased. Bennett had looked almost apoplectic when Richard Troy had sauntered in twenty minutes late, so that explosion was still coming. If possible, he preferred to roar in his private office, where his Tony Award was prominently displayed on the desk. It was a sort of visual aid on the journey from stripped ego to abject apology.

  Although a repentant Richard Troy was about as likely as a winged pig, and he could match Bennett’s prized trophy and raise him two more.

  Onstage, Chloe collapsed into a graceful swoon, which was Richard’s cue for the final act. He pushed off the wall on the opposite side of the wings and flicked an invisible speck from his spotless shirt. Then he entered from stage left and whisked the spotlight from Will and Chloe with insulting ease, taking control of the scene with barely a twitch of his eyelid.

  Four months into the run of The Cavalier’s Tribute, it was still an undeniable privilege to watch him act.

  Unfortunately, Richard’s stage charisma was comparable to the interior of the historic Metronome Theatre. At night, under the houselights, the Metronome was pure magic, a charged atmosphere of class and old-world glamour. In the unforgiving light of day, it looked tired and a bit sordid, like an aging diva caught without her war paint and glitter.

  And when the curtain came down and the skin of the character was shed, Richard Troy was an intolerable prick.

  Will was halfway through the most long-winded of his speeches. It was Lainie’s least favourite moment in an otherwise excellent play. Will’s character, theoretically the protagonist, became momentarily far less sympathetic than Richard’s undeniable villain. She still couldn’t tell if it was an intentional ambiguity on the part of the playwright, perhaps a reflection that humanity is never cast in shades of black and white, or if it was just poor writing. The critic in the Guardian had thought the latter.

  Richard was taunting Will now, baiting him with both words and snide glances, and looking as if he was enjoying himself a little too much. Will drew himself up, and his face took on an expression of intense self-righteousness.

  Lainie winced. It was, down to the half sneer, the exact same face he made in bed.

  She really wished she didn’t know that.

  “Ever worry it’s going to create some sort of cosmic imbalance?” asked a voice at her elbow, and she turned to smile at Meghan Hanley, her dresser. “Having both of them in one building? If you toss in most of the management, I think we may be exceeding the recommended bastard quota.” Meghan raised a silvery eyebrow as she watched the denouement of the play. “They both have swords, and neither of them takes the opportunity for a quick jab. What a waste.”

  “Please. A pair of blind, arthritic nuns would do better in a swordfight. Richard has probably never charged anything heavier than a credit card, and Will has the hand-eye coordination of an earthworm.”

  She was admittedly still a little bitter. Although not in the least heartbroken. Only a very silly schoolgirl would consider Will Farmer to be the love of her life, and that delusion would only last until she’d actually met him. But Lainie had not relished being dumped by the trashiest section of London Celebrity. The tabloid had taken great pleasure in informing her, and the rest of the rag-reading world, that Will was now seeing the estranged wife of a footballer—who in turn had been cheated on by her husband with a former Big Brother contestant. It was an endless sordid cycle.

  The article had helpfully included a paparazzi shot of her from about three months ago, when she’d left the theatre and been caught midsneeze. Farmer’s co-star and ousted lover Elaine Graham dissolves into angry tears outside the Metronome.

  Brilliant.

  The journo, to use the term loosely, had also complimented her on retaining her appetite in the face of such humiliation—insert shot of her eating chips at Glastonbury—with a cunning little system of arrows to indicate a possible baby bump.

  Her dad had phoned her, offering to deliver Will’s balls on a platter.

  Margaret Ward, the assistant stage manager, paused to join the unofficial critics’ circle. She pushed back her ponytail with a paint-splattered hand and watched Richard. His voice was pure, plummy Eton and Oxford—not so much as a stumbled syllable in his case. Will looked sour.

  Richard drew his sword, striding forward to stand under the false proscenium. Margaret glanced up at the wooden arch. “Do you ever wish it would just accidentally drop on his head?”

  Yes.

  “He hasn’t quite driven me to homicidal impulses yet.” Lainie recalled the Tuesday night performance, when she’d bumped into Richard outside his dressing room. She had apologised. He had made a misogynistic remark at a volume totally out of proportion to a minor elbow jostle.

  The media constantly speculated as to why he was still single. Mind-boggling.

  “Yet,” she repeated grimly.

  “By the way,” Margaret said, as she glanced at her clipboard and flagged a lighting change, “Bob wants to see you in his office in about ten minutes.”

  Lainie turned in surprise. “Bob does? Why?”

  Her mind instantly went into panic mode, flicking back over the past week. With the exception of touching His Majesty’s sacred arm for about two seconds—and she wouldn’t put it past Richard to lay a complaint about that—she couldn’t think of any reason for a summons to the stage manager’s office. As a rule, Robert Carson viewed his actors as so many figureheads. They were useful for pulling out at cocktail parties and generating social media buzz, but operated beneath his general notice unless they did something wrong. Bob preferred to concentrate on the bottom line, and the bottom line in question was located at the end of his bank statement.

  Margaret shrugged. “He didn’t say. He’s been in a bad mood all day, though,” she warned, and Lainie sighed.

  “I could have been in bed right now,” she mused wistfully. “With a cream cheese bagel and a completely trashy book. Bloody Will.”

  On the flip side, she could also still have been in bed with Will, enjoying the taste of his morning breath and a lecture on her questionable tastes in literature. From the man who still thought To Kill a Mockingbird was a nonfiction guide for the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ set.

  Life could really only improve.

  On that cheering thought, she made her way out of the wings and backstage into the rabbit’s warren of tunnelling hallways that led to the staff offices. The floors and walls creaked as she went, as if the theatre were quietly grumbling under its breath. Despite the occasional sticking door handle and an insidious smell of damp, she liked the decrepit old lady. The Metronome was one of the oldest theatres in the West End. They might not have decent seating and fancy automated loos, but they had history. Legendary actors had walked these halls.

  “And Edmund Kean probably thought the place was an absolute dump as well,” had been Meghan’s opinion on that subject.

  Historical opinion was divided on the original seventeenth-century use of the Metronome. Debate raged in textbooks as to whether it had been a parliamentary annex or a high-class brothel. Lainie couldn’t see that it really mattered. It would likely have been frequented by the same men in either instance.

  Personally, she voted for the brothel. It would add a bit of spice to the inevitable haunting rumours. Much more interesting to have a randy ghost who had succumbed midcoitus than an overworked civil servant who had died of boredom midpaperwork.

  Aware that Bob’s idea of “in ten minutes” could be loosely translated as “right now,” she headed straight for his office, which was one of the few rooms at the front of the theatre and had a view looking out over the busy road. Her memories of the room were associated with foot shuffling, mild sweating and a fervent wish to be outside amid an anonymous throng of shoppers and tourists heading for Oxford Street.

  “Enter,” c
alled a voice at her knock, and she took the opportunity to roll her eyes before she opened the door.

  Her most convincing fake smile was firmly in place by the time she walked inside, but it faltered when she saw the two women standing with Bob.

  “Good. Elaine,” Bob said briskly. He was wearing his usual incorrectly buttoned shirt. Every day it was a different button. Same shirt, apparently, but different button. He had to be doing it on purpose. “You remember Lynette Stern and Patricia Bligh.”

  Naturally, Lainie remembered Lynette and Pat. She saw them every week, usually from a safe distance. An uneasy prickling sensation was beginning to uncurl at the base of her neck. She greeted Pat with a mild unconcern she didn’t feel, and returned Lynette’s nod. She couldn’t imagine why the tall sharp-nosed blonde was here for this obviously less-than-impromptu meeting. She would have thought her more likely to be passed out in a mental health spa. Or just sobbing in a remote corner. Lynette Stern was Richard Troy’s agent, and she had Lainie’s sincere sympathies. Every time she saw the woman, there was a new line on her forehead.

  It was Pat Bligh’s presence that gave Lainie serious pause. Pat was the Metronome’s PR manager. She ruled over their collective public image with an iron hand and very little sense of humour. And woe betide anyone who was trending for unfortunate reasons on Twitter.

  What the hell had she done?

  She was biting on her thumbnail. It was a habit she had successfully kicked at school, and she forced herself to stop now, clasping her hands tightly together. She had been in a running panic this morning to get to the Tube on time, and now she wished she’d taken time to check her Google alerts.

  Nude photos? Not unless someone had wired her shower. Even as an infant, she had disliked being naked. She usually broke speed records in changing her clothes.