by Lucy Parker
Did she actually think that? Concerning lack of judgment.
He eyed her dispassionately for a moment before enquiring, “Are the popped shirt buttons and visible bra an essential part of the Oxford persona? Because I think we’ve come close enough to being kicked out on our arses with Jocasta’s tea. I’m fairly sure semi-nudity is—”
She squawked and shot back to a normal sitting position. Her hands flew to her buttons and discovered them all in place. “You unutterable git. I thought I had my tits out in an annex of the Bodleian.”
“Hallelujah.” Luc leaned back in his own chair. “Normality returns. Retire the character and act like a human being. And this is an undergrad haunt. You know at least one person has had their tits out in the stacks.”
Lily looked scandalised.
Tongue in cheek, he handed her a slim, battered text from the pile next to him. “Why don’t you try to relax with an improving book?”
She turned it over to see the title. When Less is More: The Art of Silence and the Power of the Non-Verbal. Without having read one page, she nailed the entire concept with her response.
“Vulgar hand gestures,” he said piously, “are also frowned upon in the Bodleian.”
When the overly intense student glared at them, she had to turn her laugh into a low cough.
The art of silence gradually became quite relaxing as they sat waiting for Jocasta. Luc stretched, easing the tight muscles in his back and neck, and Lily’s gaze moved over the shelves and balustrades.
“My mother is an Oxford grad,” she said after a while. “So is my father’s wife.” Her lips moved, but the expression couldn’t remotely be described as a smile. “One of several things they have in common.”
God, he wanted to touch her. “Do you have a relationship with Lady Charlotte?”
“We’ll make brief eye contact if we meet in public. Sometimes she’ll nod. You can’t blame her. If my husband got another woman pregnant, particularly the year after I found out I couldn’t have kids myself, I’d slowly extract his testicles with a pair of rusty nail clippers.”
“I’ve been cheated on, myself. Can’t say I went to criminal and quite impressively disgusting measures, but it’s not a good situation. For anyone.”
Lily hesitated. “Was that—” She cut herself off. “Sorry. Fuck. Don’t answer that. None of my business. And probably a really raw wound.”
For God’s sake. Did everyone read the tabloids like mindless, gullible sheep?
He sighed. “Margo didn’t cheat on me.” Lily looked as if she wasn’t sure whether to believe him or just humour him. He’d run the gamut of “I’m fine” to “no comment” to “fuck off” so many times over the past weeks that it felt odd to just talk about it. “Our relationship was a failing proposition for at least four years. We were just too busy to devote enough time to calling it quits.”
Which was…pathetic. He hadn’t realised how pathetic until he’d spoken it aloud.
If you lived with a person for eight years and you couldn’t honestly say they were more important to you than bricks and bills and scripted words—It was a fairly damning indictment. On both the relationship and his own character.
“A ‘failing proposition’?” Lily repeated quietly, and he couldn’t read the intonation or her expression.
Pity?
An instant internal rebellion against that, from her, caused him to snap his response. “It was initial attraction, it was lust, it was a meeting of common ground. Then it was…habit.”
“And PR magic.” That edge of cynicism was back in Lily’s voice, and he lifted an eyebrow.
“I don’t think that was high on the list of priorities. I respect Margo. I admire her. I think she’s one of the greatest stage actresses London has seen in centuries. But our personal relationship should have ended a long time ago. It wasn’t—” He stopped. “I’m glad Margo has found something that’s…enough.”
After a brief hesitation, Lily’s fingers closed over his, and the fact that she’d voluntarily reached out to comfort him made him wonder about the state of his face.
A new voice, crisp and perfectly articulated, acted like the proverbial bucket of cold water. “‘Somebody’s been sitting in my chair, growled the Papa bear.’”
Lily snatched her hand away so quickly he almost heard the snap.
“Luc Savage. Always the highlight of my work calendar.” Jocasta Moore looked at him critically from under a droopy red felt hat. Wisps of grey hair stuck out and seemed to quiver, as if they had an independent energy source and were reaching for him like faded tentacles. Her protuberant, incredibly pale blue eyes swung to focus on Lily. She stuck out a hand, heavy with rings on her thumb and every finger. “And this must be my next victim. Jocasta Moore, vocal specialist. If I take you on, you’re either going to kiss my feet in a few weeks’ time or want to slit my throat.”
He gave Lily credit for not looking as if she wanted to bolt for the door yet. Jocasta was an acquired taste, but she was good enough at her job that she could be as eccentric as she liked. Regardless, he found himself doing that ridiculous piece of sexist crap again, taking a step closer to Lily. To protect her from the tiny little old lady.
Lily returned the handshake. “Lily Lamprey. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
Jocasta’s thin grey brows shot up. “Oh, dear.” She turned her pale gaze on Luc. “I’ll take her.” As if she were selecting a cut of meat at the butcher’s counter. “I do enjoy a challenge.” To Lily, she said, “I hope you’re a hard worker.”
Lily looked resigned, but her chin lifted. “I am.” Her voice was firm. Still better suited to the adult film industry than the West End stage, but determined.
“Good-oh.” Jocasta stood by the desk and tumbled her books and papers into an untidy pile. “Did I leave a cup of tea here?”
“It was confiscated,” Luc said. “Hot drinks and open cups are probably grounds for hanging, drawing and quartering.”
“What a bother,” Jocasta said crossly. She turned to make shooing motions at them. “Well, let’s go. No time to waste.”
“Are we having a lesson right now?” Lily sounded taken aback. “What about your things?”
“Darling, nobody would dream of moving them.” Jocasta said it with a sense of uncaring entitlement that Holly Golightly would have envied. From under the desk, she produced a red umbrella that probably ought to have been left downstairs as well. She gave Lily a gentle prod with it. “And of course we’re having a lesson now. Have you heard yourself, my petal? The play opens in how many weeks? Five? Four? Good Lord. I can see I’m going to have to relocate to the bowels of hell.”
“Could you not poke her like she’s stray cattle, thanks?” Luc said mildly. “And do I need to remind you exactly how much I’m paying you for an all-expenses stay in London? You’ll have enough money to vegetate here for most of next year, doing research into dead dictators and terrifying viral diseases, and God knows what else.”
Jocasta’s response was just as placid. “For all of next year, I think you’ll find, my dove. You didn’t quite mention the extent of the problem. My fee just went up considerably. And don’t swear. It’s the Bodleian.”
Lily, despite her obvious embarrassment at Jocasta’s brutal analysis, gave him an I-told-you-so look at that last admonishment. He grinned.
Jocasta’s ramshackle little home was within walking distance of the campus, but the rain was coming down in sheets now, so they took a taxi. The streets were decked out for Christmas, but were currently a wet blur.
Jocasta lived in a semi-detached brick cottage that looked perfectly normal on the outside and like something out of Charles Dickens inside. Dust and books predominated. Lily was visibly fascinated. She’d folded her arms, so he assumed she was restraining the urge to touch things. He could have told her that Jocasta wouldn’t mind if she examined every knickknack in the house. The elderly woman had no conception of personal space and privacy, as Lily would shortly discover.
>
Jocasta glanced at one of the many clocks. There were at least seven in the living room alone, and the out-of-sync ticking would have driven him demented. He wasn’t tidy either, but there was mess and there was living in the decor of a backstreet junk shop.
“No time for tea. I assume you’ll be back to London tomorrow? I’m surprised you could tear yourself away from the theatre overnight. Are you intending to take this one back with you?” She was still referring to Lily as if she were a possession.
“This one,” Luc said, “probably has a horrific death scene to film at the CTV studios, so I won’t be abandoning her to your tender care, no. I’ll need you in London by Thursday.”
Jocasta looked annoyed but didn’t argue—wisely, given the rise in salary she’d just granted herself. Carelessly, she kicked aside a number of objects, clearing a space in the centre of an Arabian rug, where she paced around Lily in a circle, her eyes shrewd and focused.
“Put one hand on your throat,” she said without ceremony, “and the other on your belly.”
Luc sat on an overstuffed armchair and settled down to observe. Usually he would have his phone in hand and be halfway through clearing his inbox by now. He trusted Jocasta to do her job. The fact that he was more interested in what was happening in the room than in what was happening back in London spoke of things he was determined to ignore.
Lily did as instructed, and continued to follow Jocasta’s barking orders for the next hour and a half without complaint, not making a lot of audible progress but obviously trying. Jocasta took her through body and vocal warm-ups, teaching her flow phonation, doing breathing exercises that transferred from voiceless to voiced fricatives on single breaths.
“What’s going to be most important is taking out that breathy quality. You need to move the focus of sound forward. Say ‘Monday.’”
“Monday.” Lily had been slightly self-conscious at first, but now seemed to have forgotten Luc was in the room.
“Low effort in the throat and larynx, and high effort in the stomach and front part of the face. Mmmmmmmonday.”
“Mmmmmmonday,” Lily repeated dutifully, and they could all hear the difference in tone.
Jocasta smiled for the first time. “Good,” she said simply. “We’ll get there yet. We’ll have another session on Thursday, and then I want to meet with you for at least an hour every day during the rehearsal period. You’re going to have to work your backside off.”
Lily looked at Luc at last, including him in her emphatic reply. “I will.”
Jocasta was eyeing Lily with approval now. It was the same look of affection that she bestowed on her pet rabbits. Luc tended to receive a very different stare. More like the one he’d seen her direct at the small boys next door who liked to lurk around corners with Nerf guns.
“When I tell you to breathe into your abdomen, you move your hand closer to your stomach.” Without turning, Jocasta addressed Luc. “Come and stand here for a moment. I need distance to observe.”
He raised his eyebrows at the tone, which reminded him strongly of an old headmaster he’d had, but got up and came to stand in front of Lily. He could smell the vanilla scent of her perfume again.
“Put your hand, palm out, about an inch from her belly.”
He hesitated, and Jocasta shot him an impatient frown.
Slowly, he pushed up his sleeves and reached out, holding his palm close to Lily’s body.
“Lily, repeat the last two sentences of the monologue, and breathe deeply enough into your stomach that you press against his hand. Don’t move an inch,” Jocasta snapped at Luc. She retreated to the edge of the rug, watching with critical eyes.
Uncomfortably, Lily began to recite the lines.
“Deeper,” Jocasta warned.
Softness touched and then pressed into Luc’s palm, retreated, and returned. He could feel the warmth of her beneath the silky wool of her jumper. On the fourth inhalation, his fingers moved involuntarily, just a stroking inch, closing slightly against her middle. Lily shivered and stuttered. Luc dropped his hand abruptly and moved away.
“Hmm,” Jocasta said drily. “You’re obviously not an ideal assistant.”
As if nothing odd had occurred, she waved her finger at Lily. “I’m putting you on a course of vocal hygiene. I know you’re not a smoker, but no alcohol either, of any kind. No spicy food, dairy, caffeine or chocolate, or anything that could cause reflux.” Lily had looked appalled when Luc had warned her of that imminent ban, but now seemed too flustered to care. “And take care of your voice. Between periods of active practise, rest. For several hours a day, starting with the rest of today, don’t speak above a whisper or don’t speak at all.” Jocasta shot Luc a darkling glance. “No matter how provoking he can be, I’m afraid you’re going to have to master the talent of winning an argument without raising your voice.”
She then added without warning, “And if you’re very vocal during sex, you’ll have to tone that down too. I’m not having all of my hard work undone because Savage is an unlikely provider of multiple orgasms. Although, in my extensive experience, the handsome ones are usually duds. Too preoccupied with admiring their own bits and pieces to worry about yours.” She looked between them. “Interesting. An absolutely identical expression of horror. I know they say couples start to look alike, but this seems exceedingly quick. You can’t have been together that long. Last time I saw you,” she said to Luc, who was struggling to find adequate words, “you were still cohabiting with Margo. Very unsuitable match. Excellent voice, though.”
It was Lily who found speech first and even had the strength of mind to follow her new regime. “Luc is my boss,” she whispered. Her cheeks were on fire. “We’re not involved that way. Although I’m sure he’s not a dud,” she unfortunately felt compelled to reply in his defence.
“If you say so.” Jocasta checked her clocks again. “Time to feed the rabbits and myself.” She ignored Lily’s continuing embarrassment and Luc’s dangerous silence. “We’re all having greens. I don’t think I have enough for two extra.”
Luc closed his eyes and summoned all reserves of patience. “We have reservations at the hotel for dinner. Thank you anyway.” Once more, he felt no remorse about the sarcasm.
Jocasta didn’t bother with protracted, polite goodbyes. She managed to fling them out on her doorstep in about ten seconds, warning Lily to wrap her scarf about her throat before she closed the front door on them.
It seemed wise to follow Jocasta’s cue and ignore the past few minutes. “You did well.” That was terser than he’d intended. “She’s right. There was minor improvement at the end, and I think you’re going to make progress fairly rapidly once you get into the routine.”
Lily’s cheeks were still pink. “I hope so,” she said in that very soft tone that was entirely different from her usual breathiness, and which was having an interesting effect on certain “bits and pieces” of his body. “I want this.”
There was a quality in the words that echoed his own sentiments about the Queen Anne. He understood that kind of desire and ambition, and he nodded.
“And I don’t want to be the weak link in the production.”
His gaze turned level. “There’s never a weak link in my productions.”
That wasn’t supposed to make her smile.
*
The hotel Luc had booked them into was very old-world and beautiful. Lily left her things in a comfortable bedroom before joining him in the restaurant. They made it through three courses with no eye contact and very little conversation.
Her gaze fixed on the central Christmas tree. It was at least ten feet tall and ablaze with fairy lights and glistening baubles. The pianist at the baby grand in the corner was playing an instrumental arrangement of “Silver Bells,” it was all very mellow, and Lily had never felt less relaxed in her life.
She was stuck in a continuous replay of the session with Jocasta. Her head was full of techniques and critique. Breathing exercises. Muscle release. Luc�
�s prowess in the bedroom.
A dud. She somehow didn’t think so.
A small group of people approached their table, startling her out of her preoccupation.
“Excuse me.” One of the young women cleared her throat. “Are you Lily Lamprey? From Knightsbridge?”
Lily glanced at Luc apologetically. It was a gesture she’d made countless times on dates. Not that this was a date. Oh God, just shut up. “Yes.” She managed a smile. “Do you watch the show?”
“Oh my God,” said the other girl. “Yes. We’re, like, your biggest fans. Could we have your autograph?”
“And would you mind if we took a photo?” asked her friend.
Lily was always happy to take the photos and sign anything that wasn’t a body part, and would have done it even if it wasn’t a sensible PR move. The studio came down hard on anyone who was caught out being rude to fans. It was just preferable if it didn’t happen while she was out with someone—anyone—else, who also ended up having their evening disrupted.
“Of course.” She signed the backs of the receipts they immediately thrust at her, and posed between them while their boyfriends dutifully took their phones and snapped the photos.
“Thank you so much,” gushed one of the girls, while the other chipped in with “You’re so much nicer than I thought you’d be! You’re such a bitch on TV. It’s awesome.”
Lily thought she heard a muffled sound from Luc, but held on to the smile until the group departed, the girls chattering about how amazing it had been to meet her.
They were still within earshot when one of the guys said dismissively, “What’s the big deal? She’s probably dumb as fuck.”
“With that face and those tits, who cares?” the other guy said jokingly. “Like you wouldn’t fuck her.”
Maybe not boyfriends, then.
Lily heard that sort of thing so often and was so distracted tonight that it hardly registered. She would have gone back to eating her fruit salad if Luc hadn’t stiffened so visibly. He actually started to rise from the table, and Lily shot out an alarmed hand.
The tabloids were already full of false allegations; it would hardly help the cause if he beat the crap out of two stupid kids in a posh restaurant.
