The Austen Playbook

by Lucy Parker

  Maf performed a rapid assessment, decided that Freddy needed medical attention but wasn’t likely to pass out, and dispatched someone to fetch the production medic.

  “He’s gone into the village for lunch.” It was Charlie who came up the steps to the stage, his handsome, freckled face concerned. He bent over her. “You all right, Freddy?”

  She found a smile for him. “Don’t look so serious. Coming from you, it makes me feel like amputation is imminent. When’s the medic coming back?”

  “We’ve sent someone after him, but in the meantime I went for the next best option.”

  “Which is?” Her cautious query was answered when the door into the arena opened and Griff strode in, looking even stonier than he had earlier with his mother.

  “Someone’s had an accident?” His grim voice carried over the quiet hubbub on stage, and he must have got a reply, because he pushed through the milling cast—most of whom were complaining about when they were going to get their own lunch—and came up the steps to crouch at her side.

  He was a model of efficiency, and she wouldn’t have expected anything less. He moved one of her hands aside to see the wound, glanced around for the culprit—technically the screwdriver, although pain made Freddy cranky and she nearly pointed a blood-stained finger in Sadie’s direction as well—and then tilted Freddy’s face up. Despite the tension brewing behind his measured movements, his touch was consistently gentle.

  And yes, for a moment she did think he was going to kiss her. Totally justified reaction. On the rare occasions a man moved her chin about with his fingers, he followed up with another body part. Usually but not always his tongue.

  In the next instant, when she caught on to the fact he was just checking her pupils to make sure she hadn’t bumped her head, or whatever the rationale behind peering into people’s eyes when they’d taken a tumble, it occurred to her that if they hadn’t been surrounded by two dozen of her colleagues, she probably would have kissed him back.

  “You need stitches,” he said, and nobody questioned it, although the diagnosis wasn’t even backed up by a fictional medical degree this time. He picked Freddy up, keeping a supportive hand under her injured thigh, and stood.

  Her face was suddenly very close to his, and she was looking at the teeny, tiny flecks of caramel brown in his dark eyes. He was frequently rude, definitely a Slytherin, and clearly viewed her as a sort of irritating insect who kept buzzing around his space, but there was something very reassuring about his solid warmth when she hurt. Slipping one arm about his neck for stability, she curled in, just a little, and let her forehead rest tentatively against his shoulder. She felt muscles flex and the stirring of his breath when he briefly looked down at her, but he didn’t jostle her away, as she was half expecting.

  “Where are you going to put her?” Charlie asked, as if she were a parcel, and Freddy opened one eye to see that he was watching them with a strange expression. Intrigued? Baffled?

  “I’m taking you to the clinic in the village.” Griff addressed her directly, rather than responding to his brother. “At least it’s a sterile environment, and you won’t end up with heatstroke. It’s like a bloody sauna in here.” He looked impatiently at the hovering stage manager. “Why aren’t you using the ventilation system?”

  There was a moment of dead silence and uniformly blank looks.

  Freddy felt the movement of Griff’s deep exhale. “There’s a temperature control panel backstage to regulate the air on the stage. As the point of the renovations was to provide a safe workplace, it was one of the first things your construction crew fixed. If you don’t want half your cast dehydrated after one day of rehearsals, I suggest you turn it on, and use the roof.”

  “There’s a roof?” one of the riggers asked, looking up and shielding his eyes against the blinding glare.

  “No, when it rains, we just turn the place into a giant paddling pool. Of course there’s a roof.” Exasperated, Griff said to his brother, “Next time you invite dozens of people onto the property, give them a proper debrief on how to use the space. I’ve got enough on my hands without actors expiring in the garden. And find out who left that screwdriver lying about.”

  If Sabrina had used that tone of voice on her, there would be at the very least some strong bristling, but Charlie was either the most easy-going person in the world or really had missed his calling as an actor. He simply saluted and patted Freddy on the head.

  But before he ambled off to show the backstage crew how to activate the theatre’s hidden comforts, she saw a momentary flicker in his eyes.

  On the short drive to Highbrook village, Freddy kept one clenched fist pushed tightly against her thigh above the cut, which Griff had covered with a temporary bandage, and her eyes fixed on the scenery out the side window. “You’re pretty rough on Charlie, aren’t you?”

  She could feel Griff’s glance sear into her cheek. “Picked up another member of his fan club, has he?”

  “Don’t sneer.” She turned her head and looked at him. “He’s your brother, not one of us hapless peeps you’re paid by the word to squash.”

  “Charlie’s fine,” Griff said dismissively. “He’s unsquashable, to put it your way. And considering that the stream of hassle he causes appears to be never-ending, he couldn’t care less about my opinion. I’d reserve your sympathy. Charlie will never have a problem rebounding in life. His business sense is atrocious, but his personality is his biggest asset and he knows how to use it.”

  “How very cynical.” Freddy watched him soberly. “I don’t think Charlie uses anything. He just is what he is—and I highly, highly doubt that he doesn’t care about your opinion.” She hesitated, wondering just how far she could push social boundaries on a subject that was none of her business, with a man she barely knew yet.

  Whatever—she’d never claimed restraint in social situations, and she was in pain. “Just like you obviously care enough about your family to keep rescuing them from their bad decisions.”

  Griff’s eyes met hers. Right now, there wasn’t a hint of warm amber; they were relentlessly, coldly obsidian. “Do you always make extremely personal comments on other people’s relationships?”

  “Quite often, yeah.” Freddy rubbed the heel of her hand up and down, trying to cut off as much sensation as possible. “Are you jealous?”

  “Of your insufferable nosiness? Not particularly.”

  “Of Charlie.”

  Griff didn’t respond, but the line of his jaw could slice through steel, and the knuckles of his left hand flexed on the wheel as if he was imagining it was her neck.

  “Because you don’t need to be.” Freddy returned her attention out the window. “I’m starting to think you might be okay. In your own way.” Muttering, she added under her breath, “If you dig down quite far.”

  His car was well-sprung and there was almost no road noise, so she could hear the faint sound of his breathing, and the way the rhythm altered for just an instant.

  The GP’s clinic was a beautiful stone cottage next door to the pub—handy, if anybody drank themselves into alcohol poisoning or weaved unsteadily into a lamppost. Someone had phoned ahead, and the doctor was expecting her. He was a burly, handsome man in his forties, with sparkly eyes and a full beard. He looked more like a mountain climber or an Antarctic explorer than a village doc. He joked good-naturedly with Freddy while he examined her leg, and she returned the favour with a little too much enthusiasm. Things had got so unsettling in the car with Griff that she felt back in her comfort zone. Light-hearted, meaningless banter.

  Dr. Adams gave her a tetanus booster. As he disposed of the needle, he looked through thick brows at Griff. “Must be chaotic over at the estate, if you’ve got a TV crew in situ and a film crew on the way. Is that still in the works? The film at Highbrook?”

  “A few scenes will be at Highbrook. The majority in London.” Griff was standing b
y the bed, looking a tad murderous. He’d been emitting increasingly dark, dangerous vibes ever since he’d laid her down on the hard plastic. “I won’t ask how you know about that.”

  Adams grinned, undaunted. “You know how the grapevine works around here.” He brought a sutures kit over to the bed. “Right. Time to be brave, I’m afraid.”

  Freddy had gritted her teeth through the tetanus shot, but she felt nauseated even thinking about someone sewing her like a ragdoll. She’d never had any kind of surgery, and was a baby about pain. She did have pride, though, so she gave the sexy doctor a tight smile and hid her hand under her skirt so she could wind a tight grip into the fabric.

  As Adams prepared the local anaesthetic and inserted the first needle into her leg, Griff unfolded his arms, his jaw still set, and reached one hand out to her. She looked at it, and up at him, then clutched it with no further attempt to pretend she was stoic. It took three more shots to fully numb her leg, and at each pinch, she held more tightly to Griff. When the stitching began, she took one look at the neat row of thread appearing in her skin and tucked her face into her reluctant comforter’s own leg.

  She heard him sigh, but his free hand came down to the back of her head.

  Adams mended her quickly and without fuss, bandaged her up, and gave her a couple of paracetamol.

  “I’ll still be able to walk, won’t I?” she asked, once Griff had left to get them some takeaway sandwiches. He’d probably reached the short limit of his tolerance. After the suture needle had hit a piece of flesh that was still partly sensate, she’d just about ground his knuckles into dust.

  “I don’t think I’ll need to bust out a saw. You can keep the leg this time,” Adams said lightly, throwing away his gloves, and she smiled more naturally.

  “Walk on it. The rehearsal schedule for the next week is packed and if I have to tell the director I’m on bedrest, I’ll probably end up back here needing treatment for attempted strangulation.”

  “Keep it elevated this afternoon if you can, but you should be fine to get back to your practice tomorrow morning, providing you take regular rests and the timetable doesn’t involve tap dancing or combat training.”

  “A kiss scene and discovering a body in the library,” Freddy said with a grin. “You know, shock, gasp, good hearty scream.” She mimed her best silent film screech, hands clasped to her cheeks, and Adams looked amused.

  “Ideal. Just think of my terrifying needlework and you’ll be instantly transported to the right frame of mind.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, plenty of people in these parts would be spooked by a comfort cuddle with the lord of the manor, so you obviously have infinite wells of courage.”

  For the first time in recent memory, Freddy could feel a blush heating her face.

  Chapter Six

  Griff dumped her in her bedroom on their return to Highbrook, with a curt order to stay there, so she gave it a token ten minutes before she limped back to the theatre.

  One of the prop team brought in a chaise longue they were going to use in the library scenes, and she finished out the read-through on that. Conveniently, it was where a significant encounter with the actor playing Wickham was going to take place, so they got in some preliminary scene blocking. And the conditions were a lot better with the roof shade pulled across and the ventilation system blasting cool air.

  She was still exhausted when she tumbled into bed that night, and went to sleep with a curious, fizzy feeling uncurling deep inside.

  She had no guilt about skipping her run the next morning, the bright side of having a screwdriver and a darning needle shoved into her thigh. She was fastening the straps of her favourite midi dress when her phone rang. Shoving aside a pile of discarded clothes, she unearthed it under her script, which was now tattered and marked-up and still not committed to memory.

  “Hello,” she said in a rush, so hasty to answer before it went to voicemail that she hadn’t even noticed who was calling. With her other hand, she separated and scrunched her wet curls, shaking them out.

  “If it isn’t the long-lost sister.” It was Sabrina. “I tried calling you three times last night. Am I in your bad books or were you busy doing high-flying, glamorous things?”

  “Sorry to destroy the image,” Freddy said, “but I was snoring and drooling into my pillow by nine o’clock. Long day. What’s up?”

  “Dad couldn’t get hold of you last night, either, so he broke the habit of a lifetime and called me instead. He’s winding up his wheelings and dealings in the States earlier than expected, and will be back on home turf by the end of next week. And he’s been in touch with your agent.”

  “Fuck,” Freddy said.

  “Why is he so vitriolic about this show? It’s not a long-term commitment. After the rehearsal period, it’s one-and-done in a night, isn’t it?”

  Freddy sat back down on the bed to rest her leg. It was going to be another long day and she didn’t want to strain the stitches. “Apparently Dad’s been rumbling with Griff over a film he’s making about Henrietta. Competing interests. Did you know Dad wants to do a screen adaptation of All Her World, because it’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

  After a short silence, Sabrina said, “I think I need a dictionary translation for that entire answer. Griff?”

  Freddy winced. “J. Ford-Griffin.”

  A longer silence. “How does the Westminster Ice King come into the picture? And since when do you call him Griff?”

  She chose to ignore the horrified undertone. “When he isn’t writing reviews and analysing Shakespeare on the telly, he moonlights as landed nobility and a budding film executive. He’s Sir George Ford’s grandson, he owns Highbrook, and he’s here right now researching Henrietta’s relationship with his grandfather. The tale of the famous playwright and her magnum opus is coming to a cinema near you.”

  “Was Henrietta really that interesting?” Sabrina had never bothered to read even the first chapter of Rupert’s biography. “Outside of The Velvet Room phenomenon, I know she had a lot of affairs, but haven’t we all.”

  Freddy rolled a damp curl around her fingertip. “I see you still haven’t read the biography. She was pretty remarkable.”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure anyone can justify the fuss Dad’s made over her, and the rest of the literary crowd, and now films as well. And don’t get me started on having her dangled over us like some sort of golden monument—”

  “No. I won’t,” Freddy said firmly. “What’s going on with you? Interviewing anyone cool this week?”

  The pause this time had a different, tense quality, and Freddy frowned, her thoughts dragged back from the impending confrontation with their father. “Sabs?”

  “Work is fine.” Sabrina’s voice was crisp, and there was an unmistakable defensive shape to the words that put Freddy on high alert. She knew that tone. It only ever emerged when—“But since you’ll have to know sometime... Ferren’s back in London.”

  Freddy lifted a hand in a literal face-palm. Sabrina had been in an on-off-maybe-on-no-definitely-off relationship with Joe Ferren, the star of a series of high-earning action films, for about eight years. Freddy had been fifteen when she’d first been introduced to Sabs’s famous boyfriend, and she’d progressed from a starstruck teenage crush to “What the fuck is my sister doing?” in the space of a month.

  Their tempestuous romance had hit a wall with what seemed like a permanent crash when Sabrina had got her permanent contract on Sunset Britain—Ferren didn’t do well sharing any sort of spotlight—and Freddy had thrown a mental carnival. He’d made himself scarce the past year working abroad, and Sabrina’s overall happiness had gone on an upward climb. Freddy had hoped the unreliable shit would set up permanent camp in Hollywood.

  He’d probably had a temperamental fit and been fired again.

  “You’re not...” Freddy trailed off apprehensively, already anticipating the fro
sty reaction. Sabrina’s personality was ninety-five-percent rational, but Ferren always slotted into the other bit.

  “We’re not back together. We’re just...talking.”

  Shit. They’d be shagging by the end of the week.

  “Sabrina...”

  “Peanut.” The “back off” warning was flashing with full red lights. “As much as I adore you, I do not require commentary on my personal life from my baby sister.”

  It would be like trying to reason with a slightly patronising brick wall. Freddy sighed. “Are you still going to be calling me that when I’m eighty-five years old?”

  “As I’ll be a venerable old dame in my nineties by then, yes.”

  “Maybe even a proper dame. Famous presenters sometimes get the honour.”

  If they didn’t derail their career and future title by making horrible decisions in their sex life.

  Sabrina snorted. “Ten quid says Nick Davenport smarms his way to that one. He’s probably already got a drawer full of socks and undies embroidered with ‘Sir Nicholas.’”

  Willing to take the easy route and keep the conversation in noncontroversial territory for now, Freddy said teasingly, “Spend a lot of time thinking about Nick’s pants, do you?”

  “Don’t be revolting. My taste in men isn’t that dire.” Sabrina cleared her throat so pointedly that Freddy was instantly wary. “Speaking of which—”

  “What?”

  “My word precisely: what. Before you veered into polite small talk, you’d come over all flustered. What’s going on with you and the silver-haired demon?”

  “His hair isn’t silver, it’s just very pale blond,” she said without thinking, and could visualise Sabrina’s growing smile back in London. Evidently, older sisters believed they had a prerogative to meddle that was denied their baby siblings. “Oh, shut up.”

  “I haven’t said anything. Your reaction is carrying the conversation for both of us. You haven’t shagged Malfoy? He once called you so overly sweet that you were a diabetic hazard. Have some standards, Frederica.”