The Austen Playbook

by Lucy Parker

  Sabrina looked at him sharply. It was blatant that she still half suspected him of playing a game. Their relationship was even more fractured than the difficult bond between Rupert and Freddy, and it wasn’t going to be magically transformed.

  Rupert swallowed visibly and had to clear his throat a few times, but quiet determination threaded his features. “I’m sure. Let’s put the record straight.”

  The screens behind them switched on, and two large portrait photographs appeared. Henrietta’s vivid, confident, beautiful face stared defiantly from one; Violet’s haunted, reserved expression filled the other.

  “Where’s Griff—” Sabrina hissed, but he came into the room at that moment, with about ten seconds to spare, not looking in the least sweaty or harried. His expression, Freddy noted fondly, was set at his highest level of implacable don’t-fuck-with-me.

  Brushing aside the advancing makeup artist with a brief word, he joined them, sitting beside Freddy and taking her hand.

  “Don’t rush or anything,” Sabrina muttered, and he lifted a brow, then bent his head so his mouth was right next to Freddy’s ear and out of range of the microphones.

  “All right?”

  She knotted her fingers through his. “You don’t think this will make things worse?” The last-minute apprehension came out in a whisper.

  His grip tightened reassuringly on hers, and unexpectedly, faint lines of amusement appeared around his eyes. “Chin up, darling. Nobody handles a PR crisis like a Slytherin.”

  She repressed a startled huff of laughter as a camera swung around, the crew hushed, and a woman in a cap raised her hand, counting them in with her fingers.

  The red light beamed out.

  Sabrina’s practiced smile was absent tonight. She looked down the camera, directly into the invisible faces of their critics across the country, and nodded, as if acknowledging their right to suspect, to judge, to condemn. “Fame. Romance. Tragedy. Betrayal. This is the tale of two women, two families, and one of this country’s greatest works of literature. Revelations over the past few days have been an enormous shock to me, and I know that many of you are equally bewildered.”

  Smart opening. It had always been one of Sabrina’s strengths as a presenter, that natural, approachable warmth, her ability to establish a rapport with her audience.

  “Even those of us who don’t regularly attend the theatre—and I admit that I don’t spend as much time in the West End as I should, given that I have a stage star in the family—” Sabrina’s smile was rueful and appealing “—most of us will be familiar with The Velvet Room from the English curriculum at school. What I didn’t know, and what almost nobody has known all these years, is that the story behind the writing of that play is more dramatic, more passionate—” her smile flickered and faded “—and more hurtful than the words in the script. Mistakes have been made, and a very talented woman has been robbed of her voice, and I hope...” She turned her head and looked at Rupert, in a mannerism that was, to Freddy, less calculated than the rest of the rehearsed performance. She heard her father exhale slowly as Sabrina finished quietly, “I hope tonight we can start to right some wrongs.”

  * * *

  Rupert left after the broadcast, looking drained and small, and Freddy stood with Sabrina, watching him go.

  “How much trouble do you think he’ll be in?” she asked, and felt her sister tense against her.

  “Not as much as he probably deserves.” That expression that only hardened her features where their father—or Nick Davenport—was concerned faded into a smile as she hooked one arm about Freddy’s neck in a hug. “Nice job, Pea—” She stopped herself. “Freddy.”

  Freddy found herself smiling back. “You can still call me Peanut, you egg. Just try to remember that I’m not six.”

  “You’re a star.” Sabrina raised her brows. “Speaking of which—was that Allegra Hawthorne I saw earlier? Do you have news?”

  “Not yet. But I have hopes.” Freddy cleared her throat. “And where do you think you’re placed now in the great race of the headliners?”

  “Davenport’s not going to take it out without a fight. Put it that way.”

  “To be fair,” Freddy said warily, “I don’t think he knew what was going to happen during the broadcast. With Ferren.” She brought him into it with reservations; it was going to be a raw subject for a long while, and the slice of pain that went across Sabrina’s face was explicit.

  “Maybe not,” Sabrina said after a moment. “Didn’t stop him going ahead with his little plot afterwards, though, did it?”

  “No. It didn’t.” Across the room, Griff ended his conversation with the producer, who seemed to be a friend of his, and Freddy found a stupid smile widening across her face.

  Sabrina sighed, and when Freddy dragged her eyes back to her sister, Sabs was looking at her with affectionate exasperation. “At least not all of his mates are knobs,” she said, inclining her head towards the two men before she headed for the dressing room. “And he’s got the brilliant taste to be utterly infatuated with you, so there’s definitely hope for the wanker.”

  As she left the studio, her longs legs moving effortlessly in her high heels, hips swishing, she gave Griff a small nod.

  He tilted his head in absent acknowledgment, but his eyes and attention were fixed on Freddy, and as they met in the middle of the studio, she looked up at him, and his face turned down to hers. It was smudged with tiredness, lined with the residual strain of the past few days—weeks—and just looked so...unmistakably hers.

  “What’s that look for?” he asked with a hint of amusement, brushing a curl from her face.

  She brought her palms up and rested them on his chest. “I suddenly felt alarmingly possessive.”

  “I know the feeling.” His hands closed warmly over hers and rubbed her fingers in the slight chill of the air. “I believe I handle it with a little less subtlety than you do.”

  With a swift tug on his shirt, ignoring the scattered crew around them, she pulled him down and pressed her mouth to his, and he kissed her back deeply, his tongue stroking hers. It wasn’t a hard, groping snog—although those were fun too; it was slow, and dreamy, and loving.

  Pulling away to catch her breath, Freddy leaned her forehead against his chin. “We’ll learn how to do it together,” she murmured. “I’ve never been in real love before.”

  She heard and felt Griff’s uneven breath. He lifted his head. “In love?”

  “Utterly. I suspect irrevocably. Even unconditionally, since even when you’re being kind of a dick, I’m still completely mad about you.” Freddy considered. “I should have seen it coming. That first night we spoke at The Prop & Cue, you made me go all fluttery inside. Logically, I should have wanted to knee you in the balls. I was doomed.”

  He touched a fingertip to the curl at her temple, an echo of his gesture in the moments before they’d kissed for the first time. “I love you.” Something in the way he said the words made her wonder if he’d ever said them before.

  Her hands tightened on him, that immense gratitude and profound wonder flooding her. “Proper in love?”

  His smile spread from his eyes to the rest of his face. “Proper in love.”

  When he kissed her again, she said against his mouth, “Still duller than a pair of safety scissors, Griffin?”

  His chest moved abruptly with his laugh. “I will retract one single statement from my past reviews. I had no idea what I was in for.”

  Epilogue

  Four months later

  The show had finished almost thirty minutes ago, but the foyer of the Majestic was still packed with people. They clustered around the perimeters of the huge Baroque space, bending and pointing at every small detail as tiny mechanical figures moved behind little bevelled windows. Miniature carriages rattled over real paving stones, and dragons flew from the roof of the gold-plated castle,
their wings fluttering in the air, duochrome scales glittering in shades of purple and green as they hit the light from the enormous Christmas tree nearby. As the clock struck the hour, a door opened and the beautiful little train puffed out.

  Freddy and Allegra had been right in their plan for the miniatures; the display brought the public flocking. Carolina Griffin and James Ford’s expanded design had people queuing to get inside the theatre as early as nine o’clock in the morning. It was one of the most popular holiday attractions in the West End this year. And thanks to Griff’s and her father’s combined negotiating skills, his parents had sold it to the Anathorn musical for a sum that had totally exceeded Freddy’s expectations.

  Let it be pointed out, however, that while the Slytherins in the bunch had jacked up the price, it had taken a Hufflepuff to spot the obvious opportunity.

  Squeezing around a group of chattering people with a murmured apology, she had to stop briefly to pose for photos, then pulled on her wool coat as she kept moving. She was running late. She exchanged smiles with a couple of younger girls from the chorus, who were standing with a group of their family and friends. As she edged past, listening to the clacking of the train wheels and the lovely sound of a child laughing with pure joy, one of the girls said in a hushed, apprehensive voice, “Shit. Isn’t that the bastard from TV who does the reviews for the Post?”

  The reply was equally horrified. “It is. And I messed up my steps tonight.” The last was a wail.

  “God, he even looks scary.”

  Not bothering to hide her grin, Freddy just about skipped around the last obstacle between them, and saw him standing near the door. Tall and handsome, his blond head uncovered, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets, Griff turned—and a smile lit up his cool, intimidating face.

  He pulled his hands from his pockets just in time; he knew her well. As she catapulted happily into his arms, Freddy boosted herself with her forearms on his shoulders and pressed her nose against his cheek. “Hello,” she said, and kissed the side of his nose.

  He held her a few inches off the ground while he gave her a kiss in return, much harder and longer, on her mouth. “Hello.”

  The chorus girls were watching them with identical gapes. Apparently they’d missed all the furore four months ago after the Sunset Britain interview. Sabrina had been right; the literary world was going to be picking apart the salacious details of The Velvet Room affair for a long time to come, but the notoriously icy J. Ford-Griffin’s love life had held the attention of the general public for a lot longer than the fraud.

  “Come on,” Freddy said, grinning as her toes touched the ground. She tucked her hand into the crook of the arm he offered. “You’re scaring the littlies. And I want to see this surprise you’ve got for me.”

  “How do you know I’ve got a surprise?”

  “Charlie let it slip when he called about Christmas.” As Griff cast his eyes up in complete exasperation, she shrugged. “It’s all right. He wouldn’t tell me any details. I sensed a present on the horizon and stopped trying.”

  “Not exactly a present.” Griff ushered her towards the door. In the car he turned on the heater for her and edged into the manic December traffic. It would probably take about three years to get wherever they were going, but at least at this time of year the Christmas lights made the traffic jams a bit prettier.

  She was studying a mechanical window display that was nowhere near as impressive as James and Carolina’s work when Griff took her hand, linking his fingers through hers. “How was the show?”

  “Awesome. I love it so much.”

  Those crinkles she loved were at the corners of his eyes as he slowed to a stop again. “I know. And it shows.”

  He was flat-out at the moment with the film—and the next two projects he had in the pipeline—but he was doing his column again, and he’d been sent to review Anathorn on opening night two weeks ago, despite the ragingly obvious conflict of interest.

  Which had not noticeably inhibited him.

  She examined her nails. “I will at some point get over the totally unnecessary comment on my solo. I was off-key for one word, and I do not purr.” Anticipating his quick grin, she added primly, “In public.”

  “I believe I used the phrase ‘otherwise excellent.’”

  “I was somewhat pacified.” Freddy looked at him. “Everyone absolutely loves your parents’ art.” There was no other term for it, especially after James and Carolina had gleefully accept the brief to develop it further. It was beautiful work. Expensive, but beautiful.

  They’d had multiple commissions since, which her father had proved unsurprisingly adept at wrangling. Despite his history with the Ford family and the very different personalities involved, he got on unexpectedly well with Griff’s parents.

  He loathed Griff, and the feeling was mutual, but she couldn’t expect to have everything in life. And regardless—

  “I really appreciate you getting Dad involved. He needed the distraction.”

  Rupert had avoided criminal prosecution, but his writing career had been ripped to shreds in the aftermath of the confession. And he’d voluntarily resigned as her manager, to Lisa’s transparent joy, and Freddy’s own private relief.

  Griff lifted a shoulder. “When it comes down to it, he’s a savvy businessman. He’s already got them a dozen commissions. And let’s be honest. That move with the suppliers might not have been completely transparent, but it was fucking genius.”

  As Charlie had once pointed out, James and Carolina, for all their faults, had very soft hearts where charitable causes were concerned. It was Rupert who’d quickly found the solution to their overspending. He’d enlisted Charlie and his endless stream of contacts to find local suppliers who could do with a helping hand and didn’t charge the earth. He’d then embellished every one of the suppliers’ hard-luck stories, and, Freddy suspected, just blatantly made one up where none existed. Griff’s parents had been extremely affected. End result: overseas couriers were making far fewer deliveries in rural Surrey.

  Griff indicated and turned left, and she rubbed a circle in the condensation on the window. “Griff, where are we going?”

  “We’re paying a visit.”

  When the car rolled to a stop in a quiet residential street ten minutes later, Freddy looked hesitantly out at the stone terrace house. She hoped he wasn’t moving to Whitechapel, because they lived two streets apart in Notting Hill, and it was extremely convenient just being able to jog back to her place in the morning if she’d forgotten something.

  “Have you bought it? Is that the surprise?” She tried to sound enthusiastic.

  “It’s not for sale.” Griff got out and came around to open her door for her. “The owner’s family have lived here since the early part of the twentieth century—although when times got tough, her family once took in paying guests.” He gestured with his chin at the upper floors. “Including former soldiers turned struggling artists.”

  Oh.

  Freddy pushed the door shut behind her and her lips parted as she gazed upward, from tiled doorstep to the window boxes on the third floor. “Was this Billy Gotham’s house?”

  Griff put a gentle hand on her back as they walked up to the spotlight-lit front door, which was painted a sunny shade of yellow, a cheery note in the gloom of the night. “The owner got in touch after she saw Billy mentioned in an article about the film. She was a young child when he lived here, and she still remembers him. And Violet.”

  Freddy glanced at her watch. “It’s very late to call on someone.”

  “She works nights. Her shift starts at one o’clock, but we’ll be home by then.” Griff reached for the knocker. “And apparently we need a full moon for this.”

  “How mysterious. And lycanthropic.”

  Half a minute after his polite tap, the door was pulled open by a middle-aged woman with very kind eyes. “Mr
. Ford-Griffin,” she said. “How nice to see you again.” She smiled at Freddy. “And this must be Miss Carlton. I’m Helen Abernathy.”

  She stepped back to let them into the brightly tiled little hallway. “Do come in. It’s a foul night.” Closing the door behind them, she looked at Griff. “The room in question is on the third floor. The door on the left. It’s still more or less as it was then.” She lifted her shoulders. “Somehow I’ve never been able to bring myself to change it. I’ll let you go up by yourselves. I think it’s best experienced for the first time in private.”

  “Thank you,” Griff said, and stepped back to let Freddy past, inclining his head towards the stairs.

  Curiously, slightly apprehensively, Freddy started up, looking over her shoulder. “Why are we creeping around someone else’s house at almost midnight?” She found herself whispering in the quiet. It was spooky wandering around any darkened house in the middle of the night, let alone a complete stranger’s.

  “There’s something here that Helen thought we’d like to see.”

  There were two doors on the top floor, and Freddy hesitated, looking back at Griff.

  “If there are werewolves,” he said solemnly, “I’ll protect you.”

  She was smiling when she pushed the left door open and walked into the room beyond—and stopped.

  “Oh.”

  It was all she could say.

  Griff came to stand beside her, and they stood in silence. Just looking.

  It was a cosy little room, a romantic little room, with a desk and comfortable arm chairs, and books everywhere. A narrow bed was pushed against the wall. Just the right size for two people to have to curl up close. It was the sort of room that she’d love to have in a house of her own one day.

  But her imagination wouldn’t have stretched to anything quite like this.

  The renowned portrait artist had been a multi-faceted talent. During his time living here, Billy Gotham had painted the walls, from floor to ceiling, with the most beautiful murals—combining figures and cascading floral patterns and curlicues, rich gold and jewel-toned imagery. He’d turned the whole room into a walk-in illuminated manuscript.