Darling Sweetheart (9 page)

She groaned. ‘ God, I hope not…’

‘But it’s all good! It shows there’s a buzz out there! Scarlett and Brett, baby! Scarlett and Brett!’

‘Rhett…’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, please don’t post any more guards outside my door.’

He frowned. ‘We gotta think about your personal security. It’s a dangerous world out there.’

‘I’m sure it was just a one-off. When they realise they’ve got nothing, they’ll leave me alone. What time is it?’

‘Six-twenty.’

‘Then we should be in costume.’ She released her hands and walked towards the wardrobe marquee but could feel him watching her back.

Tress had decided to shoot a small number of interiors at the castle itself, for authenticity. The grand hall on the first floor was now filled with cameras, crew and lights. Emerson knelt below
the stained-glass window. Two guards stood over him, wearing breastplates and helmets. One held a chain attached to his wrists, the other a sword, close to his cheek. Make-up had given him a cut above one eye, but he still looked handsome and deadly.

Robin McKendry – Raymond, le Comte de Trenceval – gathered his robe and pondered Bernard de Vaux where he knelt.

‘You must release him,’ Roselaine begged her father, ‘he is our friend. I promise you!’

‘Release him?’ the comte wheezed. ‘He is a Frankish knight, and his countrymen would murder us all!’

‘Not this one, Father. He saved my life and has behaved with nothing but honour towards me.’

The comte studied his daughter’s face. ‘And you have behaved with nothing but honour towards him?’

She blushed. ‘I… of course!’

‘You promised your mother on her deathbed that you would remain pure.’

‘But I have, Father! And I will!’

‘An old man’s eyes see many things, my daughter.’

‘Then they must see the truth!’ Bernard made to stand, but the guard holding his chain tugged it violently. With a snarl, he tugged it in return, and the guard fell towards him, tumbling over his back and into the second guard who also fell, dropping his sword. Quick as a snake, Bernard grabbed the weapon and leapt upright. The two guards struggled to stand, but the comte raised a hand.

‘So you can fight! That is a useful skill in these troubled times, but I was leading armies when you were a suckling babe. What truth must I see?’

Bernard lowered the sword. ‘That the men outside your gate will not go away until your walls are breached and all within them burned!’

‘Leave us,’ the comte ordered the two guards. Sullenly, they
obeyed. The comte stroked his beard. ‘What would you have me do, crusader? Wish your countrymen away on a prayer?’

‘That’s not going to happen. Your castle is finished. I know de Montfort – he will not relent. But if you listen to me, you can still escape with your lives.’

‘This is my home and I do not intend to leave it.’

Roselaine stepped forward. ‘ Father, if you love me as a daughter you will listen! Escape is our only option!’

The comte touched her cheek. ‘You speak of love, my child – but there are many different kinds of love.’

She met his gaze then frowned.

‘ I’m really sorry – I’m not sure what to do here…’

The comte held his pose.

Emerson stamped a foot. ‘Aw, man, not again!’

‘It is okay! It is okay!’ Tress rushed forward from behind the nearest camera. ‘It is okay, Harry. That was a good take, some of it I can use. Cut, everybody – cut!’

‘Thank Christ.’ McKendry scratched his beard. ‘Bloody glue’s got me chin all itchy.’

‘Peter, I’m sorry I keep screwing up, but am I supposed to look at Robin with love, respect, anger, pity or what? Should I cry?’

‘All of these things,’ Tress replied.

‘But how do I feel?’

‘How
do
you feel, Annalise?’

‘Come with me, girl.’ McKendry took her arm and led her off the set, watched closely by Emerson, who pouted but seemed reluctant to impinge on the older man. They walked to the far end of the hall.

‘I’m really sorry, Robin. But I know you can see straight through me.’

‘The only thing I can see, dearie, are these pieces of wool they’ve stuck to my eyebrows.’ They found a pair of plastic seats. A young male runner approached and opened his mouth to speak.

‘Boy!’ McKendry commanded. ‘Two coffees! Both black, with honey!’

‘Right away, Sir, but can I just–’

‘I say,’ McKendry interrupted, ‘what’s the difference between a sandwich and a blow job?’

The runner blushed from his neck up. ‘I, uh, ahh… I don’t know…’

‘Goody!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Let’s go for a picnic!’ He chortled as the young man fled.

‘You’re awful.’

‘One the benefits of being venerable, my child.’

‘I’m sorry for stopping the scene.’

‘Now you listen to me, young lady: that was not your fault.’

‘Yes it was.’

‘No, it’s that silly moo of a director.’

‘Peter? How?’

‘I know his type. So preoccupied with what he wants visually that he leaves his cast to second-guess him. Some directors understand actors, some don’t. I’m afraid Tress doesn’t. If you need guidance, he’ll be the last one to provide it.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Oh, I know. He didn’t once ask me how I intended to play the comte, so I’m just giving him my standard aristo routine, and he seems happy with that. But he fussed around in make-up for over an hour this morning, until they got this bloody beard the way he wanted it.’ McKendry tugged at the item in question.

‘It’s not Peter’s fault. I mean, I do wish he was more supportive, but it’s me – I can’t get into Roselaine, I just can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know! I love the part, but I can’t get under her skin. It’s driving me crazy!’

‘Dearie, you should do what I do and just ham it up.’

‘Oh, I wish I could be like you and just walk on and do anything.
But it doesn’t work like that for me. I need to be immersed.’

‘Well it can’t be easy trying to feel like a twelfth-century maiden,’ he grinned, ‘when you’re not a maiden!’ She pretended to slap his arm. ‘Tell me, how are you getting on with your co-star?’ She looked round guiltily. ‘Don’t worry, he can’t hear you.’ Sure enough, Emerson was still at the far end of the hall, now in vigorous discussion with Tress. The two guards had gone outside for a smoke.

‘Harry? He’s uh… fine, I suppose.’

‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you.’

‘Eh?’

‘As if he owns you. Have you two been partying without your pants on?’

‘ God! No!’

‘It’s very strange. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s my way inclined, yet he only has eyes for you.’

She lied. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed…’

‘In some ways, he reminds me of your father.’

Now she flinched. ‘Really? H-how?’

‘Something about him.’

‘My father wasn’t, uh, gay…’

‘Silly, I don’t mean that!’

‘Then what?’

‘If you don’t mind me saying… Emerson is cock-sure and very opinionated, but that’s usually a sign of raging insecurity.’

‘I didn’t know you knew my father!’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why would you? It was an awfully long time ago. We did quite a bit of television drama together, back in the early seventies – a BBC thing called
Play for Today
. Some of it was quite good, actually.’

‘What… what was he like to work with?’

‘David? Oh, he was incredible. He didn’t play a part, he
was
the part. You’d go to dinner afterwards and he’d still be in character
– the face, the accent, the mannerisms: everything. If he was playing a Welsh coal miner, then he
was
a Welsh bloody coal miner. He could imitate anybody, an extraordinary mimic.’ He laughed, remembering. ‘When we were at the BBC, he would regularly ring up other cast in the evenings, pretending to be the producer. He would tell them to do ridiculous things like come to work in a kilt, or with their hair dyed purple – and they would do it, because they thought they had to! He would even ring other producers, recommending David Palatine for work – he was incorrigible.’

She smiled. ‘All long before I was born, I’m afraid.’

McKendry looked wistful. ‘When he was still one of us.’

The runner returned with their coffees. ‘Excuse me.’ He avoided McKendry’s sly smile, looking only at Annalise… ‘I was trying to say. I’ve been told to tell you that your agent rang. He wants you to call him back as soon as possible.’

‘But he must know that I’m on set.’

‘The floor manager said to tell you at the next break.’

McKendry peered towards the other end of the hall, where Tress and Emerson had been joined by David Lamb and Maria Kepecs, the second assistant director. The discussion had become even more animated.

‘Go on,’ he urged her, ‘they won’t be shooting anything for a bit, and a call from one’s agent should be treated as the exceptional event it truly is. I’ll say you’ve gone pee-pee.’

‘But I’ve left my phone at home.’

‘Well?’ McKendry addressed the runner severely, who looked panicked. Then, he caught the old actor’s meaning and fumbled for his mobile. He turned it on and gave it to Annalise.

‘Signal’s a bit weak in here,’ he mumbled.

‘Thanks, I won’t be long.’ As she made for the exit, McKendry patted her vacated seat.

‘Sit down, dear boy,’ he smiled sweetly at the runner, ‘and tell me about yourself. Do you work out? You look as if you take
regular exercise…’

Annalise climbed the turret stairwell, stepped outside and dialled her agent’s number. Even so high up, the air was perfectly still. Below, the valley baked in the heat.

Conrad Loach was the fogeyish Notting Hill agent from central casting, all tweed jackets and a nasal Oxbridge drawl. Annalise could picture him in his absurdly untidy office, brogue-clad feet crossed carelessly on top of the scripts littering his desk, with not a computer in sight – he professed not to know how to use one. However, he was in fact only thirty-five years old, sharper than a sewer rat and, despite the drawl, originally from Reading. Usually, he allowed his phone to go to message. Unusually, he answered it straight away.

‘Ah, it’s you,’ he intoned. ‘And how’s the Dordogne?’

‘Very beautiful; I’m looking at the river right now.’

‘Lucky old river.’

‘Is something up? They told me to ring you.’

‘Mmmyes. Tell me – you haven’t gone and hired yourself a publicist, by any chance?’

‘What?

He spoke slowly, as if to a child. ‘Have – you – hired –a –publicist?’

‘No! Why would I do that?’

‘Because you’re on the front page of a certain tabloid newspaper this morning, in an item that bears all the hallmarks of a planted story.’

Her stomach tightened. ‘What… what are you talking about?’

‘Hmmm… so you didn’t know? That makes me doubly glad I called. Great big photo on the front of
The Sun
– nothing too revealing, you’ll be delighted to hear. You’re getting out of a car, although not in a snap-my-knickers sort of way, which I know just isn’t your style.’

The view and the valley disappeared; she slumped against
the parapet. ‘What… why am I on the front page of
The Sun?’

‘Well, the headline says, “Emerson’s English Rose”.’

‘WHAT?’

“‘Emerson’s English Rose”,’ Loach repeated, calmly. ‘Quite decorous by the paper’s normal standards – at least it doesn’t call you a “wag” or a “squeeze”.’

‘What… how… I mean… bloody HELL! What else does it say?’

‘I take it it’s not true then?’

‘Conrad! Read me the rest!’

He coughed. ‘“British stunna” – that’s stunna with an “a,” mind you – “British stunna Annalise Palatine has stolen the heart of Hollywood heartthrob Harry Emerson. The actress is on location in France for Emerson’s latest film, an historical bodice-ripper described as ‘sizzling’ by one insider. But love has spilled over from the set and the couple share romantic candlelit dinners most evenings.”’

‘That’s insane!’ she wailed. ‘We’ve had dinner once, and it wasn’t even candlelit!’

He pressed on. ‘“Palatine, Britain’s hottest acting property, is also linked to Lone Blue Planet frontman Jimmy Lockhart. Her father was the comic David Palatine, who was notorious for his wild playboy lifestyle. He died tragically in 2001, but it looks as if his love of the high life has rubbed off on his daughter. ‘It’s the right move for Annalise,’ our sources say. ‘Harry has the influence to send her career into overdrive. They spend all their spare moments together; they’re like a younger, trendier version of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.’ Lockhart, currently on tour with his band, could not be reached for comment.”’

Jimmy. Oh, Jesus. What will Jimmy think?

‘Are you all right, m’dear?’

‘No, Conrad, I am not all right! This is nuts! How
dare
they? It’s not
true!
How can they print stuff like that?’

‘What’s not true, exactly?’

‘The whole bloody thing!’

‘You’ve been to dinner with Emerson?’

‘Yes! Once!’

‘That’s all they need – the rest may be highly speculative, but it’s hardly libellous.’

‘Speculative? It’s completely made up!’

‘Look, here’s the thing – I can call them and give off hell if you want, but they’ll print any denial then repeat the story. That will give it legs for another day. Maybe not such a bad idea, actually.’

‘Hey! Whose side are you on?’

‘I’m on our side, Annalise. You know, something like this does you no harm at all.’

‘Conrad, you’re married.’

‘Yes.’

‘Imagine going home to Michelle tonight, if that was you on the front page!’

‘But I’m not a beautiful actress, making her first Hollywood film. Don’t you realise how much this sort of publicity could boost your next fee, even if it is a load of old bollocks? And if it’s not bollocks, then congratulations!’

‘Listen. I want you to listen very closely.’

‘Yes?’

‘The sound you’re about to hear is me throwing you off a five-hundred-foot cliff.’

She held her arm out and released the handset into the void. It fell for quite a long time before disappearing into the trees. She immediately felt guilty – what if she’d hit a house? Then, she felt doubly guilty, for she remembered it wasn’t her phone. Then, she slapped her forehead. She should have used it to ring Jimmy…