The Austen Playbook Read online

  Carefully, Freddy set her glass on the table. She suddenly felt as if a hand had reached over and torn off her dress, leaving her sitting here naked and exposed. It was one thing for Akiko, who had known her most of her life and had always been incredibly intuitive, to see right through the real-life character she’d been playing for a long time now. It was very different to have that icy, impersonal voice slicing through all her shields and digging straight into the heart of her private thoughts and fears. Ford-Griffin had said plenty of unflattering things about her in print over the years, but she’d always been able to brush off a bad review. That was solely about her work on one distinct night, and it was often justified. Occasionally even helpful.

  To her, that terse speech struck at the issue of who she was—who she’d thought she would be—as a person.

  “Is that what you’re going to write in the review?” Nick asked.

  “That would be the tactful way of putting it.”

  “And the less tactful?”

  “She’s an overexposed, chronically confused crowd-pleaser, who’s built a career riding on her family’s coattails. A twirl through her grandmother’s work was inevitable, and unfortunately this is probably a practice run. There’s a huge revival of The Velvet Room coming next winter, and regardless of suitability, the surname is promotional gold.” Drip, drip, went the tap of cynicism.

  And realism.

  “Half the world runs on nepotism,” Nick pointed out.

  “Agreed. Wringing her connections dry shows common sense. Which is then smashed by the complete lack of critical judgment. She either has no idea of her own strengths, or is under someone’s thumb. I suspect both. You need grit to endure in this industry. If she has it, she’s doing an exceptional job of hiding it.”

  Looking at Sabrina’s expression now, Ford-Griffin should be grateful there were no lethal weapons within reach of the booth. Akiko looked torn between indignation on Freddy’s behalf and alarm at the brewing thundercloud across from her.

  A new group of people thankfully entered the pub then—judging by the glimpses of leotards under leggings and hoodies, it was the cast from The Festival of Masks—and the noise cranked up to the approximate level of monster-truck rally.

  Freddy took a second to ensure that none of the turbulence in her mind leaked into her expression or words. “Put the claws away, kids. That was a short, sharp dose of painful accuracy. I have cashed in on the Carlton name and we all know it.”

  And he’d made a direct hit with the rest of it.

  “You’ve also worked your tail off. What a fucking twat.” Sabrina drummed her nails on the table and glowered over Freddy’s head.

  “Who is he?” Akiko asked curiously.

  “J. Ford-Griffin. The critic for the Westminster Post.” Freddy played with the rose in the glass on the table. She usually found flowers very soothing. Flowers and books: her happy places. “He’s the guy who presents all the arts programmes on TV. Expert in the history of theatre. You know. Short-haired Lucius Malfoy. Tall. Sarcastic. Ice-blond hair. Ice in general.”

  Illumination dawned on Akiko’s face. She was an art history professor, she’d have seen him before; he produced multiple shows on all aspects of the arts. “Oh—yes, I met him when he was filming a documentary at the British Museum. He’s very...um...” Akiko always liked to pick out the best qualities in anyone she met. She was struggling. “Learned. I believe he has a PhD.”

  “And a mind like a snake.” Sabrina made no attempt to speak quietly, so all gratitude to the boisterous dancers at the bar. “He was on the show once, and I had to interview him. Any question he didn’t feel like answering, he twisted to suit himself, and I ended up looking like I had no idea what I was talking about.” Sabrina looked peevish at the memory, although Freddy found it hard to imagine her sister ever feeling discomposed on camera. She’d never had a stupid professional stumble like Freddy had made tonight. “And,” Sabs finished ominously, “as we can see, he’s a mate of Nick Davenport’s.” She would probably use the same tone if she’d said, “And he likes to knock down old ladies in the supermarket.”

  On the charge of being uncooperative in interviews, Freddy didn’t entirely blame Ford-Griffin. As much as she loved Sabrina and obviously supported her career—go team—she still had haunting memories of the one time she’d had to do a talk show interview. Incidentally, with Nick Davenport. Who was a right nosy bastard beneath the slick veneer. He’d tried to suggest she was the latest Other Woman in a co-star’s train wreck of a marriage. Not likely.

  A spark of amusement returned as her sister visibly simmered. “I see inter-show relations are as cordial as ever.”

  Sabrina said something that would send the curse-censors on her show haywire. “And see if I expend energy trying to coax a smile out of Malfoy next time they drag him on. Wanker.”

  “The Westminster Post has always been a hard sell. His column is actually extremely entertaining.” When his remarks didn’t hit so close to home. “He strews the insults about with such panache.” Freddy wriggled out of the booth. “I’m going to get another round. Who wants?”

  Akiko shook her head, but Sabrina held up her glass. “Another rum and coke, please.”

  It took a full minute of elbow-ducking and handbag-dodging to manoeuvre her way to the bar, where the staff were flat-out and looking harassed. She was leaning forward and trying to read the new cocktail menu when the youngest bartender, a girl with artificially grey hair, made an unwise grab for a bottle of gin on a shelf high above her head. It slipped from her grasp as she lost her balance, and Freddy shot out her hand and grabbed it. She caught it inches before it could smash right in the face and expensive jacket of the man who’d come up beside her.

  There was a moment of stillness, before she flipped the bottle upright and set it carefully on the counter.

  Blinking, the bartender cast a quick look over at her shoulder at her boss. “Shit. Thanks. Ever think about trying out for wicket-keeper at Lord’s?”

  “I’d be happy if I could just pull off that much dexterity on stage now and then. It would really—” Freddy turned to check on the target of the near-miss, and tilted her head as she finished “—widen my skill set.”

  Ford-Griffin, in all his towering, broad-shouldered, frosty glory, asked another bartender for two whisky-and-sodas before he looked back at her. His eyes were almost black, in stark contrast to the very pale hair, and his gaze moved coolly from the gin bottle to her face. “Nice catch. Thanks.”

  “Not a problem.” Freddy gave her own order to the grey-haired bartender, then propped her elbow on the bar and studied him. She’d forgotten he had that nose. When he was doing his presenting work, the TV cameras didn’t usually film him in profile. She suspected he didn’t give a shit about his looks, but if impressions were deceptive and he spent a lot of time gazing into mirrors like his friend Davenport, he was probably grateful he had the strong jaw to balance it out. An unexpected little flutter in her stomach took her by surprise. An oxytocin hit from the walking ice cube. Interesting life choices, body. “Apparently I have an affinity with all sorts of small objects. Bottles. Safety scissors.”

  His brain didn’t require even a second of internal whirring to catch on. A small glint appeared behind the emotionless observation. “If it helps, there’ll be no references to predictability in the next review.”

  “Because I was completely rubbish tonight?”

  “You weren’t completely rubbish.” Definite emphasis on that completely. He pulled the whisky-and-sodas towards him and waved his credit card over the sensor. “Comparatively, you made Adrian Blair look like he was performing in a school hall nativity.” He slipped the card back into his wallet and picked up the glasses. “With the exception of the meander into Springsteen.”

  Freddy handed over a note for her own order and dropped the change into the tip jar. All the staff looked like th
ey deserved a few drinks at the end of their shift. “I’ll look forward to reading the review.” She stuck a straw in her sangria. “Especially if you put in the part about Adrian’s teeth.”

  He looked at her for a second and then over her head towards their respective booths. He lifted an eyebrow.

  She cheers-ed him with Sabrina’s rum and coke. “Nice to meet the man behind the most entertaining reviews I’ve ever had.”

  And the most discomfortingly perceptive.

  Without looking back, she returned to her seat, where in the midst of Sabrina’s risqué anecdote and frequent hostile glances at the next booth, she tried to forget all about J. Ford-Griffin and his insidious commentary.

  And his inkwell eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Six months later

  When his brother grinned like that, he still looked like a little kid. Eager, hopelessly optimistic, effortlessly likeable, and on the verge of yet another half-cocked scheme. Charlie was all but bouncing in his seat. It didn’t bode well. He hadn’t looked this excited since his grand plan to save the estate by starting a hot-air ballooning enterprise on the north lawn.

  Griff eyed him over the wide mahogany desk. He had a feeling that his day was about to get significantly worse. Tightening his grip on his phone, he turned away from Charlie’s impatient wriggling and tried to keep his full attention on the call. “Henrietta Carlton rose from bit player to reigning queen of the West End stage by the age of twenty-three. She caused havoc in nightclubs from Wimbledon to Whitechapel and had affairs with some of the most powerful people in London. And before her thirtieth birthday, she’d written one of the most iconic plays of the twentieth century and permanently altered the landscape of British drama.”

  The studio executive at the end of the line made thoughtful noises, as if this was the first time she’d heard this pitch. Griff had delivered it three times this month alone. The process of securing funding for a film was long, frustrating, and repetitive. Investors were like police detectives interviewing suspects; they needed to hear the same story over and over before they made a decision.

  The past eight years that he’d been working in television, he’d progressed from being just the figurehead they stuck in a suit and shoved in front of a camera, to having a small say in what was written on the script, to full production credits. The move from documentary production into film development was what he’d been working towards, and he’d long seen the screen potential in Henrietta Carlton’s chaotic life on and off the stage, and her propulsion into unexpected literary stardom.

  “The script hinges on the time when Henrietta was writing The Velvet Room in the countryside, but a lot of scenes will be shot in London.”

  Henrietta had written the play here at Highbrook, during the time she’d been heavily involved in an affair with Griff’s grandfather, Sir George Ford; but for the purposes of the film, her life in London also provided dramatic scope. She’d founded the Wythburn Group in the city, a collective of actors and writers who’d occupied neighbouring party houses in Marylebone, and their exploits were legendary.

  The executive babbled another stream of questions that Griff had already answered, and he bit back impatience. As fed up as he was with the red tape, he needed this backing.

  He couldn’t get this project off the ground without the financing, and he’d invested so much time and so many hopes into it that the prospect of failure was a kick to the gut. He could see it in his mind, what the story could be, and felt an intense frustration in not being able to immediately extract that image and cast it up onto the big screen.

  And on a personal level, the film had the potential to make a healthy profit—and with Highbrook mortgaged to the roof tiles, Griff badly needed the cash infusion.

  The estate had been passed down through generations of Fords since the sixteenth century, and with every handover, it grew more expensive to maintain. His grandfather had left the property to Griff in his will, because he’d anticipated the financial struggle and correctly assumed that Griff’s father would just exacerbate the problem. Griff clearly recalled Sir George sitting him down on his twelfth birthday, to start preparing him to take over the reins.

  Right now, he felt more like he was trying to steer a sinking ship.

  The executive fired a query down the line about the “human interest” side of the film. The inevitable sex angle.

  “Yes, we will be focusing on the relationship between Henrietta and George. Audiences grasp on to a love story.” He couldn’t totally suppress the ironic twist to his words. Love. An adulterous affair between two self-centred hedonists, which had ended abruptly after a couple of years, when his grandfather seemed to have dropped Henrietta like a hot potato for reasons unknown.

  Griff was still trying to get to the bottom of that one. His grandmother’s existence already cast a bad light on the relationship, so it would be better for the plot if the affair had at least ended for a more sympathetic reason than fading lust.

  As he went into detail about shoot locations, his brother stood restlessly and paced in front of the library windows. Coming over to the desk, Charlie picked up a book, put it down, accidentally knocked three more to the floor, and lifted onto the balls of his feet to stretch.

  It was like trying to work with a bloody toddler in the room.

  The call finally ended, with noncommittal noises from the studio. As usual. Every time there was an encouraging sign, it was dashed by further procrastination. Tossing his phone down on the desk, Griff rubbed his forehead and forced himself to focus on the more immediate problem in the room.

  He turned to his brother and steeled himself. “Yes?”

  In the pause that followed, he heard the distant sound of a plane flying overhead.

  Now that he had the floor, Charlie seemed to be debating the best way to launch into his own pitch. Maybe that plane was his. Perhaps he’d progressed from hot-air balloons to commercial liners.

  “Any advances on the film front?” Charlie asked. Ah. His favourite ploy of small talk first, horrifying scheme second.

  “Some.”

  “Is Rupert Carlton still trying to throw a spanner in the works?”

  Griff grunted. Henrietta’s son was like the fucking mole in that arcade game, constantly popping out of the woodwork with ways to delay the final green light on the film. Family members were often precious about the way their relatives were represented onscreen, but in Rupert Carlton’s case, Griff suspected his objections centred on the fact that he hadn’t yet found a way to cash in on the project.

  “Trying being the operative word.” Looking down, he shoved aside a pile of accounts, all of which were adding up to a bleak total. The stress was a bone-deep fog, a roiling grey weight. He was tired. It was a kinetic sort of exhaustion, one setback fuelling another, each irritant turning like a cog in the mechanism.

  Life was so flat-out in London right now that coming home to the country for a few days ought to be a reprieve, but the financial situation with Highbrook was rapidly becoming dire. If they wanted to avoid a forced selling-up, they had to make shrewd, long-sighted choices.

  Not indulge in reckless, irresponsible flights of fantasy.

  He cut short any further hedging around the point. “What are you up to?” He leaned his hip against the desk, letting it take some of his weight. He suspected he’d need the support.

  Charlie cleared his throat. “I want to open The Henry.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, emitting hopeful vibes.

  “You want to open The Henry,” Griff repeated in the most neutral tone he could muster. He rarely bothered to sugar-coat his opinions. Pandering bullshit just wasted everybody’s time, but it was impossible to be too brutally blunt with Charlie. For one thing, it just bounced off his cheerful, resilient exterior.

  “To the public,” Charlie clarified, and Griff’s gaze sliced from his eager expression to
the view out the window. Beyond a wide expanse of snow-scattered grass, a turret peeked out above the trees. A leaking turret. The Henry, their boutique theatre on the far grounds, was overdue for repairs, but hardly the priority when half the estate was either dripping, squeaking, draughty, or at actual risk of falling down. The theatre was a vanity project their otherwise practical grandfather had built for Henrietta, during the period when he’d obviously been thinking with his dick, and it had never actually housed a production. At this point, it was an oversized garden shed.

  “It would cost a fortune to repair it to a standard where we’d be allowed to pack two hundred people into it.” Reaching for the half-empty glass on the desktop, Griff knocked back a mouthful of cognac. It felt like he’d scraped up his intestines with sandpaper. He should probably be reaching for antacids, not spirits. “Which is what you’d need to even approach breaking even on production costs. A full house. Every performance. You’re not going to get two hundred people to drive all the way to rural Surrey every night. And where would they park? Flattening the south lawn with cars will just piss off the kids who ride the electric mower.”

  He turned around, and Charlie was grinning at him with totally unimpaired enthusiasm. Human rubber.

  “Is the lecture over?” The enquiry was amiable.

  Griff glanced pointedly at the sheaf of papers tucked under his brother’s arm. It looked ominously like a contract. “I suspect not.”

  “I’m not suggesting we host a multi-night run here.” Charlie waved the pages at him. “I’m talking one night, one performance. Televised live.”

  “Televised.”

  “A network has already licensed the production rights to The Austen Playbook.” He correctly interpreted Griff’s “the fuck?” expression. “It was one of the top-selling games this year. Digital mash-up of characters from different Jane Austen books, transplanted into a murder-mystery, house-party scenario. Outcome guided by the choices of the player. A mate of mine was involved in the development, and they’ve made a mint with it.”