The Leading Lady Read online

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘I think you look beautiful,’ Jude murmured. The candlelight caught the flecks of amber in his eyes and my stomach swooped.

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied softly. ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’

  ‘Another toast.’ Kate was looking a bit witch-like now, with port-stained lips. She raised a glass precariously. ‘Congratulations to Nina. And to your big part!’

  We all raised our glasses obediently.

  ‘Do you feel like you’ve made it, Nina, like this is definitely your living?’ said Molly.

  I shook my head. ‘Ask me again in a year; perhaps I’ll feel more secure.’

  ‘You could be in Hollywood by then.’ She beamed proudly. ‘What do you reckon, Jude?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said quietly.

  My heart lurched. ‘You can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?’ I said. My voice sounded more shrill than I’d intended.

  ‘That came out wrong.’ He scratched Mabel’s head, avoiding my eye. ‘I just meant—’

  Theo cleared his throat deliberately to get our attention. Kate’s eyes had closed, her head tucked into his neck, her mouth open and snoring lightly.

  ‘I think perhaps we’ll save the rest of the pictures for another day,’ Theo whispered. ‘Our intrepid explorer appears to have left for the Land of Nod.’

  ‘No!’ Kate’s eyes popped open with a start. ‘No, not yet, there’s just one more I have to show you; I took it especially for you, Archie. And you, Nina,’ she said.

  ‘Go on then,’ Theo said, laughing softly. He put the TV remote back in her hand.

  ‘It’s right near the end.’ She slipped off his knee and crawled over to the laptop. ‘Are you ready, you two? I found this in Recife, in Brazil. Wait till you see this. Ta dah!’

  For a split second, nobody spoke. I gasped and I heard Archie swear under his breath.

  A picture had been taken from the street at night-time. It was of some sort of restaurant or bar: a long white flat-roofed place, open on two of its sides and with white canvas awnings stretching out above the pavements, lit with hundreds of tiny lights. Under the awnings were clusters of tables and chairs, many of them packed with customers. Lots of men but plenty of glamorous women in extravagant dresses. But the most eye-catching feature was the name that ran along the length of one side: ‘Penhaligon’s’.

  ‘What are the chances of that!’ Jude grinned at me. ‘You Penhaligons get everywhere.’

  ‘And you said it was a Cornish name, Molly!’ I said. My pulse was thundering at my temples.

  ‘It’s more Cornish than Brazilian, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I heard about this club from a couple of men I met and thought, Ooh, I must take a picture to show Archie,’ Kate beamed.

  ‘A couple of men, eh?’ Theo commented archly.

  ‘No need to be jealous, darling,’ she laughed, ‘when I say couple, I mean couple.’

  Archie jumped up, phone in hand. His face was pale and his skin looked clammy. ‘I’m so sorry, folks, I’m going to have to go.’

  ‘What? Where?’ said Molly.

  ‘Home. Exeter. Can’t be helped.’ He pressed a hurried kiss to her cheek and darted to the door.

  ‘But I thought you were giving me a lift home,’ she argued.

  Archie hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, Molly.’ He took a twenty-pound note out of his wallet and held it out to her. ‘I’ll pay for a taxi.’

  She glared at him. ‘I do not want your money.’

  He sighed and left it on the table. ‘I really am sorry, but something has come up. Bye.’

  Molly looked heartbroken. I was furious with him; he was behaving like the old Archie, throwing money at a problem to make it go away. I dashed after him and managed to grab his sleeve as he yanked open the front door. ‘Archie, what is it?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s fine,’ he said, looking anything but fine.

  I cocked an eyebrow. ‘You’re a terrible actor. Is it something to do with that picture?’

  ‘No, no, honestly.’ He put a hand on my arm. ‘I just had an emergency email; nothing I can’t handle. Just a work thing, I really have to get back.’

  I leaned on the doorframe, watching as his Range Rover sped away and wondering why he’d lied to me. Over my shoulder the screen still showed the picture of Penhaligon’s in Brazil. Something had caused him to run, that much was obvious. And I didn’t care that he didn’t want to talk about it, one way or another, I was going to winkle it out of him.

  Chapter 34

  Well, that was a night to remember, I thought next morning as I staggered downstairs for coffee. I was aching in places I’d never ached before and I’d hardly got a wink of sleep. I spooned coffee into two cups, added boiling water and milk and carried them back upstairs to my room.

  The party had broken up after Archie left. Kate was only half awake anyway and Theo almost had to carry her up to bed. Despite some massive and toe-curlingly embarrassing hints from Molly that Jude should stay and keep me company, he and Mabel set off on the long walk home to Thymeford. And after I’d uncurled my toes, Molly and I had cleared up. She was understandably frustrated that Archie had left so abruptly. My brother’s behaviour had been very odd, but I knew him well enough to know that he must have had his reasons for leaving. Molly, on the other hand, wasn’t so easily pacified.

  In the end I persuaded her to stay the night and share my double bed. Ellis was at his dad’s because it was a bank holiday weekend and so Molly didn’t have to be home until lunchtime. She cheered up once we’d taken mugs of hot chocolate and marshmallows up to bed with us. She borrowed some of my pyjamas and we sat up sipping our drinks and telling each other funny stories from our teenage years until eventually we settled down to sleep. Correction – she slept; I spent most of the night dodging her long limbs. My back ached from clinging to the edge of the bed and I felt like I was covered in bruises.

  I looked at her now, stretching said lethal weapons above her head and brushing her red hair from her face.

  ‘Morning, sleeping beauty.’ I set her mug down at her side of the bed and rubbed my shin. For the first time, I actually had some sympathy with her ex-husband; it had been like sleeping with a starfish.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ were her first words. ‘How are you and Jude actually going to save the lifeboat house?’

  I drew back the curtains, folded my arms and swept my gaze from the right – where I could just make out Nora pegging out washing in the garden of the little yellow cottage – to the left across the cove where the pointed roof of the lifeboat house was just visible. Just looking at this view made my heart fill up.

  ‘I don’t know, Molly,’ I said pensively. ‘I think we’re going to have to try to make the lady from the council fall in love with it as much as us.’

  Her question came back to me later that morning after she’d left with Theo, who’d offered to drop her home. How were we going to prevent the boat house from being auctioned off? It was all very well talking about it, but we only had four days; we needed action. I called Jude who answered on the first ring, laughing that he’d been in the process of dialling my number to see if I was free for lunch.

  We met at The Sea Urchin at one. The first day of May had arrived and with it not only an ice-cream van at the top of the steps down to the beach, but also the first properly warm day of the year. We ordered ciabattas at the busy bar and took our drinks on to the terrace where a thick glass screen protected us from the worst of the sea breeze. There was a big dish of water for dogs, and Mabel stopped to lap at it gratefully.

  Jude had already developed a bit of a tan: his cheeks were bronzed, which added to his healthy rugged good looks. He could give any of the leading men I’d ever met on set a run for their money, I thought approvingly as he gallantly pulled out a chair for me.

  ‘My plan is to follow Maxine up to Scotland a day later,’ I explained once our food had arrived and we’d managed to persuade Mabel to take her paws off the table. ‘
That way I can still come with you to see the council.’

  Jude looked unsure. ‘She seemed adamant that you’d have to leave before then.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ I said, not meeting his eye, ‘I can be adamant too. Anyway, leave that with me. The main thing is to work out what we are going to say that will convince Katrina Berry to let the boat house stay in the hands of Brightside Cove.’

  He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket and laid it on the table. ‘A bit rough, but these are my initial thoughts.’

  ‘A twenty-year lease from the council to a charity set up as Brightside Cove Community?’ I cut into my ciabatta: steak and Devon blue cheese with rocket. Mabel, who had been banished to a respectful distance edged a bit closer, licking her lips. ‘Sounds good for us, but not very profitable for the council.’

  ‘It was your brother’s idea.’ Jude looked around for a waiter and while he was distracted I slipped a piece of steak under the table to the dog.

  ‘Can I have some mayonnaise please?’ he said to Raquel the landlady when she came over, adding to me, ‘I saw that.’

  Mabel whined comically and lay down between us, tucking her nose under her paws as if to say, ‘Busted.’ We both laughed.

  ‘Hey, who’s the actress here?’ I patted Mabel on the head and smiled at Jude. ‘It’s that pleading look; I find it impossible to deny her anything.’

  ‘I’m the same,’ he admitted. ‘Dark brown eyes like melted chocolate – irresistible.’

  He held my gaze and I caught myself feeling jealous of a dog.

  ‘As I was saying,’ he said, plunging a skinny fry into a pile of mayonnaise, ‘Archie thinks that the council might see the long-term benefits of keeping the boat house themselves as their own asset if we can persuade them that we’ll earn enough via bookings to pay them an annual rent.’

  ‘Would they earn more in the long run from renting it to us than selling it?’

  Jude sucked in through his teeth. ‘Hard to know what it will fetch at auction. But an ex lifeboat station not dissimilar to ours was sold a couple of years ago for a hundred thousand pounds.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Gosh, for a tiny building, that’s an awful lot of money.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘As any property tycoon will tell you, the three most important factors with property are location, location, location.’

  We swivelled in our chairs to scan the length of the cove to where the little boat house reigned over the bay at the far end.

  ‘And that location takes some beating,’ I said.

  ‘Agreed.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘But if anyone asks, it’s draughty, prone to flooding and hard to access, got it?’

  ‘Got it.’ I tapped the side of my nose. ‘So if we could offer to pay an annual rent of, say, five thousand pounds, in twenty years they’d have their hundred thousand and still own the building?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  I gave him a dubious look. ‘I know which I’d prefer: a bird in the hand, and all that …’

  ‘It’s risky,’ Jude agreed. ‘But it’s all we’ve got. Archie suggested crowdfunding to raise the whole amount. He even offered to stick in the first ten thousand, but much as I appreciate the gesture, we don’t have time to raise that sort of money.’

  My heart squeezed for my brother, what a generous thing to do, especially at a time when his own profits were suffering from being undercut by a competitor. ‘Good old Archie.’

  ‘He’s got a good head for business,’ Jude agreed. ‘He knows money talks.’

  ‘Not sure Molly would say the same,’ I said wryly, remembering the look of disgust on her face last night when Archie tried to give her cash for a taxi.

  Jude laughed, swallowing the last mouthful of his chicken ciabatta. ‘She’s a feisty one, Molly. You should hear her on the side-lines cheering Ellis on at football training.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ I grinned and then thought of how happy Archie had been in her company these last few days. I sighed. ‘And she and Archie were getting along so well too.’

  There was a small blob of mayonnaise on his chin and I had a sudden flashback to the breakfast we’d shared in his van and me wiping ketchup from exactly the same place. It was the moment that prompted our first kiss.

  I picked up my napkin. ‘Come here, messy boy,’ I said, wiping away the mayo.

  He caught my hand, his eyes flashing with an emotion I couldn’t quite read; I felt a warm squirming feeling in my stomach.

  ‘Nina, I think, I hope, that you and I were getting on well too. The thing is …’ He paused, casting his eyes down as if gathering strength.

  Were. Past tense. My ears pricked up at the change in his tone.

  ‘Yes?’ I held my breath.

  He looked at me again and this time there was no mistaking the emotion in his gaze: a mix of sadness and regret. ‘I like you. I like you a lot.’

  ‘But I’m leaving Brightside Cove, yes I know,’ I blurted out impatiently. ‘I thought that at first, too. But I’m here now. Can’t we just enjoy each other’s company and see where it leads? After all, I won’t be filming in Scotland for ever and anyway we can visit each other and—’

  ‘It’s five hundred miles away,’ he said softly. ‘Not exactly a weekend jaunt.’

  He’d looked it up. I felt a swoop of hope; that had to mean something.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ I joked, ‘even the Proclaimers would walk that far. Remember the song? I would walk—’

  ‘Nina,’ he said, quietly interrupting my terrible rendition of the song, ‘it’s not about the distance.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I gulped. That must mean it was about me. He liked me enough to be pals, but nothing more. I thought I’d never hated a word more. Pals.

  He raked a hand through his hair self-consciously.

  ‘It’s about me. You know what my childhood was like, my parents, my particularly loving father. And the thing is …’ He raised his head up and looked at the sky, swallowing hard. ‘I am them. They are part of me. It’s DNA, plain and simple. I might no longer live with them, but I can’t forget where I come from. I can’t get away from the truth. And the fact is I’m not good enough for you. I can’t allow myself to get close to you, because I daren’t. You know the saying: an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? Well what if, deep down, I’m rotten to the core? I thought I should tell you because …’ He swallowed. ‘Sometimes, I get the feeling you want more from me and I want you to understand why I can’t give it.’

  For a moment I was speechless. Of all the scenarios I’d envisaged, this one hadn’t even occurred to me. I stared at him incredulously. Did he really think that about himself?

  ‘My father didn’t hang around long enough for me to find out what characteristics he and I might share,’ I said softly, ‘but I don’t let that worry me, I am me, I am who I choose to be. And so are you. And Jude, I have to tell you the person you chose to be is easily the most selfless, kind-hearted and intrinsically good man I have ever met.’

  He gave a laugh of surprise. ‘Is that really how you see me?’

  ‘Yes! And it would be a privilege for any woman to be loved by you. Put your fears aside my friend and be proud of who you are.’

  ‘You know, sometimes I do feel proud.’ He shook his head bashfully. ‘I think I turned out well, all things considered. I just … A privilege, you said?’ He was laughing now.

  I eyed him cheekily. ‘You can compliment me now, if you like?’

  He cupped a hand to my face. ‘Easy: you’re beautiful, sparkly, slightly crazy …’ He sighed. ‘But when this new TV show takes off with you as the lead actress, you’ll be properly famous. You’ll be recognized wherever you go. I’m no match for that. I’m just an ordinary guy.’

  I shrugged. ‘And I’m an ordinary girl. Landing a role like this is my dream, but I’ll still be me.’

  I thought about what Big Dave had said. How he’d had his head turned by fame. I was determined not to be like that. In
fact, I was confident that I wouldn’t be. Even my brush with fame a month ago had had me running to escape the media glare.

  His eyes burned with such an intensity that I felt my face heat up and then he gave me that lopsided smile, the one that made my insides flip and we leaned towards each other and kissed, a slow and tender kiss, our lips, our hearts and our bodies connecting for a few sweet seconds until we felt the presence of a third person hovering nearby.

  Whoever it was, Mabel approved because she jumped to her feet, tail wagging enthusiastically. We broke apart to see Archie shifting nervously from foot to foot.

  ‘Archie, where did you spring from?’ I said a bit sharply, to cover my embarrassment.

  He grinned.

  ‘Thanks for the warm greeting. Sorry, mate,’ said Archie, resting a brotherly hand on Jude’s shoulder. ‘Looks like I couldn’t have picked a worse time to interrupt.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Jude countered, pulling Mabel off Archie’s leg. ‘Pull up a chair, come and join us, we’ve been talking about plans for the boat house.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing? I see.’ Archie gave me another look and I let out a guilty laugh.

  ‘Oh, stop,’ I protested. ‘Sit down and have a drink with us.’

  Archie held his palms up.

  ‘I’d better not.’ His skin was so pale in comparison to Jude’s and his eyes had dark circles underneath. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been in yesterday, crumpled now as if he’d slept in them, if in fact he’d been to bed at all. My mouth went dry.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Possibly.’ My brother stared at me and rubbed a weary hand over his eyes, the same sea green as mine. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think any more.’

  Jude got to his feet. ‘Sit,’ he said, pressing Archie into his chair. ‘Come on, Mabel.’

  Mabel was at his side instantly. ‘I’ll order you both coffees and then leave you to it for a while. If I can do anything, let me know.’

  He smiled at me, squeezing my shoulder softly as he went. Archie sank into Jude’s chair and rested his face in his hands. ‘Coffee would be good, but then,’ he lifted his eyes up to me, ‘can we get out of here and find somewhere private, to talk?’