Dreaming of Mr. Darcy (20 page)

Half an hour went by at Marlcombe Manor, and Oli Wade Owen was still a missing person. Teresa had paced up and down for ten minutes, wondering what to do.

‘He just stormed off,' Gemma said when Teresa asked where her leading man was.

‘Where? Where did he storm off?'

Gemma pointed across the lawn where the garden sloped and was lost in a group of trees.

‘Bloody hell!' Teresa said, and Gemma watched as the director followed the path that Oli had taken earlier.

‘What did he say to you?' Sophie asked as she approached from behind.

‘Oli?' Gemma said. ‘Not much. Just that he was fed up with the way Teresa was treating him.'

‘The usual, then?' Sophie said.

‘What's going on?' a voice suddenly cried from behind them. ‘What have I missed?'

Gemma and Sophie turned around to see Beth emerging from the back of a taxi, wincing as her sprained ankle hit the ground.

‘Shouldn't you be resting?' Gemma asked.

‘I couldn't stay in that bed and breakfast a minute longer,' Beth groaned. ‘I was so bored!' The taxi pulled away and Beth hobbled over towards them. ‘What's going on?'

‘Oli stomped off in a huff after upsetting Teresa.'

‘Her daughter turned up at the bed and breakfast with her nanny and then promptly disappeared,' Beth said.

‘Yes,' Gemma said. ‘She turned up here with Oli.'

‘I was trying to hear what was going on from my room, but it was no use, and then Kay seemed to forget I was there at all. She's gone off with Adam.'

‘Now we've lost our director on top of everything else,' Sophie said. ‘I thought we were trying to make a period drama here, but it's turning into more of a farce.'

‘I don't think Oli and Teresa should be working together,' Gemma said. ‘They constantly wind each other up.'

‘But have you seen their films?' Sophie said. ‘She always gets the best out of Oli.'

‘I don't think he should be acting at all,' Beth said.

‘What?' Sophie all but screamed.

‘What makes you say that?' Gemma asked. ‘He's a brilliant actor.'

‘I know,' Beth said.

‘What, you think he should give it all up and make babies with you?' Sophie teased. ‘Because that's not going to happen.'

Beth scowled at her. ‘And how do you know?'

‘Because he's got his eye on someone, and it's not you,' Sophie declared.

‘Who?' Beth asked.

‘I think it might be our little hostess,' Sophie said with a smile, delighting in taunting Beth.

‘But she's off out somewhere with Adam,' Beth said.

‘So?' Sophie asked.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, you two!' Gemma cried out. ‘Can't you talk about anything else?'

Sophie and Beth exchanged puzzled expressions.

‘What else is there to talk about except love?' Sophie asked.

***

As Adam and Kay crossed the parking lot, he thought about her question about Jane Austen. Did Jane Austen ruin lives by giving people false expectations about love? Were her heroes just too good to be true? Could a real man of flesh and blood ever hope to live up to such paragons? And were books with happy endings cruel? Did they give their readers a warped view of the world and what they could expect from it?

For a moment he thought of his own view of the world. Had it been coloured by the literature he read? He wouldn't be surprised if it had, and now here he was adding to the sum total of happy endings in the world with his own writing. Was he perpetuating the myth?

Adam sighed. As long as he could remember, he had been an optimist. He always looked on the bright side of life. He always thought things would turn out for the best and never had anything but the highest expectation of things. Until Heidi Clegg, that was. Before Heidi, Adam believed that love was a pure and simple thing and that being honest and open was a sure way to find a happy ending of his own. He was wrong.

***

Adam met Heidi Clegg at a wrap party for the first film he produced. She came as a friend of one of the actresses but was not an actress herself, much to the relief of Nana Craig.

Heidi was tall with short blond hair cut elfin-like around a beautiful face, and she had the most hypnotic eyes Adam had ever seen. They were like polished jade and gave her face a feline appearance. Adam had fallen in love in the space of a moment.

There followed a few blissful months of wonderful dates and romantic nights when he felt that the city of London had been made for them alone. They did many funny, silly things together. He took her to London Zoo, where they ate ice cream and laughed at the penguins. They took a boat out on the Serpentine in Hyde Park and picnicked on Primrose Hill. It had been the most perfect summer of Adam's life, and he knew that she was the one.

He bought the ring—a beautiful square-cut diamond set in platinum—from a jeweller's he walked by a dozen times on his way to the studio where he worked. That morning, it had stopped him in his tracks, winking at him as strongly as a lighthouse beam. It had been a sign. Well, that's what Adam thought at the time.

He chose a restaurant by the river, the sun setting behind the city, and then he waited for her to arrive. This, he thought, is going to be the most perfect night of our lives. He felt excitement bubble up inside him and then wondered if he should order a bottle of champagne to get some real bubbles in on the action. He motioned to the waiter and tried not to splutter into his tie when he saw the prices.

‘Thank you,' he said, ‘I'll have this.' He chose a bottle that cost more than he received for the first short story he sold.
It's a special occasion
, he told himself.
A
very
special
occasion, and if one can't have champagne on such an occasion, then it was a poor do.

He looked out into the darkening night and wondered where Heidi was and if she had any idea what he was going to ask her. Didn't women have a sixth sense for these sorts of things? Maybe she was panicking about what to wear or was fixing her hair so that everything would be perfect. He tried to imagine her arriving—walking in through the restaurant door. She was a woman who made heads turn, and he was quite sure it would happen that night. How proud he would be to see her! He'd catch her eye and she'd beam him one of her bright smiles, and the other diners in the restaurant would turn to see who she was meeting.

‘That's my future wife you're admiring,' he'd want to tell them.

He checked his watch again. She was fifty minutes late, which was perfectly normal for Heidi. He had come to expect her to be late, and she always had a good excuse. Take the time when she was late for the theatre because she broke a nail. It must have been horribly painful, and of course she had to fix it, and he didn't mind not being let in to the show until the interval. After all, you couldn't expect to ruin the enjoyment for everyone else—not when you were sitting in the front row. It would have been disruptive. Then there was his hour-long wait for her outside the Victoria and Albert Museum for the exhibition he wanted to see. Heidi hadn't been able to decide what shoes to wear and so went shopping on the way. He had to admit that she did look fabulous, and he hadn't minded missing the exhibition. Who wanted a timed ticket entry anyway? Wouldn't it be more fun to just look around the permanent collection at one's own leisure?

A fifty-minute—make that fifty-five minute—delay, then, wasn't anything to worry about. It also gave him a chance to practise things in his mind.

‘Heidi,' he could say, ‘you know how much I care about you?'

Hmmm. Did that make him sound too overbearing? He didn't want to smother her and scare her away. She was a modern, independent woman who would laugh in his face if she thought he had visions of hiding her away from the world and mollycoddling her.

‘Heidi—what can I say but I love—'

‘Oh, Adam!' her voice called across the restaurant, and sure enough, a dozen pairs of eyes flashed in her direction as she waltzed towards him wearing the sort of dress that Nana Craig would have sworn should be classed as underwear. ‘Have you been waiting ages for me, darling?' She leaned across the table, flashing an ample of bosom and leaving a red smear across his mouth.

‘No,' Adam lied. ‘Not at all.'

‘I just couldn't get away on time.' That was as much of an excuse as she was going to give this time, but Adam didn't mind.

‘That's okay,' he said, watching as Heidi arranged herself, flicking her hair back and fluffing out her dress around her knees. Because he couldn't bear to delay it another moment, he reached across the table and took her hand in his. She looked at him with her huge cat-like eyes, and he cleared his throat.

‘Heidi,' he said.

‘What is it? Are we going to order?'

Adam smiled. ‘Yes, of course we are, but I wanted to ask you something first.'

‘Oh?'

‘You know how I feel about you, don't you?'

Heidi's eyes narrowed. ‘I guess,' she said.

‘I've never met anyone like you before.'

‘No,' she said. ‘I don't expect you have.'

‘And I want to ask you to marry me.'

Heidi's pretty mouth opened in a perfect circle. ‘Really?'

‘Yes, really,' Adam said with a little laugh. And then an awful silence fell between them.

‘Oh, dear,' Heidi said at last.

‘What?' Adam said, panic rising in him.

‘I didn't see this coming,' she said. ‘I mean, we've been having fun, haven't we?'

‘Yes,' Adam said. ‘We have.'

‘What we have—it's a lovely, summery thing, isn't it?'

Adam swallowed hard. A lovely, summery thing? What the hell was that supposed to mean? ‘Heidi—I love—'

‘Don't say that,' she said, removing her hand from his.

‘Why not? Why shouldn't I say it? It's what I feel.'

Heidi took a deep breath and then dropped her bombshell. ‘But I'm already married.'

Adam's face froze, and he was unable to speak, anger and confusion boiling inside him as he thought about the time they had spent together—the
nights
they spent together, and the weekends away, the parties they attended together
as
a
couple
. Everything had been pointing to a future together, hadn't it?

‘I'm sorry, Adam. I just wanted a bit of fun, you know?' Heidi said. ‘My marriage has been stale for years and—well—this has been fun, hasn't it? You don't regret it, do you?'

Adam could feel himself heating up as he looked at the stranger before him—the stranger he'd fallen in love with.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘You men are strange. You get so worked up about a few dates and a little bit of sex. Why can't you just enjoy things for what they are?'

Adam closed his eyes, willing the scene to be some dreadful nightmare from which he was about to wake, but when he opened his eyes, Heidi was still sitting across from him with a taunting expression on her face.

After a pause, the waiter came to the table. ‘Ready to order?'

‘Adam?' Heidi said. ‘Are we ready to order?'

He shook his head. ‘I've suddenly lost my appetite.'

Heidi sighed. ‘I guess that's it then, is it?' She looked across at him; her eyes narrowed and looked like little chips of ice.

‘I guess it is.'

She pushed her chair back, and he watched as she stormed out of the restaurant, causing heads to turn once again.

‘That's not my future wife,' Adam said.

‘Excuse me?' the waiter said.

Adam laughed. ‘I'll just finish this bottle of champagne,' he said.

The waiter nodded and left him to it.

It took Adam a full hour to pull himself together, but pull himself together he did. He was furious with himself. How could he have not known?

Leaving the restaurant, he walked along the river, his eyes gazing out across the city. London was a great place to be when you were in love and a horrible prison when you weren't.

That evening he decided to go back to Lyme Regis—for good—and it was not just to run away from his doomed relationship. He wanted to smell the sea air. He wanted to stride across the fields and breathe in lungfuls of fresh air.

He left within a fortnight, determined that he was going to focus on his work. He was through with women. Well, until he met Kay.

Now, driving out of Lyme Regis with Kay beside him, he wondered if she was right. Maybe Jane Austen fans were destined to be disappointed by love because nothing could ever live up to the happy endings created in fiction, and yet here he was in love again. Even though he had told himself that it would never happen again and that he would be better off single, he found himself falling for Kay.

A voice came out of the shrubbery, and it didn't sound too happy.

‘I have enough to worry about with schedules and the weather and a million other things without having to worry about my lead actor as well.'

‘Stop bloody worrying about me then!'

‘How can I, when you kidnap my daughter and then go stomping off?'

‘I did not kidnap Annabel.'

‘No, you just went off with her without telling anybody.'

‘I'm not going through all this again,' Oli's voice shouted. ‘I told Clare, okay?'

Gemma bit her lip. She hated arguments, but she couldn't help listening in on that one. Not that she had much choice. The whole cast and crew had downed tools and were listening too.

‘I'm not going to discuss it anymore!' Teresa's voice yelled. ‘That's an end of it.'

The voices quietened.

‘I don't think we're going to get that other scene done today, are we?' someone said.

Gemma turned around and saw Rob. He was grinning, and his eyes sparkled with mischief.

‘I wonder what's going on with those two, anyway?' Rob said when it was clear Gemma wasn't going to answer his question.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean it's like they can't live with each other or without each other.'

‘I wish they could just get on with things until we finish shooting.'

Rob walked towards her. ‘You okay?' he asked.

‘I'm fine,' she said.

‘Want a cup of coffee?'

‘No, thank you,' Gemma said, her mind still on Oli and Teresa.

‘Tea?'

‘No.'

‘How about—'

‘Look,' Gemma interrupted, ‘I'd just rather be on my own—if you don't mind.'

‘Oh.'

Gemma started to walk back to the trailer. Filming was hard enough without all this business with Oli, and now Rob kept popping up every time she turned around. What was it with men?

As she climbed the steps into the trailer, she dared to glance back, and sure enough, he was staring right back at her, his smile bright and undiminished.

***

The drive from Lyme Regis to Charmouth was short, and the sweep of sea that greeted Kay from the parking lot at the bottom of the lane took her breath away.

Jane Austen had written about this countryside, and Kay had read that passage in
Persuasion
over and over since moving to Lyme Regis.

‘You'll love it here,' Adam said. ‘It's such a special place.'

Charmouth might not be the first destination for those with a bucket and spade; the visitors were far more likely to be wielding metal hammers.

‘This is the best place ever for fossils,' Adam explained. ‘People come from all over the world to find them. We'll have a quick tour of the heritage centre and shop before hitting the beach; then you'll be an expert and know exactly what we're looking for.'

Twenty minutes later, and with a tiny guidebook to help her, Kay was ready to attack the beach. They crossed a little wooden bridge over a river and headed towards the main beach. There was a good stretch of shiny sand but the beach was predominately stony with great grey cliffs stretching heavenwards all the way along to Golden Cap. Kay looked back along the coast and saw the sandy beach at Lyme Regis.

‘Can you see Wentworth House from here?' she asked, shielding her eyes.

Adam looked. ‘There's the row of beach huts, so Wentworth House will be about there,' he said, pointing.

Kay smiled. Her own little piece of the Dorset coast.

Adam's phone rang. ‘Blast,' he said.

Kay turned away to give him a moment's privacy.

‘No, no, no,' he was saying, ‘the budget won't allow for that. There's got to be another way. Yes, but we tried that before, and it doesn't work.'

Kay frowned. There was obviously more to filmmaking than handsome actors and beautiful costumes.

‘Sorry about that,' Adam said a moment later. ‘I've switched it off now.'

‘Are you allowed to do that?'

‘I think the film world can manage without me for a couple of hours. Come on,' he said, ‘let's get to work.'

At first, progress was slow as they walked along the pebbly beach, but then a rhythm set in, and Kay almost felt as if she were in a trance with her feet moving quite independent of thought and her eyes cast to the ground while she tried to make out certain shapes in the sand. She'd seen the pretty ammonites in the gift shop and was desperate to find one of her own, but it wasn't easy, and she was lazy to begin with, expecting her prize to be quickly won with only a quick shove with her boot to reveal the hidden treasure. Soon her technique frustrated her, and she crouched down to be nearer the ground. Adam was crouching too, which made Kay anxious. What if he found something before her? Competitiveness set in, and a fossil frenzy began with fingers turning over stones quickly but carefully while she shuffled along the beach with her bottom hovering in the most ungainly of fashions. Kay didn't care, as long as she got her fossil. Anyway, everybody else seemed to be doing exactly the same thing, so nobody would be interested in her bottom. Charmouth, she thought, was the most unfriendly beach in the country, because everyone's eyes were fixed on the ground and everybody was a rival.

After about ten minutes, Kay stood and stretched. She couldn't hover any longer and so took to bending down instead.

‘You'll get fossiler's stoop if you do it for too long,' Adam said, turning around from his patch on the beach.

‘Why can't I find anything?'

‘Be patient. It's a case of training the eyes, that's all. There's no secret.'

‘But you've found so many,' she said, looking at the collection in his hand crammed full of tiny ammonites.

‘Yes, but I've been doing this since I was a kid.'

‘I need a fossil hound or something to help me,' Kay said, squatting down to the ground again. Once again, the world became a square metre of concentration, but still, Kay found nothing.

She looked up at the grey cliffs above her. They looked horrendously unstable and almost alive with menace. It was easy to imagine the wonders that they must hide—the prehistoric beasts that were ready to burst free from their muddy tombs. All it would take was one extra storm; just one more landslip, and they'd be free. Adam had warned her not to go too close to the cliff and told her the story about the famous nineteenth-century fossil collector, Mary Anning, who had been trapped by a landslip that nearly killed her, so Kay kept her distance from them.

She took a deep breath and began again.

‘Oh, my goodness!' Adam exclaimed. He was leaning over a dark boulder, his chisel in hand and his back to Kay.

Straightening up, Kay stumbled over the beach to reach him. ‘What is it? What have you found?'

‘I think it's a tyrannosaur.'

‘What?' Kay's mouth dropped open. ‘Show me!'

Adam turned from the boulder and held out a tiny purple toy dinosaur he'd been hiding in his jacket. ‘It's the discovery of a lifetime,' he said, a big grin bisecting his face.

‘Adam!' she said with a laugh, ‘I thought you were serious.'

‘I saw him in the shop and couldn't resist him.'

‘And I thought you'd gone back in to get proper equipment,' she said.

‘Go on, then,' he said, ‘back to it.'

Kay giggled as she put the furry dinosaur in her pocket and returned to a patch of beach of her own.

The sound of hammering rocks vied with the incessant waves as Kay worked her way slowly along the beach once more. While she continued to hunt, she wished Oli were there. Not that this would be his kind of thing. In fact, she couldn't imagine him there at all. She remembered seeing a photograph of him in a celebrity magazine once. He'd been on board a very expensive-looking yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean. That would be the kind of holiday by the sea he'd enjoy, not fossil hunting on a wind-battered bit of Dorset coast.

She looked up and watched Adam for a moment, how patient he was, searching the stones and sand with relentless precision, his thick dark hair flopping over his face. He had his sleeves rolled up, and Kay noticed he had nice strong arms that had obviously caught the sun recently. No wonder Gemma had clapped her eyes on him, she thought. He really was very handsome.

Feeling a little bit disloyal to her dear Oli at having such thoughts, Kay returned to scanning the beach and—suddenly—there it was. Sitting on the shingle as if it had been waiting especially for her was a tiny golden ammonite. It was the size of a thumbnail and seemed to be winking up at her, daring her to pick it up, which Kay was only too happy to do.

‘I've got one!' she yelled. ‘I've got one!'

Adam stood up and came running towards her. ‘Let's see then, Darwin.'

Kay held it up for his inspection. ‘Isn't it gorgeous?'

‘It's a beauty, all right.' Adam took it from her and examined it closely. ‘Well done!'

Kay beamed with pride. ‘Gold, too!'

‘That's the iron pyrite or fool's gold,' Adam said, handing it back to her.

‘It's beautiful. It's like a piece of jewellery.' She held it up so that it caught the light.

‘Nothing beats that first fossil,' he said. ‘And I think you win the prize for the best today.'

‘I'll keep it forever,' Kay said. ‘Unless—'

‘What?' Adam said.

‘Do you think Oli would like it?'

‘I thought you said you'd keep it forever.'

‘Yes, but Oli might like it, and I can always find another one, can't I?'

‘I don't know,' Adam said. ‘It's not always that easy. You've got a particularly good one there.'

Kay thought for a moment. Adam was probably right. What would Oli do with a funny old fossil, anyway?

‘Well, I'll keep it,' she said at last.

‘Good,' Adam answered.

‘I've had so much fun,' Kay said, her face warm and pink from the sunshine and the wind.

Adam smiled at her, and his eyes crinkled at the edges.

‘What?' she said, having the distinct impression that he was about to say something.

‘Kay,' he began.

‘Yes?'

He cleared his throat.

‘What is it?' she asked encouragingly.

He looked shy, but then he took a deep breath. ‘There's something I've been wanting to tell you.'

‘Yes?' she said, but she instantly knew what he was going to say. She could tell from the look on his face that he was a man in love. It was obvious. ‘It's about Gemma, isn't it?' she said.

‘What?'

‘It
is
, isn't it?' Kay's voice rose in excitement. ‘Oh, Adam! I think it's wonderful. I just
knew
you two would hit it off.'

‘But I—'

‘It's all right—you don't have to say anything else. I don't need to be thanked. It was my entire pleasure—it really was. You are two of the nicest people I've ever met, and I could see that you were right for each other.'

‘Kay—listen—'

‘I have a natural talent for this sort of thing. Maybe I should be running a dating agency instead of a bed and breakfast. What do you think?'

Adam didn't answer. He was walking along the beach in the direction of the parking lot.

Probably
thinking
about
Gemma
and
the
next
time
he'll see her—that will be it
, Kay thought. What a sweet couple they made. Lyme really was turning out to be the most romantic of places.

‘Adam!' she called. He'd confided in her, and now she wanted to confide in him. It was the least she could do.

He stopped and turned around.

‘Listen!' she said, feeling breathless with excitement. ‘I can tell you, can't I? I mean, this is turning into a day of confessions, isn't it?'

Adam nodded. ‘I guess it is.'

‘I think I'm in love.'

Adam's eyes widened. ‘You do?'

Kay nodded again, the wind blowing her hair over her face and half covering the huge smile fixed there.

‘I mean, I haven't said anything to him yet, but I'm quite sure. Quite sure.'

‘Oli. You mean Oli, don't you?'

Kay sighed. ‘I do.'

‘And do you know how he feels about you? What's he said? Has he told you how he feels?'

‘Oh, Adam. You sound like an anxious parent,' Kay said with a little laugh. ‘No, of course he's not said anything, but you don't always need to, do you? I mean, emotions are sometimes bigger than words, don't you think? Anyway, that's how I feel, and it's a wonderful feeling too. I feel like I'm flying—like Louisa Musgrove from the Cobb, only without the unhappy landing.'

They reached the little wooden bridge.

‘Adam?'

‘Yes?'

‘Thanks for today. I always have such a good time with you.'

‘Don't sound so surprised.'

Kay laughed, and the two of them walked over the bridge together. He really was a sweet guy, she thought. Gemma was a lucky girl indeed.