The Director's Cut (27 page)

Camilla sighs.

“Ben said all the right things, made all the romantic gestures,” she says. “I was straight out of an all girl’s school. To me, it was like a fairy tale come true. And I fell head over heels.”

She looks down at the table and pauses for a moment.

“Ben assumed, if he seduced me, that my parents would pressure me to marry him,” she continues in a quiet little voice. She shakes her head. “My parents might be titled, but they would never expect me to marry a man just because I’d lost my virginity to him.”

“But you loved Ben?” I guess.

“Yes,” Camilla nods. “
I fell really hard. Lucky for me, James found out what was going on, before anything happened. He confronted Ben. Told him to back off. Ben refused.”

Camilla sighs again. “I hated James, at the time,” she admits. “I thought Ben and I were in love,
and James was coming between us.” Her hand squeezes mine, and she swallows.

“Then James offered Ben money,” she says, “to leave me. I never, in a million years, thought Ben would accept. But he did.”

Her blue eyes flicker to mine, and I see the real pain there.

“That’s when I knew,” she says. “That James had been right about Ben all along. I was heartbroken. I had this dream that Ben was The One, and my first time would be perfect. Pretty silly, I guess.”

I take both her hands, keeping my voice low.

“You listen to me, Cam,” I say. “Nothing you did was stupid or silly. Ben Gracey is a pathetic liar who will get what’s coming to him.”

Camilla gives me a faint smile.

“I just wish I didn’t feel it all so strongly,” she admits, her eyes sweeping mine.

“You just wait,” I tell her, “when the right man comes along, you’ll be glad of that open heart of yours. Ben is closed up, and broken. And he’ll never know happiness like you will.”

Camilla’s fingers are still holding mine.

“Thanks
, Issy,” she whispers. Her eyes are bright.

“You’ll find someone amazing,” I add.

“I really hope so,” she says.

“I know so,” I say, determinedly. “You’ll see.”

Lady Berkeley returns to the room, clutching a photo album, and Camilla shrieks with sudden delight.

“Oh my God!” she gasps
. “You
have
to see these, Issy. There are some of James in there. He is sooo cute.”

She grabs the album from a smiling Lady Berkeley.

“James!” calls Camilla. “Eliza’s brought the pictures out.”

James turn
s to us.

“Oh no
.” He’s shaking his head. “You can’t show her that. She’ll leave me.”

“Oh no
, she won’t,” says Eliza. “You were the cutest little boy. I just wish I had been around then to see it.” Something in her expression looks sad, and I wonder how much she knew about James and his father’s history.

“Here we are,” Camilla is saying. She flips open the album
, and the first picture is a grainy shot of a baby in a flowing christening gown.

“Baby James,” announces Camilla. “Wearing a dress.”

She turns the page, and the next shot is of a little boy, aged three or so. He’s holding the hand of an exotic-looking woman, who must be his mother. And the background contains palm trees, so I’m guessing the picture was taken in Mauritius.

My eyes settle on James’s face. His green eyes are alive, delighted. Even though he’s so young, I can still see a little of his personality. It reminds me of our time together in the Barcelona park, when he was so happy and carefree.

I feel myself smiling. Then James is at my shoulder, leaning over at the shot.

“Is that your mother?” I ask, pointing at the woman in the shot.

“Yes.” His voice is full of happy sentiment.

“She’s beautiful,” I murmur, taking in the large brown eyes and lustrous sweep of dark hair.

Camilla leans forward and flips the page. And the next shot is of James, standing alone, in a starched-looking school uniform. He can hardly be much older than seven, and I can see instantly something is very wrong.

It’s
not the same happy boy from the previous picture.

He’s like a different child.

“James looks really grumpy,” comments Camilla, frowning.

But I can see, it’s so much worse than that. He looks… damaged. Broken.  It’s awful to see, in such a young child.
Looking at the picture, I feel like my heart is being torn in half.

I turn up to look at James, my face a question. But he looks away.

“It always seemed strange to me,” I hear Lady Berkeley say, “the English tradition of sending boys to board so young. And in such adult uniforms.”

I hear disapproval in her voice, and I can tell that she’s seen it too.
This terrible change.

“Here,”
adds Lady Berkeley, leaning forward. “Let’s see some happy photos. Isabella. Let me show you some pictures of James after his first big movie success. He looks pleased as punch,” she adds, pronouncing the colloquialism carefully in her Eastern European accent.

After lunch, James takes me for a walk around the house and grounds, and I find myself marvelling at how much of England is owned by his family.

He shows me his plain
childhood bedroom, and a library where he used to read. But overall, I am struck by how much this wasn’t his home growing up.

“What was boarding school like?” I ask, thinking back to the picture of the distraught little boy in a high collar.

“Cold,” says James shortly. “In every way. The master’s main aim was to crush excess emotion out of us. I was behind the other boys, so I took a lot more schooling. Mainly, that meant being hit with canes.”

I feel my heart go out to him.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t be,” he replies, and I feel as though a wall has come down.

We wander through the next few rooms in silence.

“Are you due to inherit this?” I ask as we move through
into a huge corridor.

It’s dawning on me that as the only son, James could become Lord Berkeley.

“I wasn’t,” he murmurs. “My father had me written out. But my stepmother persuaded him to reverse it a few years ago.”

I squeeze his arm. The memory is obviously painful.

“So you’ll be Lord Berkeley?” I manage tentatively. It seems an incredible idea.

James turns his green eyes on mine.

“Officially, yes. Although it is possible to give up your title. Lords have to attend the House of Lords, to vote on politics. Those duties might be difficult to fit around my movies.”

I decide not to question him on it further. We’re at a huge window now, on the second floor
. I let my eyes run over the yawning distance of green hills and forest.

“So
where does the estate end?” I ask.

“
We can’t see the end of it from here.”

Whoa.

“It’s a big estate,” I venture.

“Yes.” He points into the middle distance. “
That’s where we’ll be filming later.”

“How much later?
” It’s occurring to me that our time together could be over soon, and I want to relish every second.

“Quite soon,” says James. “But we’ll have more time together later.”

He smiles at me, and I sense his earlier mood has passed.

His eyes flash wickedly. “We’ve got a few more days here,” he says, “and I’ve got so much more to show you.”

“Oh really?” I raise my eyebrows at his tone. “Like what?”

“Like…” James turns me gently and presses me back against the
window, his hands press my arms against my sides. “The stables,” he says, leaning in to kiss me, his voice low. “Plenty of whips and riding crops.”

His hand slips to beneath my dress.
I feel my body jolt with lust.

“And of course, we have cornfields,” he adds
. “Lots of hay to roll around in.”

His hand slides up th
e inside of my thigh, and I feel my breath tighten.

“In fact,” he decides, “I think you’re going to like the
Berkeley Estate, very much.”

His fingers inches further up my skirt, and I move my hand to his wrist.

“Stop,” I whisper, “not here.”

His eyes search my face.

“I’m still dealing with being a lunch date of the Lord and Lady of the Manor,” I say apologetically. “One thing at a time.”

James slides his hand out from under my skirt and kisses me.

“Anything you say,” he says with a mock little bow. “But Issy, you’ve adapted so quickly to my other little ways, I’m sure it won’t take you long to get comfortable with my family home.”

He’s grinning at me, and I can’t help but grin back.

Then his phone sounds.

Frowning, he takes it out of his pocket.

I see his face drop, and instantly, the atmosphere changes.

“What is it?” I whisper, frightened by his sudden
shift of expression.

James lowers the phone, and I see him swallow.

He looks for a moment, as though he’s considering whether to tell me. And then he speaks.

“It seems as though
someone has tried to open private files on my computer,” he says. His voice is deadly serious.

Private files?

“What do you mean?” My voice comes out as a barely a whisper.

“Someone has accessed my
laptop remotely,” he says. “I can’t imagine it would be anyone else but the person leaking to the press.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “I
n theory, they could have opened almost anything.” His eyes drill me with the significance of this. “Which means,” he continues, “the photos I took of you could have been found. Even copied.”

His face is ashen.

I feel the world sliding away from me.

James is shaking his head.

“It was stupid of me,” he mutters, “I had so much to arrange, I didn’t check the security of the internet connection here. Someone got through on the WiFi.”

“But we don’t know for sure?” I press. “I mean, they might not have seen anything at all.”

From what I remember, there were a lot of files on James’s computer.

“Do you know how long they had access for?” I add.

James is shaking his head in frustration. “Not more than a few minutes,” he says. “The security on my laptop shut them down and alerted my phone.”

A little of my anxiety slips away.

“Then surely the chance is small?” I venture.
“That they would have even seen those pictures. Let alone copied them?”

James’s face is like thunder. “Yes. The chance is small. Very small,” he says. “But even the smallest chance that those photos might be seen is completely unacceptable.”

James looks absolutely furious.

“We’re going to close this leak down.
Now
,” he says. The determination in his voice is intimidating.

He punches a few keys on his phone, and then turns to me.

“First, I’m going to make sure absolutely no information can leave Berkeley Hall,” he says. “Then, I’m going to resolve this leak.”

“You’ll need to go back to your
cottage,” he adds. The distraction in his voice feels almost painful to me, in contrast to his earlier affection.

“I’m sorry,” he adds, seeing the distress on my face. “I’m just angry at myself
, Issy, that I could ever have put you at such risk.”

“Don’t be…” I start to say, but he dismisses my words with a wave of his hand.

Ouch.
I guess now is not the time to try and talk him down.

“
You’ll need to head back to the actor’s accommodation,” he repeats. “I’ve changed the timings for today. And I don’t want people to see us arrive from the same direction.”

“What’s happening now?”
I ask.

“I’ve scheduled a
n earlier meeting,” he says. “Everyone. All the cast, the crew, are due on the grounds in twenty minutes. We’re going to find out once and for all who is behind this leak.”

Chapter 33

I head back to the cottages with everything that’s happening churning in my head.

Berkeley Hall is a reasonable distance away, so I’m walking fast. I’m guessing all the actors have already received the call and are long gone
ahead.

I near the cottages, wondering if I’m close enough to complete the
charade that James and I weren’t at lunch together. And I’m just about to turn and take the path towards the meeting, when I see Carol.

She’s
talking on her phone, and from what I can make out, she’s headed towards my cottage.