to the riverbank, her coat wrapped warmly around her. The preparations for the afternoon’s Frost Fair were well underway—which was just as well, as Laurel would be bringing the guests down from the hotel within the hour.
Wooden stalls were laid out all along the riverbank, a temporary street of tempting offerings to eat, drink or enjoy. The river that ran beside the hotel rarely froze and, even if it had, it would have been a health and safety impossibility to hold the fair actually on the ice, like people would have done at the Frost Fairs of old. But, with the rustic stalls, the lute music drifting through the icy air as the musicians warmed up and the smell of the hog roast cooking, it almost felt authentic.
Authentic enough for Hollywood, anyway, Eloise figured.
Pulling out her clipboard, she did the rounds, checking in with every stallholder, every caterer, every entertainer, from jugglers to ice carvers. Everything was looking good until she reached the small stage set up at the far end of the fair, ready for the acting troupe Laurel had hired to entertain the masses with excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked a dour-looking man unloading period costumes and props onto a rack.
Hang on. No, he wasn’t unloading. He was taking the costumes off the rack and putting them back into the suitcase.
‘Not great,’ he said, reaching for another doublet. ‘The troupe minibus gave up the ghost halfway down the M4. The guy they sent out to fix it said it’s dead as a doornail. I’d come on ahead with the costumes and props, but I’m only the stage manager-slash-accompanist. You want period sound effects or music? I’m your man.’ He shook his head. ‘Not a lot of use without the actors, though. Figured I might as well pack up again.’
‘Wait. Don’t... Stop packing up. Please. Just stop it.’ The man held up his hands and stepped back as Eloise reached for her phone.
‘Your call, love, but I don’t see what good they’ll do you.’
‘I just need to make a phone call...’ Turning away, Eloise stabbed at her phone until it rang Laurel, holding it tight to her ear and praying that the wedding planner would have an idea.
Click. ‘You have reached the voicemail of Laurel Sommers, wedding planner.’
Of course, to be any help at all she’d have to actually pick up the phone. Eloise hung up and tried again.
After she got put through to voicemail for the fifth time, Eloise gave up.
‘Okay, look, we’ll sort this out,’ she said, turning back to the man with the props. Except now he wasn’t alone.
‘Alas, poor Yorick!’ Noah held a skull at arm’s length as he quoted the line from Hamlet, looking utterly in his element.
Hadn’t he said he’d been a Shakespearean actor once? Maybe he could be again...
Spotting her, Noah put down the skull and walked towards her. Eloise pasted on her brightest, most winning smile and hoped he still wanted to keep playing their little game. Because she needed a big favour.
* * *
The Frost Fair, Noah had to admit, was quite the set-up. It looked like something from some high fantasy epic movie, rather than a historical. Stallholders were wandering around in that pseudo-period costume that seemed to work for peasants of all eras, mostly in shades of brown and green with the odd berry-red hat for a spot of colour. The river rushed past beside the stalls, flowing over rocks and under bare trees. The spot must be beautiful in the summer, he realised. No wonder Melissa had wanted to come back here.
When he came across the stage, he couldn’t resist—especially when he saw the box of props waiting there, just asking to be used. It might be a cliché, but in his experience it was a rare actor who could resist a bit of Hamlet.
Then he saw Eloise, lowering her phone from her ear, her red hair the brightest thing in the whole fair. Even her sensible brown knee boots and knitted navy dress made him want to reach out and touch her.
And when she smiled...his heart contracted in his chest.
Then his eyes narrowed. That was not the smile of a woman planning a seduction. That was the smile of a woman who wanted something. Well, he wasn’t above giving—as long as he got something in return.
In all honesty, if it was Eloise asking, he’d probably do it for free. Just to see some more of that smile.
‘What do you need?’ he asked as she approached.
Her smile faltered for a moment, then came back stronger than ever. ‘The troupe of actors we’d hired to perform today can’t make it. Their minibus broke down about a hundred miles away.’
‘That’s a shame.’ Noah was pretty sure he could guess now what she wanted, but he was going to make her ask, all the same. Given how incapable of saying no to her he felt right now, it was only fair.
‘I don’t suppose you’re feeling in the mood to reprise some of your more famous Shakespearian roles, are you?’
‘Fancying some Romeo at last, huh?’
‘Or Hamlet, or Benedick, or Puck...I’m not fussed, as long as there’s someone up on that stage performing when our guests arrive.’
‘Aren’t I one of those guests?’
Eloise shook her head. ‘You’re the best man. That means pitching in and fixing whatever goes wrong with the wedding.’
‘I suppose it does,’ Noah said slowly, an idea forming in his mind. ‘And I guess as maid of honour you have to do the same, right?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Well, in principle...but you’re the actor here. This really seems like a job for you.’
‘Ah, but it would be so much better with two, wouldn’t it?’ Noah said. ‘Monologues are so boring. But a good bit of dialogue...that’ll get people watching. So, how’s your Shakespeare?’
‘Rusty. Very, very rusty. I mean, I used to help my mum learn her lines, and she did a few of Shakespeare’s, but that was years ago. As was my A-level English Lit course, for that matter.’
‘Your mum?’ Noah frowned. ‘She was an actress?’ Did that explain Eloise’s strange prejudice against actors? Had one messed her mother around? Or was her dad an actor?
For someone he knew so little about, he felt strangely invested in her past. And in her immediate future, come to that.
‘Of a sort. Look, it doesn’t matter now. The point is, I don’t know the lines. Any lines. For any play.’
‘You don’t need to,’ Noah told her, pushing aside his questions about her parents for a time when Eloise was less stressed. So, some time next year, probably. The woman had been stress incarnate since he’d met her. Strange—that wasn’t something he’d ever found attractive before. ‘We’ll do readings rather than acting out the scenes. It’ll work fine and you don’t need to worry about remembering anything.’
Eloise frowned. ‘I suppose. But...’
Now they were getting to it. ‘So, what’s the real reason you don’t want to
