not important enough to offend me,’ said Sabrina rudely, and hung up.
Mind games, thought Vio, fighting down his anger. She’s trying to provoke me so I’ll lose my shit on set. Make a dick of myself in front of Rasmirez and take some of the heat off her.
Too bad, sweetheart. At least one of us knows how to be a professional.
He hoped he’d be able to translate some of the hostility between them into sexual tension on camera. But, after weeks of waiting, he was getting increasingly jittery about how they would play together. This was his five and-a-half-million-dollar lead role, the biggest break of his career. He wanted to get started.
‘Whoah.’
After five minutes of climbing, they had reached Home Farm. Vio was suitably impressed. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said, marvelling at the L-shaped building with its weathered grey stone. Even the thick front door could have been lifted directly from the pages of the novel. ‘It’s exactly what I pictured. Except …’
‘Except what?’ said Dorian.
‘Is it a little small, maybe?’
‘Small? I don’t think so,’ said Dorian, sounding a tad put out. In fact, he’d thought the same thing himself when he first saw the farm eight days ago, and spent much of the last week working on long-angle shots to create a better illusion of size, but it irritated him to have Viorel confirm his doubts. ‘We won’t be filming inside. I’ll show you some of the rushes we did last week of the exterior. It’s workable.’
But Viorel was no longer listening.
The front door of the farmhouse had swung open and a figure had emerged, covered from head to toe in thick black soot. Looking up, Dorian saw it too.
‘Tish?’ he asked tentatively. ‘Is that you?’ He walked towards the figure. An amused Viorel followed behind.
‘Oh, er, hello. Yes.’ Flustered, Tish attempted to brush the worst of the coal dust off herself, but it stuck fast, like iron filings to a magnet. She’d been up since seven, trying to rescue a nest of birds from the Connellys’ chimney shaft, and had not expected to see Dorian or any of the film people up at the farm at such an early hour.
Leaning forward, Viorel whispered in Dorian’s ear. ‘Am I imagining things? Or is she naked?’
Disappointingly, he saw as they drew nearer that Tish wasn’t naked. At least not quite. Beneath her sooty disguise she was barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of knickers and a skinny-ribbed vest. Definitely not a glamazon, thought Viorel, remembering Dorian’s arbitrary description of his ‘type’. Terrific legs though. My goodness.
‘I was … we were … having a bit of trouble,’ Tish babbled nervously, suddenly aware of how ridiculous she must look. ‘The chimney sweep’s coming this morning, you see, and there’s a family of swallows nesting …’
She stopped talking. From behind Dorian’s familiar, bear-like form, the most divine-looking man Tish had ever seen in her life suddenly emerged like an apparition. A vision in blue, his floppy black hair gleaming like a raven’s feathers, he stood there, staring at her. Of course, no one could ever hope to compare with Michel, not in terms of the overall package. But it could not be denied that on looks alone – when it came to regularity of features, proportionality of limbs, or any other objective standard of male beauty one might care to put forward – this toffee-tanned, blue-eyed Adonis took some beating.
The Adonis smiled at her wolfishly.
‘I’m Viorel Hudson. You must be Tish Crewe.’
‘Hmmm?’ Tish seemed to have temporarily lost the power of speech.
‘A pleasure to meet you,’ said Viorel, delighted by the effect he seemed to be having on her. ‘You won’t mind if I don’t shake your hand.’
‘Hmmm?’ said Tish again. She seemed to have developed late-onset autism. ‘The soot,’ Vio explained.
‘Oh!’ Tish looked down at her ape-black hands. ‘Of course. Sorry.’
It was only at that moment that it occurred to her that she was, to all intents and purposes, naked. She blushed so violently she was surprised Viorel wasn’t scorched by the heat coming off her cheeks.
‘Here.’ Dorian stepped forward, wrapping his Barbour around her. ‘You must be freezing.’
‘Spoilsport,’ said Viorel. Dorian glared at him.
‘Thank you,’ said Tish gratefully. ‘My clothes are inside. Everything got so caked with coal dust, you see. I could hardly move, so I … I assumed … I didn’t think there’d be anyone up here so early.’
‘Please, don’t apologize on our account,’ said Viorel, who was starting to enjoy himself. It was hard to get a good look at the girl’s face through all the grime, but the combination of her gloriously displayed figure and all-too-evident embarrassment was seriously endearing. As was the fact that she’d got up at seven to pull a bird’s nest out of a chimney. Who did that?
After a few more stammered apologies, Tish bolted down the hill to the manor, pulling Dorian’s oversized jacket around her tiny frame like a shield as she ran. Still grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Vio opened his mouth to speak, but Dorian cut him off.
‘No,’ he said firmly.
‘What do you mean “no”? I never said anything.’
‘I mean “no”. Not with her.’
‘All right,’ said Vio, amused. ‘But, just out of curiosity … why not?’
‘Because she’s our hostess.’
‘So?’
‘So it will cause tension on my set,’ said Dorian. ‘And because she’s a nice girl who doesn’t need your bullshit. And because I say so,’ he added stubbornly. ‘There’s a village full of eager young women on the other side of those gates. If you have to get your rocks off, go do it with one of them.’
‘OK, boss,’ said Vio, still smiling. ‘Whatever you say.’
The next time Viorel saw Tish was at lunch. Mrs Drummond had laid on a welcome spread for the actors. Walking into Loxley’s impressive, wood-panelled dining room in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her newly washed, still-damp hair tied back in a ponytail, Tish blushed scarlet when she saw Viorel standing there.
‘My, my,’ he teased, enjoying her discomfiture. ‘Don’t you scrub up well?’
‘Ignore him,’ said Dorian, introducing Tish to the rest of her temporary house guests. ‘Lunch looks spectacular, by the way. You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.’
The long mahogany refectory table had been set with white bone china and silverware, and a variety of estate-grown food laid out on large platters in the middle. There was a side of venison, fresh tomato and basil salad, a whole poached salmon and various vegetable dishes, including a mouthwatering stack of asparagus dripping in butter, which Mrs Drummond proudly informed everyone had been churned at Home Farm from Loxley cows.
‘The
