‘Sorry,’ she whispered as she pulled her jacket round her, trying for protection from the chill February wind, and rushed up the street to Clapham Common station. But she wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to or what for.
Annie breathed out and felt the tension leach from her body as soon as she clattered down the steps and through the front door of work. The Northanger Agency office was in the basement of a terraced house on a road parallel to Notting Hill Gate. Three rooms, a toilet, and a small kitchen, and not another Elliot in sight, bliss.
She shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the rickety hat stand that leaned lopsided just inside the door.
‘Crap,’ she said as it fell into the wall and took another small flake of paint off the wall. She rubbed it as if that would make a difference, instead merely managing to spread the red plaster underneath.
‘Are you taking chunks out of the office? You know the boss will take that out of your wages?’ Annie smiled when she heard the dry voice coming from one of the offices.
‘She’s such a slave driver,’ Annie replied as she walked through to the kitchen and flipped the switch on the kettle. She turned and leant against the counter, smiling at her boss who was now leaning against the doorjamb. The only reason Annie had a boss was Annie had enough responsibility without adding in running their tiny two-person agency. And Annie didn’t trust her family not to get their fingers into the firm’s finances.
‘I know. I mean if she didn’t chain you to the desk you’d never do any work.’ Cassie grinned. Cassie Steventon was all of five foot and with her mass of curls, dimples, and curvy figure most people dismissed her as a pretty doll. Which she was, if the doll had a spine of steel, a mind that ran rings round everyone else’s, and the ability to deal with the financial running of a production with the ferocity of a honey badger. So, yes, a really scary doll.
‘Speaking of which, isn’t today your day off?’ Cassie came and perched on the counter next to the kettle.
Annie cringed inside. How sad was her life that she had only one place to escape to when home got too bad? There was only work and home and if she had to choose, she chose work.
‘You know … I wanted to make sure everything was in order for that meeting you have with Sam about Romeo and Juliet.’
‘Annie, you had that all tied up yesterday. And we both know that Sam will be like putty in my hands.’ She fluttered her eyelashes as she said it. ‘Are you hiding out here again? It isn’t like I don’t enjoy having you round the place but really how can you be the kick-ass person at work who doesn’t take any nonsense and then at home …’
Annie quickly interrupted her.
‘I know, Cassie. I promise to get a life. Soon. It’s just …’ How could she explain that it was as if as soon as she came into contact with her family her backbone dissolved to mush? It was like that acid that even with a brief contact could burrow into your skin and then start leaching the calcium from your bones. No amount of washing would take it off. Maybe she should be wearing a HAZMAT suit when she was with her family?
‘Okay, I’ll leave you be. But one day they truly will drive you mad,’ Cassie said as she made a twirling motion with her finger against her temple. ‘Anyway enough of this, I have news. Big news. I thought I was going to have to keep it to myself till tomorrow but now you’re here …’
Annie relaxed. She was off the hook with the nagging for a little while. ‘Spill,’ she said.
‘Maybe we need cake for this particular piece of news?’ Cassie said.
‘Just tell me.’
‘No, I really think I should get us some of those cupcakes from the bakery across the way.’
‘If you don’t tell me, Cassandra Steventon, I will personally squash every cupcake within a mile radius with my fist. You know how I feel about them, evil foreign interlopers that have endangered our native fairy cake. It would be a pleasure … and stop distracting me. Tell me!’
‘I don’t know why I employ someone with such heathen taste in baked goods,’ Cassie said.
‘Number one, you “employ” me because I’m the best. Two, I’m the one who is pushing ahead with expanding into production. Oh, and three, I own part of this company too.’ Annie counted off the reasons and summoned up her best withering look. It was one she’d learned from Imogen and her dad. She knew it was a mere shadow of theirs but it worked a treat on non-Elliot people.
‘Okay okay, I’ll tell you,’ Cassie said. She put her hands up in surrender. Then she dropped them to her thighs and leant forward on the counter.
‘I’ve had it from Les Dalrymple’s assistant that he’s got the funding for his TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It is going to have a quick pre-production and then they’ll be filming it on location …’ Cassie leaned even closer. ‘It turns out he got the money from one of the big US networks because he bagged a brilliant Mr Darcy.’
Annie could feel herself lean forward. Cassie was weaving her magic again. Her heart accelerated as she realized that if they hadn’t cast the rest of the production she knew exactly who she would put forward. This was it. This was what she could use to shoehorn her father and sister into gainful employment and put some much-needed cash in the family coffers. And then she could have the peace of mind to go and get a place of her own.
‘Fantastic. Please tell me they still haven’t cast Mr Bennet and Caroline Bingley.’ She crossed her fingers. She could almost see the rental listings she would be looking at.
‘I’m sure we can pull a few strings,’ Cassie said with a wink. Annie wanted to pay her the fifteen per cent that an agent would take. Cassie waved her hands as if it were taken as read. ‘Now shut up and let me tell you who the big star is.’
Annie mimed locking her mouth.
It was going to be Benedict Cumberbatch, she thought. He hadn’t done much Jane Austen yet.
Annie was wondering what the Cumberbitches would make of their hero in breeches when cutting through her thoughts she heard: ‘Can you imagine it, Austen Wentworth in breeches?’ Cassie’s words echoed in her head.
What?
It reverberated round and set neurones firing.
Suddenly her mind was producing images of exactly what Austen Wentworth, voted People magazine’s sexiest man, looked like in breeches. She knew. She’d seen it. Truth be told she also knew what he looked like out of breeches.
She shook her head to dislodge the pictures of her past.
‘You what?’
She felt a burn on her shoulder blade, where ghostly tattoo needles made themselves felt, seven years after she had been inked. The tattoo that she always kept hidden, that no one knew about. Then Annie could feel a shaking start in her hands and gradually move up her arms to join the burn. As if she was having an attack of the chills. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering.
‘Yes, Austen “phwoar” Wentworth. I mean he is the hottest property around. And when I say hot, I mean it in all possible ways.’ Cassie waggled her eyebrows as if Annie needed it underlined.
Suddenly Annie thought the sugar from a cake would come in very handy. Even if it was a cupcake.
‘Just think – weeks of being on set with Austen Wentworth. I think Les Dalrymple will need our services, yes?’
‘Well I don’t know. As long as Dad and Immy get parts, I’ll be happy.’
‘Yeah,