small motor skills. Even if that might take some of the tension out of the evening, my doing a pratfall down the stairs.
We made our way through the hall, and the crowd parted for us as it had for Stone, celebrities by extension. I saw Serena press back into the doorway, making herself as small as possible. Joan’s mouth was pursed in a moue of distaste. She was still elevated above the crowd, on the stairs, but the crowd had shifted and their attention with it.
“Is this Mrs. Selwick?” Micah Stone asked easily, holding out a hand to me.
“No,” I said quickly, before Jeremy could. “I’m Eloise Kelly, official girlfriend in residence.”
Micah Stone took my hand. “Nice to meet you, official girlfriend in residence.” From the fringe of the group, Cate grinned at me and gave a little salute with her clipboard. Stone turned back to Colin. “Nice to finally meet you. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cameo in the film?”
Colin kept his smile in place, but it was the most unconvincing smile I had ever seen. “I don’t perform to strangers.”
“We’re not strangers here,” Jeremy rushed in. “We’re family! And we’d like to think of DreamStone as part of that family.”
“Uh, yeah,” said Micah Stone, and I found myself liking him more and more, not just because he was a fellow American in a sea of Brits, but because he managed to cut through Jeremy’s pretensions with two nondescript syllables.
If we were playing happy families, though, there was someone they’d forgotten.
“There’s one more Selwick you still have to meet,” I said.
Fine, I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but hadn’t the poor girl been squished enough by seeing her ex here with a new woman? The least I could do was make sure she was introduced to a dashing movie star. Even if Colin was still Not Speaking to her.
Stone leaned towards me, American to American. “Is this the one they keep in the attic?”
Give her a few more hours of this.…“No, this is the pretty one,” I said firmly. I waved a hand in the air. “Serena!”
Serena detached herself reluctantly from the doorframe and made her way slowly forward. Even in the depths of despair, there was a grace about her. There was something about the bruised look around her eyes that made me think of fairy tales and the princesses condemned to dance night after night in the goblin hall beneath the castle. She had the same bewildered air about her as those poor, dancing princesses in my storybook, going through the motions under compulsion, but doing it very prettily all the same.
I could see Dempster behind her, on the stairs, watching. I marked him down for later. If he thought he was getting off the hook for rifling through my notes, he had another think coming.
“My cousin, Serena, is part owner of the Selwick estate,” Jeremy jumped in, oozing confidentially towards Stone. Cousin…stepdaughter…But who was counting? He slid an arm around Serena’s shoulders, staking his claim. “Without her, DreamStone wouldn’t be here.”
He had to remind everyone?
“Thanks, Serena,” said Micah Stone. In his deep voice, the name was a caress. I could just hear the squealing teenyboppers. “Nice to meet you. I’m glad they saved the best Selwick for last.”
Serena murmured something inaudible, but socially correct.
“Nice place you have here,” said Stone.
“We like it,” said Jeremy, stepping in front of Colin. “And we hope you do, too.”
I had to give Colin lots of credit. He kept his mouth shut and held on to his temper, even though he was so tightly wound that if you had put a cuckoo in his mouth, he could have struck the hour. As for Serena, she seemed to shrink in on herself even more. Next time I looked, there would be nothing more than a walking pashmina, with no Serena in it at all.
I looked around longingly. Where was that champagne, again?
Stone looked from Colin to Jeremy and came to his own conclusions. Gesturing to Cate and her clipboard, he cut the meet-and-greet short with a seemingly casual, “Shall we head to dinner?”
Under that laid-back exterior, Stone was bright enough to be aware that something was going on, and he didn’t want any part of it. As he raised his hand, I spotted a hemp bracelet on one wrist, the rough strands woven into a braid, like a child’s lower school art project. The entire outfit was designed to make him look young, unthreatening, laid back. But, so far, he was doing a pretty good job of handling Jeremy. I wondered how much of him was for real.
I looked at Joan, artificially blond, clinging to Dempster’s arm; at Serena, so weak and yet strong enough to sell Colin down the river; and then, of course, Jeremy, our own private Mephistopheles. Everyone putting on a false face, playing a role, perpetually engaged in a masque without a script. There was only one person I could trust to be exactly what he was: Colin. I felt a surge of gratitude towards him. He might not always be the easiest person to deal with, but I knew that he was what he was. Always. Whatever he said, he meant.
At one point, I had wondered if Colin, like Augustus Whittlesby, was a secret agent, feigning one thing, doing another. I had searched for clues and double meanings. But Colin? I couldn’t believe that of him. He was, whatever his silences, too fundamentally honest.
I glanced at Colin’s profile as we all moved down the hallway, clustered around the lanky form of Micah Stone, trailing PAs and party guests behind us like streamers. I was going to have to tell him about the job offer, sooner rather than later. If he was honest with me, I should be with him. Wasn’t that part of the growth of the relationship, sharing problems rather than keeping them to oneself? I was very good at the whole getting him to share his problems with me bit, not so good at confiding my own.
After dinner, I promised myself. When we were both mellow with good wine and the relief of the hideous evening being done. Then I would sit him down, tell him my dilemma, and see if he could help me find a way out of it. As I knew from Augustus and Emma, waiting for these things to come out of their own accord was always a mistake.
“Huh?” I said. Someone was talking to me.
I looked around and saw various expressions of horror and disbelief. Cate was stifling a nervous giggle behind one hand. Jeremy looked miffed, but, then, Jeremy generally looked miffed where I was involved.
Oh. It was Micah Stone. And he wasn’t used to being ignored.
Of course, of the lot of them, the one person who didn’t seem to mind my not paying attention to Micah Stone was Micah Stone.
“Sorry!” I said brightly. “I was thinking about something else.”
“Eloise,” said Jeremy, “is an academic. Her mind is often elsewhere.”
“Yeah?” said Micah Stone. “What do you study?”
“English history,” I said. I made a gesture that encompassed the hallway down which we were walking. “This.”
“Eloise,” said Jeremy again, “is only here for a short time.”
For some reason I couldn’t quite explain, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I know it’s a cliché, but clichés exist for a reason. Sometimes they’re true.
“I’m here on a fellowship,” I explained to Stone. A fellowship that was about to run out.
“I imagine you’ll miss all this,” Jeremy said meaningfully. “When you go back to America.”
“That’s not for some time yet,” piped up Serena, the first thing she had said. I felt a surge of gratitude towards her. “Isn’t it?”
I could feel Colin looking at me. I didn’t know what to say. “Um.…The lease on my flat runs out pretty soon,” I admitted. “I need to do something about that. Anyway. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a film crew!”
As a diversion, it didn’t do much to divert.
“When?” asked Colin.
“June. June 1.” Only two weeks away. I scratched at a suddenly itchy patch on my arm. “I’m sure I can get them to let me renew. Are most on-location places like this?” I asked Stone desperately.
“Some have worse plumbing,” he said, and we all obediently laughed. He turned to Colin, having correctly marked him out as the man of the house. “We’ll try to stay out of your hair as much as possible while we’re here.”
Jeremy looked distinctly displeased.
