Summer Season on the Seafront. Katie Ginger

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СКАЧАТЬ so Sarah shook her head to confirm she hadn’t heard anything. The other players were milling about chatting excitedly, and some had made their way onto the stage and were making a circle of chairs ready to read through the play. Rehearsals were at that wonderful stage where everyone was finding out about their characters and reading from the script, so it didn’t matter if you couldn’t remember all your lines. Sarah’s stomach knotted at the prospect of having to learn everything off by heart, she was really struggling with The Tempest. Gregory, who had experience of acting on the West End a long time ago, had been helping her, and she found his presence reassuring.

      Just as she was about to call them, Gregory and Cecil arrived. They moved down towards the stage huddled close together, doing a weird run, skip, hop kind of thing, like over-excited children. Uncharacteristically, they gave everyone only a brief hello, rather than their usual exuberant welcome complete with air-kisses, before sitting together at the furthest end of the front row. Frowning, Sarah picked up her coffee cup and went over to them. As their whispering quietened, she felt a stab of hurt at their secrecy.

      ‘Hello, Sarah, darling,’ said Gregory. He and Cecil stood and kissed her on each cheek before re-taking their seats. ‘How are you?’

      ‘Hungover,’ she said, taking another bite of muffin. ‘But fine.’

      ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, dear,’ said Cecil, and she playfully narrowed her eyes at him.

      ‘Another disastrous date was it?’ asked Gregory. He was wearing an exquisite linen suit, complete with open-neck shirt.

      ‘No – well, yes. Sort of.’

      ‘You can tell us all about it later,’ Gregory said, then gave Cecil a conspiratorial look.

      Sarah frowned. Something was lingering in the air around Gregory and Cecil, and the coy smiles tugging at their heavily tanned faces told her they had news of some sort. She hoped they weren’t setting her up on a blind date again. Unless it was with Finn. ‘What’s got you two all excited?’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you this worked up since we saw Kit Harrington in Othello and you were planning on throwing your pants at him.’

      Gregory took a deep breath then leaned in and spoke in almost a whisper. ‘I’ve got something to tell you, but you have to keep it top secret.’

      ‘Okay,’ Sarah replied, hesitantly.

      His eyes scanned around quickly, checking no one was listening.

      ‘The one and only, totally gorgeous, heartbreakingly swoon-worthy Nathaniel Hardy is currently asleep in our spare room.’ Gregory sat back with a silly grin on his face. Sarah opened her mouth, closed it, then tipped her head. Nathaniel Hardy, the famous actor?

      ‘Are you telling me fibs?’

      ‘Scout’s honour,’ Cecil replied, giving the three-fingered salute, but Sarah didn’t believe him for a minute.

      ‘You were never in the Scouts. You told me you refused to join because you didn’t believe in camping.’

      ‘Darling, why would you ever go camping when there are luxury spa hotels?’

      ‘Not the point,’ Sarah responded huffily. The coffee and muffin hadn’t settled in her stomach and she felt a bit sick. ‘Why don’t you tell me the truth or just say it’s private? There’s no need to tell lies.’

      Gregory leaned further in and took her hand. ‘I’m not lying, my darling. This is top secret and you can’t tell anyone.’

      Sarah’s brain refused to compute. It was one of the oddest things Gregory had ever said to her, and that was saying something. She felt a bit like she’d read one of those odd newspaper headlines that pop up every now and again like, ‘Alien Crop Circles Found in Chigwell’. You just couldn’t believe them because if aliens did come to this planet, the last place they’d want to visit is Chigwell. ‘Nathaniel Hardy?’ she asked. ‘At your house? Right now?’

      ‘Yes. Yes. And yes.’ Gregory smiled like he’d just been given Chris Hemsworth naked, for Christmas.

      ‘Why?’ was the only thing Sarah could think to say in a vain attempt to understand all this nonsense.

      Cecil sighed in exasperation. ‘My darling girl, haven’t you seen the papers?’

      ‘No, of course I haven’t. It’s ten-thirty on a Sunday morning and I’m hungover as f—’

      ‘Thank you,’ said Gregory, disapprovingly.

      ‘You’re lucky I’m here and dressed. I nearly didn’t make it at all, or I could have turned up in my jimjams.’

      Leaning backwards, Cecil wriggled his phone from the pocket of his trousers and began tapping away.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Sarah asked.

      Cecil held up a finger, then resumed typing. ‘Hush.’

      ‘I just want to know wh—’

      ‘Hush,’ he said again, before turning the phone to show her the website for one of the tabloids. A giant headline read, ‘Love rat heart-throb ditches loving wife for debauched night with glamour model’.

      Sarah’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. ‘He did not!’ This was incredible. Like most of the women in the UK, Sarah fancied the pants off Nathaniel Hardy, especially since he’d played a suited and booted villainous bodyguard on TV. Those well-fitting suits were mouth-wateringly attractive and he had a strong square jaw. Plus, he was supposed to be a complete darling, loyal to his first love despite starring alongside some of the most glamorous women in the world.

      ‘He did,’ said Gregory. ‘I got a call at about ten o’clock last night from an old acting chum who’s now an agent in London – Mr Hardy’s agent as it turns out – and he said one of his clients needed to get out of town for a bit and could we take them in—’

      ‘So we said yes, of course,’ cut in Cecil, his cheeks tinged pink with excitement. ‘Who’s going to say no to something like that? We’d have taken in anyone. And then he said—’

      ‘And then he said it was Nathanial Hardy,’ finished Gregory. ‘Honestly, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!’ He placed his hand over his heart. ‘So then he turns up at about midnight, in a black car with tinted windows. No bags. Nothing.’

      Sarah pulled back and scowled. ‘Not even spare pants?’

      Cecil rolled his eyes. ‘Not that we could see, dear, no. No toothbrush either. Luckily, we’ve always got people staying so we have a supply.’

      ‘Of spare pants?’

      ‘Of toothbrushes. What is it with you and pants?’ Sarah gave a cheeky grin while Gregory gave a great yawn. ‘I couldn’t sleep a wink last night knowing he was in the next room.’

      Sarah’s eyes flitted between the screen of Cecil’s mobile phone still showing the headline, and her friends’ faces. ‘So he’s really in your house? Right now? Because of this?’ She pointed to the screen and they both nodded. What the heck was going on? It was completely bonkers to think that one of the country’s best actors was only a few streets away in Gregory and Cecil’s gorgeous СКАЧАТЬ