“Hey!” he said, and everyone in the hallway gazed at him with rapt attention, as though that casual “hey” were the modern answer to “Friends, Romans, countrymen.” His voice was low and deep and very generically American, neither the surfer drawl of the West Coast or the pseudo-English affectations of certain portions of the East. “I see a lot of familiar faces here. Thanks for making it out here—”

“To the ass end of nowhere,” I heard someone whisper.

“—to historic Selwick Hall.” Micah Stone grinned self-deprecatingly, to show he was being silly. Strangely, I felt myself grinning along. Maybe this was what they called charisma? “Where we’ll be filming Much Ado About You. I hope you’re all as excited about this project as I am.”

“Very!” Jeremy assured him enthusiastically.

What a douche bag.

With a nicely calculated head tilt that indicated Jeremy without acknowledging him, Micah Stone said, in that same relaxed, carrying voice, “I’d particularly like to thank the Selwick family, who opened their home for all of us. We all know that having a bunch of film people around is no picnic”—polite titters, some simpers—“but the Selwicks have been nothing but generous.”

Generous? That was a debatable term. The Selwicks were, in fact, being paid a hefty fee for the use of the hall, somewhat less impressive by being divided three ways, a fact I found massively unfair, given that Colin was the only one put out by it. Colin’s share was being plowed back into the hall; Serena’s to purchase a partnership in the gallery at which she worked; and Jeremy’s—well, let’s just say I didn’t know what Jeremy did with his money and I didn’t particularly want to know, although I’d be willing to bet a lot of it went to designer clothing and first-class airfare.

“I’d especially like to thank—”

Micah Stone paused, conducting a leisurely survey of the crowd. Jeremy drew himself up, pre-preening.

“I’d especially like to thank Colin Selwick, for taking us all in and doing it so graciously. Colin? Where are you, Colin?”

Wishing himself anywhere but here, if I knew my Colin.

Colin raised an unenthusiastic hand. He said flatly, “Think nothing of it.”

Fifty-odd pairs of eyes lifted in our direction. But soft, what movie star from yonder hallway beckoned? We were only a modest five steps up, but it was enough to create a potentially unflattering angle. I resisted the urge to pull my skirt closer to my legs. Next to me, Joan lifted a hand to her perfectly coiffed hair, putting her best profile forward, sidling closer to Colin. Trollop.

Micah grinned up at the landing. “What are you doing all the way up there? Come on down so we can all give you a hand.”

I made to step back, but Colin clamped my arm in his, leaving me with no choice but to come along with him. His grip was like a vise. Okay, I got it. He wasn’t doing this alone. As we made our way down the stairs, I resisted the urge to do a QE II wave. Royalty might be trained to wave and walk at the same time, but I didn’t trust my own 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.”