marrying someone as rich as Guy would remove once and for all the humiliating necessity for her to traipse around to auditions all day long. Fate's final tour de force had been to slip into her head the story about researching the part for the film.
The wonderful thing about fate, Samantha considered, was that not only did it conveniently explain away one's less laudable actions, it also meant that one was rarely wrong. Viewed in this context, the hiring of Basia did not, as Guy insisted, amount to giving her license to vandalize while being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for the privilege, but was, in fact, a logical progression along destiny's path. Fate had of course inflicted Basia on the house in order for her to create an environment so impossible to live in that Samantha would be forced to move. To the country.
Samantha gazed dreamily at the kitchen's shiny aluminum ceiling, reflecting both in it and on the fact that the wonderful thing about acting was its unexpectedness. One's life could change in an instant. From millennium minimalism to medieval manor house in the blink of an eye…
It is here, she thought excitedly, in the rustic dream that is her thick-walled, fifteenth-century manor house, where brilliant sunshine floods the stone flags of the hall, that celebrated actress Samantha Villiers takes a well-deserved break from the set of her latest blockbuster film. A lavender-scented silence pervades the ancient dwelling…
She'd have to talk Guy round, of course. Samantha's lion heart sank slightly at this. Even one such as she, who, alongside generosity, placed optimism as her most marked characteristic, knew that convincing Guy to uproot himself from his clubs, his gym, and most of all the City office where he spent practically all his time would not be easy. She had no idea what he thought about the countryside; perhaps, like herself, he'd never even been there. Which meant there might at least be the possibility of an overnight conversion like her own. But Basia's conversion would be his first concern. The first problem he would raise, Samantha knew, was having one very large and expensive house on their hands already. Roland Gardens was fast taking on the aspect of a very ugly and very uncomfortable albatross. Persuading Guy to leave London would take every trick in what was becoming a very well-thumbed book. She looked at her slim sliver of a watch. She had two hours to think of something before he came home.
***
As far as convincing Guy to do things was concerned, Samantha had learned that crotchless lace was more persuasive than any amount of cold logic. Her argument for leaving Basia's urban sanctum for something significantly more Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom therefore rested principally on a number of points, including a plunging black lace bra with feather trim and nipple holes, a pair of split-crotch knickers, stockings, garters, stilettos, and a satin wrap trimmed with marabou feathers. Given this abundance of plumage, Samantha felt like a raunchy half-plucked chicken as she arranged herself on the daybed in the upstairs sitting room, stared at the wire-wool goat, and thought of lavender-scented silence and waited for Guy's return. And waited.
"I'm home, darling." There was a thud as his Louis Vuitton gym bag hit the kitchen floor. The lavender-scented silence dispersed as a waft of aftershave the olfactory equivalent of a twenty-one-gun salute drifted up the stairs. "Everything all right?" he called.
Damn him, why didn't he come up? She heard him rummage in the cupboard for a glass, then rattle it under the ice dispenser of Basia's wardrobe-size refrigerator. He had already dubbed the blasted-steel edifice A Fridge Too Far.
"Wonderful," trilled Samantha, immediately switching the charm on to full. "How was the gym?" Considering Guy was down a staircase and round a corner, striking a balance between irresistible and audible was
The wonderful thing about fate, Samantha considered, was that not only did it conveniently explain away one's less laudable actions, it also meant that one was rarely wrong. Viewed in this context, the hiring of Basia did not, as Guy insisted, amount to giving her license to vandalize while being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for the privilege, but was, in fact, a logical progression along destiny's path. Fate had of course inflicted Basia on the house in order for her to create an environment so impossible to live in that Samantha would be forced to move. To the country.
Samantha gazed dreamily at the kitchen's shiny aluminum ceiling, reflecting both in it and on the fact that the wonderful thing about acting was its unexpectedness. One's life could change in an instant. From millennium minimalism to medieval manor house in the blink of an eye…
It is here, she thought excitedly, in the rustic dream that is her thick-walled, fifteenth-century manor house, where brilliant sunshine floods the stone flags of the hall, that celebrated actress Samantha Villiers takes a well-deserved break from the set of her latest blockbuster film. A lavender-scented silence pervades the ancient dwelling…
She'd have to talk Guy round, of course. Samantha's lion heart sank slightly at this. Even one such as she, who, alongside generosity, placed optimism as her most marked characteristic, knew that convincing Guy to uproot himself from his clubs, his gym, and most of all the City office where he spent practically all his time would not be easy. She had no idea what he thought about the countryside; perhaps, like herself, he'd never even been there. Which meant there might at least be the possibility of an overnight conversion like her own. But Basia's conversion would be his first concern. The first problem he would raise, Samantha knew, was having one very large and expensive house on their hands already. Roland Gardens was fast taking on the aspect of a very ugly and very uncomfortable albatross. Persuading Guy to leave London would take every trick in what was becoming a very well-thumbed book. She looked at her slim sliver of a watch. She had two hours to think of something before he came home.
***
As far as convincing Guy to do things was concerned, Samantha had learned that crotchless lace was more persuasive than any amount of cold logic. Her argument for leaving Basia's urban sanctum for something significantly more Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom therefore rested principally on a number of points, including a plunging black lace bra with feather trim and nipple holes, a pair of split-crotch knickers, stockings, garters, stilettos, and a satin wrap trimmed with marabou feathers. Given this abundance of plumage, Samantha felt like a raunchy half-plucked chicken as she arranged herself on the daybed in the upstairs sitting room, stared at the wire-wool goat, and thought of lavender-scented silence and waited for Guy's return. And waited.
"I'm home, darling." There was a thud as his Louis Vuitton gym bag hit the kitchen floor. The lavender-scented silence dispersed as a waft of aftershave the olfactory equivalent of a twenty-one-gun salute drifted up the stairs. "Everything all right?" he called.
Damn him, why didn't he come up? She heard him rummage in the cupboard for a glass, then rattle it under the ice dispenser of Basia's wardrobe-size refrigerator. He had already dubbed the blasted-steel edifice A Fridge Too Far.
"Wonderful," trilled Samantha, immediately switching the charm on to full. "How was the gym?" Considering Guy was down a staircase and round a corner, striking a balance between irresistible and audible was
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