Nancy Warren: British Bad Boys

“We are so excited at the possibility of doing this show with you. It’s history, English-American relations, a chance to show the world your beautiful home.” She snuck a glance at him and found him listening politely, but not sitting forward in a lather of excitement.

“We’ll try and keep disruption to a minimum, and of course there’s the location fee.”

His gaze sharpened and she felt him straighten almost imperceptibly in his chair. Who’d have thought it, it was the money that motivated him. She named a figure that was in the upper range of her budget. And saw an expression of relief cross his face. Money was tight, then. No huge ancestral fortune to pay for the upkeep of the estate.

“And how long would your crew be here?”

“Probably we’ll shoot on location for about a week. It could be delayed if we don’t get good weather to shoot outdoors, or sometimes there are unexpected delays. But I’m budgeting a week. Shooting to take place late spring.”

“And what do you need from us?”

“All right. Well, I’m not only scouting locations, I’m also getting a feel for the story of this house and your family. I’ll want you to talk about your mother, and how she came to leave Philadelphia to marry your father, but also the interesting stories. Ghosts, murders, that sort of thing.”

“Air out the family closet.”

“I think a good murder story or a house ghost adds a lot of interest to a story.”

“Really.” He rose. “Shall I put you to the test?”

There was something about him that made her think he could get a girl in a lot of trouble if she wasn’t careful. “What would that require?”

“Wellies,” he informed her.

“Wellies?” Was this one of those incomprehensible things the Brits ate, all of which seemed to include some form of sausage?

“Yes. Wellington boots.” He nodded, glanced outside and said, “And you’d better bring your Mac.”

Since she didn’t think he was telling her she’d need her laptop, she merely raised her brows. For her trouble she was rewarded with one of his lordship’s mischievous smiles. God, the things he must have got away with in his lifetime thanks to that grin. “ Wellington boots. Rain boots. And a Macintosh is a raincoat.”

“And you’re the Earl of Ponsford.” Okay, she’d managed to look foolish in front of her documentary subject, which was bad, but the fact that he, a sexy and naturally charismatic man, would be the focus of the documentary was very, very good. She wondered if he was single. For some reason, she felt too foolish to come right out and ask. She didn’t want him thinking she had any personal interest. She’d get a researcher onto it.

“So, you do have a ghost.”

“Well, there may be loads of them, but if so they’re very polite ghosts. No one ever sees or hears them. No. What I want to show you is the scene of the grisly murder.”

A hottie and a murder. This location was looking better and better.

She was too busy for a man, Maxine reminded herself, especially an interview subject. But as he helped her slip into an ancient dark green raincoat, she thought he could literally charm the pants off her.

George rambled at her side, leading her down a crushed stone path that curved through the damp rose garden. There was a light mist over the river and the white stone of the Palladian bridge stood out like a ghost.

“Is that where the murder took place?” she asked. Could she reproduce the misty atmosphere? Already her mind was working angles, lighting, a little bit of special effects. Maybe an actor or two to play out the bloody scene while the earl described the murder in his wonderful voice.

“That’s where the ninth Earl died. He was our naughty earl.”

“He drowned in the river?” Not bad, but not terrific television unless his ghost kept tipping over rowers, or spitting water at pedestrians on the bridge or something.

“He was very drunk and took a hankering to ride his horse into the village to the local pub for some mayhem. But he never got there. His body was found the next day under the bridge.”

“Was he murdered? Then dumped in the river? Or did he fall in?”

“That, my dear, is as yet, and probably always will be, an unsolved mystery.”

My dear was an old-fashioned endearment, but still, for some odd reason awareness skittered over her skin at the words. With luck, he’d have the same effect on female viewers, she thought, pushing aside her own response. And mystery was almost as good as a murder. Immediately, she began assessing how to dramatize the scene. Maybe a POV shot of the ninth earl, woozy with drink, approaching the bridge. Did he hear a sound? Turn? She scribbled some notes.

“Would you like to see his picture?”

“The ninth earl? You bet.”

“I’ll take you to the portrait gallery.”

They tramped across a lawn and through a grove of fruit trees coming into blossom. He opened a side door and they entered an almost empty room. “We don’t use this wing, much. But it’s a shortcut to the portrait gallery. It’s also a bit chilly, I’m afraid. We save the heat for the main rooms.”

It wasn’t just chilly. It was freezing, in a damp way that made her reluctant to give up her coat, though she did when he took off his.

“Don’t worry about your wellies,” he said when she bent to take them off. “The main rooms are open to the public, so the floors are covered.”

So she found herself treading beside the earl in slightly too big, borrowed rubber boots that must have looked really good with her black and white Miu Miu suit.

They entered some kind of hallway with gorgeous wooden paneling, high coffered ceilings, and paintings and treasures everywhere. Gorgeous and, thankfully, no red in sight.

The portrait gallery was long. Very long. Long enough to hang huge portraits of an awful lot of earls, their wives, their families, dogs, and horses.

If they set up in here, she’d have to warn the sound tech.

“There are a lot of earls in here,” she said, amazed. She knew that her great-grandfather had come from Ireland and her great-grandmother from Sweden, and that they’d met in Boston and moved to California. She doubted family memories or records went back much further. How incredible to live in the same house and have pictures of all your ancestors for such a chunk of time.

“I’ll give you the highlights,” he promised her.

“This one’s the first earl. Titled by Henry VIII and given the land. There was an abbey here originally, but when the Catholics were tossed out and the Protestants were in, my ancestors found themselves on the right side of the king.” The first earl looked very pleased with himself, she thought, as well he might, given that he’d been handed a massive estate. He wore ermine and jewels and was pictured astride a black stallion. Massive sexual symbolism for pre-Freudian times.

Some of the artists were more famous than the men they’d painted. He showed her two Van Dycks, and a Lely, a probable Rembrandt.

“This one’s interesting,” he said, gesturing to a painting of an earl and his countess. “If you look carefully, you can see that the painting’s been sliced in half and a second half painted later and reattached.”

She stepped closer. “Wow. And now that I really look, the background is a little different somehow.”

“Different artist. You see, the earl remarried and the new countess didn’t like her dead predecessor on the walls, so she was cut out and the new one put in her place.”

She scribbled more notes.

“And here we come to the naughty ninth earl.”

“The one who drowned but was possibly murdered? Why did he have enemies? Did he kill someone?”