Page 98 of Let’s Make a Scene

Her eyes soften. “I’m doing okay.” Her gaze moves to the window beside her, which looks out over the chaos of the base setup. “A bit edgy. But no panic attacks or anything. Now that we’re here it’s like muscle memory.” She manages to smile. “It’s funny the way things work out, isn’t it? I felt safe here the first time around, happy.”

“So it’s a good place for you to be now when you’re feeling vulnerable?” I suggest.

“Exactly that.” She nods. “Working for the first time after…” She trails off for a moment. “Well, I don’t know what would have happened if I’d been on the film I was supposed to be working on now. I have a feeling it wouldn’t have been great. Being here, surrounded by people I know. It helps. I guess we’ll see when I’m on set.”

“Do you want to run lines?” I ask.

Cynthie’s face lights up. “Really?”

“Scoot over.” I drop onto the sofa beside her and she shuffles down to make room for me. Unfortunately for me (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) the couch is small enough that when I reach for the script on the table our arms brush against each other, and my heart bumps.

“Okaaaaaay.” Brooke comes bouncing in, followed by the whole motley crew, and Kara efficiently mics me up. “So, if you’re happy just to keep doing what you were doing, then we’ll grab some footage. It won’t always feel this intrusive, I promise,” she says earnestly. “We’ll mostly be melting into the background, but that’s a bit harder to do in the trailers, and I really think glimpses into these spaces will make viewers feel involved.”

“Sure,” I reply. Kara leaves and Brooke retreats to a corner where she seems to be engrossed in whatever is happening on her phone.

There’s not really any missing Declan, who basically has a camera shoved in our faces, but he tries to be as discreet as possible, and I go through the motions of running lines with Cynthie for her scene this morning.

The problem, of course, is that this is supposed to be behind-the-scenes footage of a loved-up couple, and I don’t know how to convincingly portray that, especially without making Cynthie feel uncomfortable. Fuck, this is such a minefield.

Clearly sensing my discomfort, Cynthie takes charge of the situation. Twisting herself back into the corner of the L-shaped couch, she stretches out her legs so that they rest in my lap. She gives me a quick look, and I incline my head ever so slightly. Then I put my hand on her leg, and she smiles.

We can do this. It’s just about checking in with each other.

I get what she was thinking: we look comfortable together, relaxed. She leans back into the cushions, and I hold the script in one hand, the other absently running up and down her leggings-clad calf. She’s wearing fluffy socks, and we laugh and mess around with the lines as we throw them back and forth between us.

Only, the movement of my hand isn’t absent at all. I’m reading the lines but all my focus is on the feel of her. And Cynthie Taylor might be the best actress in the whole damn world, but she’s not fooling me. Every so often I hear her breath catch. When I trace my fingers lazily over her knee and then higher—only slightly higher—there’s color in her face that wasn’t there before.

At one point she squirms, the slightest friction in my lap, and I clench my teeth. She huffs a tiny chuckle and I get it: I’m not the only one enjoying this. I just wish we didn’t have a fucking audience. Then again, if it wasn’t for their presence we wouldn’t be sitting like this in the first place.

Complicated.

Finally, Hannah appears, clutching a clipboard and wearing an earpiece. Her eyes move from the two of us to the camera crew and back, and her smile is on the frozen side.

“Hi!” she says, more chipper than I’ve ever heard her. Panic flickers in her gaze. Hannah is not an actor. I half expect her to start yelling “YES, THIS IS TOTALLY NORMAL BEHAVIOR FOR THEM. BECAUSE THEY ARE A COUPLE. DEFINITELY A COUPLE.”

Instead, she clears her throat. “We need to get you into costume, Cyn,” she manages, and I shoot her an encouraging smile. “They’re almost finished setting up, and Arjun says we’re pretty tight for time to make sure we turnaround for this afternoon.”

Marion has retired since we made the first film, so Arjun has been promoted to first AD, and I know he feels he has big shoes to fill.

Cynthie untangles herself from me and gets to her feet. “Great,” she says, the picture of confidence. “I’ll see you on set?”

“You will.” I nod. Then, she leans down and kisses me on the cheek. It’s a careless little moment, one that seems like something we’ve done hundreds of times, and as her perfume lingers around me like a ghost, I find myself wishing that were true.

Brooke and co. traipse off after Cynthie as she goes to be laced into her costume, and I make my way toward the big house, where they’re filming this morning. Along the way, I come across a lot of busy people who are all happy to wave and call out a greeting as I pass. It’s a good atmosphere, warm, like a homecoming.

Inside Darlcot Manor, Logan and Jasmine have set up ready for the first shot of the day in the room that is supposed to be Emilia’s bedroom. It’s a relatively straightforward scene: there’s a conversation between Emilia and her maid, and then she pulls out the box where she’s locked away all of Edward’s letters and reads through them. It might be simple, but it’s always difficult to be in the very first scene of a shoot. It feels like added pressure that Cynthie doesn’t need. My nerves jump on her behalf.

“Jack, what are you doing here?” Logan asks.

“Hoped you wouldn’t mind me sitting in.”

“All part of your process?” Jasmine asks blandly, which makes me certain she knows more about Cynthie’s emotional state than she’s letting on.

“Something like that,” I agree.

“Well, it’s fine with me,” Logan says. “We’re a bit tight on space, but I’m sure you can find a corner to tuck yourself into.”

In the end, that’s literally the case, and I wedge myself into a folding chair at the back of the room behind the monitors with Arjun. Fortunately, the rooms in this grand house are enormous, because there are three cameras, lighting rigs, and a huge number of people in here. I catch the odd, panicked-looking National Trust volunteer paying serious attention to the squeaking floorboards, and hope that we’re not going to bring the building down.