Page 20 of Love At First Fright

E llis’s billowing white shirt had been sent to torment her.

She’d come to observe a scene in which Ellis’s character was alone in his chambers for the first time, and he had just thrown his cravat to the ground in anger at his uncle’s dismissal.

Who knew the sight of a man in period dress removing something as insignificant as a cravat could be such a turn-on?

It was their third day of filming, and a blustery dawn had cleared to a bright morning, the grass outside the manor now streaked with dew. The crew had placed some blackout material against the windows of one of the ground-floor rooms, re-dressing it to look like a Victorian bedroom at night.

“Why don’t they just film it at nighttime?” Rosemary had asked Lyn, who had found her on the way back to set.

“They’re saving the night shoots for more of the external shots and the final explosion scene, since that will take more time to plan out.

” Lyn paused, handing Rosemary a lemon drop from a bag.

She couldn’t remember when she’d told Lyn she had a weak spot for classic British boiled sweets, but her PA knew everything about her.

“How was your tea date with Ellis Finch?” Lyn raised an eyebrow.

“What are you talking about? That wasn’t—he wasn’t—”

“Chill, Rosemary. I’m kidding. He just asked me how you take your tea.”

“He’s with Jenna.”

“Oh really? Not sure why you felt the need to tell me that if it wasn’t a date.”

She hadn’t fooled Lyn.

“I would never—I’m not that kind of person,” Rosemary said firmly.

Lyn smiled. “I know. I can tell. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you have anything to worry about on the Jenna front.”

“What does that mean?” Rosemary frowned, but Lyn simply threw her a wink and stalked off.

“Alright, everyone, let’s set up. Can I have quiet on set, please?” the first AD shouted. The second and third ADs followed suit, parroting to the wider crew, so all Rosemary could hear were murmurings of “Quiet on set” until a hush fell.

“Action,” Vincent said, and Ellis sprang to life as Alfred Parlow. She’d been so wrong to think he couldn’t play her main character. His posture, his mannerisms, had all become foreign. A small part of Rosemary wondered when his actual mannerisms had become so familiar to her in the first place.

After throwing his cravat on the floor, Ellis/Alfred poured himself a brandy (apple juice and iced tea combined) and chugged it down in one go.

He then began rifling through papers. This was one of Rosemary’s favourite scenes, because out of the corner of the viewer’s eye, moving so slowly that at first you wouldn’t notice it, was the ghost of an elderly woman.

She would hover, blurred in the background, just watching Alfred as he read through his uncle’s papers.

The ghost, played by Marissa, who was draped in laced greys and with some rather horrifying makeup, would gradually move closer and closer to Ellis.

Right now, as Rosemary looked over Vincent’s shoulder to one of the camera screens, only Marissa’s arm was in sight, hovering just behind the curtain.

It was deeply unsettling—exactly how she’d hoped it would be.

“And cut!” Vincent yelled. “Okay, let’s bring in the bathtub and put it by the fire and we’ll pivot around to face that way,” he said.

Wait, the bathtub? Rosemary pulled out her script and took another look.

There was no bathtub in this scene. Sighing, she realized they’d changed something else without telling her.

She wanted to speak to Vincent, but he was deep in conversation with one of the set designers and first AD, so she settled for Jeremy, who was tapping away on his phone in the corner.

“Jeremy, why is there a bathtub in this scene?”

“Huh? Oh, hey, Rosemary,” he said, barely glancing up from his phone. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just something for the fans.”

“I’m sorry, the fans?”

“Yeah, Ellis has a requirement in all his contracts for a minimum of one topless scene. So we put one in.”

“Someone should have told me.”

“Sure, sorry about that.” She didn’t hear one iota of apology in his tone.

Rosemary turned back to see the set designers placing the final touches on the wide copper and tin bathtub by the fire.

In minutes they had somehow redressed the left corner of the room to look like a small bathing chamber, and if she weren’t so grumpy about the addition of the topless scene, she would have been awestruck.

“Only necessary crew staying please, the rest of you out,” the first AD shouted, and the room began to clear. No one told her to leave, though, and Lyn had left the room before the last shot so she couldn’t ask them if she counted as necessary crew.

Rosemary backed away into the semi-dark of the room, leaning against a bookshelf.

It wasn’t until she’d stood there for a few seconds that she realised she wasn’t alone.

Beside her, watching the scene unfold with mild interest, was the brunette Regency ghost. The same one Rosemary had seen crying in the living room the other night.

Rosemary was able to get a better look at her, without the ghost noticing that she was watching.

Her face reminded Rosemary of a robin: cherubic but also a little pointy.

The ghost seemed particularly interested in watching Marissa, and Rosemary wondered if the ghost thought that’s what she looked like. The lore said that vampires weren’t able to see themselves in mirrors, but Rosemary wondered if the same applied to ghosts.

Just then, the other ghost slipped in through a wall.

“There you are, Juliet! I’ve been wanting to speak to you.”

Juliet—the brunette ghost—turned to face the other one. “We’re done speaking. I don’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”

“Dearest, please.”

The other ghost shook her head vehemently. “Don’t call me that. I told you not to come to this side of the manor anymore. Cecilia, please leave.”

“Why won’t you let me explain, Juliet?” Her voice came out as a whine, and Rosemary felt the frustration and sadness seeping into her from the ghosts. Across the room, two of the ADs began to bicker, and Vincent snapped at them. That was unlike him.

The ghosts continued to argue, and when Juliet stamped her foot, a vase sitting on the mantelpiece fell and smashed. A couple of the crew jumped back, looking suspiciously at each other to see who damaged the set.

“There’s nothing else for you to say!” Juliet shouted, and Rosemary, breaking the rule she had laid out for herself to never interact with ghosts in a public place, shushed the ghost.

Two pairs of ghostly eyes met hers in the shadows of the room.

“Did you just shush me?” Juliet said.

“I did.”

“You can see us.”

“Yes,” Rosemary hissed under her breath. “And hear you. Now go and argue somewhere else, you’re causing havoc in here.”

The pair looked around and saw the crew cleaning up the broken vase, and the two ADs apologising to each other.

“I’ll go,” Cecilia said. “She doesn’t want me here, anyway.” She wiped a ghostly tear from her eye and fled through the window.

Juliet offered Rosemary a sharp, knowing look, before vanishing back through the wall she’d come in from.

Rosemary sighed to herself, realising she had just complicated her stay at Hallowvale significantly.

On top of whatever was going on between her and Ellis, and being a producer, she had now involved herself in these ghosts’ messy business. What could go wrong?

At least now that they were gone, Rosemary had an unblocked view of Ellis by the fire.

She wondered why he had topless scenes written into his contracts. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing he would do, but then again, how well could you know someone you’d only met days ago?

“Action,” Vincent said, and Rosemary looked on transfixed as Ellis unbuttoned his waistcoat, folding it onto a chair by the fire. Then he was in that flowing white linen shirt, dark brown chest hair visible, an image that would now be forever imprinted onto Rosemary’s mind.

Then the shirt came off, and heat shot straight through Rosemary’s core.

Lit by the glow of the fire, Ellis was all heavy, packed muscle.

Dark wisps of hair on his muscled forearms, dark hair that trailed down his stomach to the V of his hips.

An image sprang to Rosemary’s mind, of her on her knees before him, running her fingers down that perfect V as she took his cock deep into her throat, letting him use her.

Being submissive to him would make her feel powerful, as contrary as that sounded in her head.

Rosemary tried to slam the breaks on the little fantasy but it got away from her, and visions of Ellis ordering her to ride him until her legs gave out took over Rosemary’s brain.

Even the thought of it had her nipples pebbling under her top, a heat slicking her, making her ache.

Rosemary couldn’t imagine a world in which a relationship with Ellis could work. He had Jenna, and she had a deadline. Even if sometimes Ellis did things that made her wonder…Nope, now was not the time for her brain to begin exhibiting an impossible crush.

Just because he’d made her a cup of tea and picked some leaves out of her hair—she really was pathetic.

Ellis, as Alfred, then began to pull off his trousers, and she saw he was wearing some kind of short swimming trunks in a nude colour.

She glanced over at the screens, and saw that the cameras were only filming his torso up.

So her film wasn’t going to have full frontal nudity, that was something at least.

But those shorts did absolutely nothing to hide the rather pronounced package Ellis appeared to be sporting. Rosemary’s mouth went dry as he stepped into the bath, moaning slightly in the steaming water.