Page 5 of The Rest is History

Charlie

E lodie seems to be enjoying this conversation.

It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve observed her capacity for mischief on multiple occasions (very few of them involving me, obviously, unless it’s a case of Zara ripping the piss out of me).

I can tell my little revelation has surprised her. In a good way, it seems.

This is precisely why I make myself such a closed book. These tiny moments of connection, however tenuous, however fleeting, are as damaging to my self-constructed Jenga tower as a toddler yanking at one of the supporting blocks of wood.

But when I mention Anne Boleyn’s name, her face changes. Her beautiful eyes widen. Her mouth clamps shut. And her hands press down on the table.

She knows. She can’t be a sixteenth century specialist and not know. She understands this isn’t an idle request on my part. If I was short a Catherine Parr, then whatever. I’d find someone to fill in. Unfair to Mistress Parr, perhaps.

But Anne Boleyn is different.

She’s the one the crowds come to see.

The only one, really.

In their eyes, she’s more important than Henry himself. More fascinating, certainly.

You don’t just get a random to fill in where Anne Boleyn is concerned.

The whole circus revolves around her. She’s the one who captures the public’s imagination. She single-handedly brings Hampton Court’s legacy to life for many of the visitors. And though Kate did a brilliant job, I feel in my bones that Elodie will be a whole other level.

Because if she was capable of eliciting that reaction from me with one peek at the back of her neck, she’ll be capable of having legions of tourists fall in love with her when she’s in all her glory at the palace.

I’ve tried not to imagine how she’d look, but I can’t stop myself. Her dark hair swept back under the headdress that frames her face. Showcases her incredible, delicate bone structure. Three small pearls suspended from her iconic B necklace, trembling against the flawless skin of her breast.

God help me. I can’t think of anything else.

She will beguile. And bewitch. She will be Anne.

Very few women have that kind of power. But Elodie does.

She opens her mouth. ‘But I have green eyes,’ she blurts out.

I stifle a smile. What I want to say is tell me something I don’t know .

I could write a PhD thesis on the nuances of Elodie’s eyes. By the way, to call them merely green is to undersell them criminally.

I also want to tell her that it’s less about the similarity of her features (Anne’s eyes were well documented as being almost black, and we know her skin was far more sallow than Elodie’s is) and more about the power she wields with them.

I gesture to myself. ‘I think we’ve established that physical similarities are less important than one’s ability to get into the characters.’

She makes a little moue with her mouth. ‘Very true. So… how does it all work? Is it, like, you hanging with all your queens?’

‘God, no.’ The idea of ‘hanging’ with six women all Saturday long would be enough to finish me off. ‘We all tend to wander around and mingle with the visitors, especially in the Great Hall—we tend to stay in Henry’s apartments or the Clock Court or Base Court.

‘But the queens will often pair off. The tourists get a kick out of seeing them interact. And… Henry and Anne do usually stick together, to be honest. Theirs is the pairing people come to see.’ I sigh. ‘You’d better get used to having your photo taken.’

Her pink, perfect lips part a little. ‘Pairing? Like… so, what would that entail, exactly?’

‘That we process around together. And… interact.’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘Interact?’

‘Yeah. You know. A little light banter. In character, of course. With each other and with the punters.’

‘And you want me to do this. Me. I mean, it’s not like we have much interaction at school.’ She makes quote signs with her fingers when she says interaction .

I stiffen. Of course, she makes a valid point. I can’t imagine how cold she thinks me. How unfriendly.

But her low opinion is better than the alternative.

‘That’s not how it will be when we’re in character.

You’ll see.’ I throw down a challenge, because what little I know of this woman tells me there’s no way she’ll refuse a challenge from her pompous, stick-in-the-mud head of the department.

‘Are you concerned you won’t be able to manage it?

Because you did tell me in your interview that you were a Tudor expert, if you recall. ’

Her eyes narrow.

I’ve got her.

‘Of course I can manage it,’ she huffs. ‘It sounds like good fun. As long as you can manage to produce some personality from God knows where and not leave me hanging. I can’t carry the whole thing by myself.’

My lips twitch. I wish she’d stand up to me more often. It’s hot.

Actually, scratch that.

It’s too hot.

It’s the last thing I need.

‘I promise I’m far more fun as Henry than I am as myself.’ I push my chair back to indicate that I consider the matter closed.

She stands up. Looks down at me. Slim and willowy and fucking gorgeous in a long, floaty dress with a modest V at the chest and a million buttons.

I’d delight in undoing every single one.

The prize at the end would be worth every second of the torture.

‘You’d better be.’ She turns away, and my desperate gaze latches onto the nape of her neck. Much as I love her hair loose, the days she wears it tied up are the days I live for. ‘Seriously, Charlie. Or I’ll be the one beheading you.’

ELODIE

‘I have a new Saturday job.’ I put the pan of pasta on the hob and turn on the heat. ‘And it’s… interesting.’

‘Oh, Jesus.’ My sister, Grace, covers her face with her hands. ‘You don’t have to do that, Lid. Seriously. You’ll run yourself into the ground.’

‘No I won’t. And anyway, I’m not doing it for the money. Well, maybe a bit. But I have to say, I’m quite intrigued by it.’

She lifts her face and looks at me. ‘Okay. Let me guess. Lap dancing?’

‘No!’

‘Good, because you’ve got no rhythm. No one would give you any tips. Not unless you got your boobs out, I suppose. Great boobs might matter more than good rhythm to the punters. Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Shut up. Try again.’

‘Um. Someone who stands upstairs in those open-top double-decker buses and points out the sights of London to tourists?’

‘Nope.’ I hesitate. ‘But you’re getting warmer.’

‘Oh my God. You’re not going to paint yourself silver and stand like a statue in Covent Garden all day, are you?’

‘No! And that’s not a job. This is a proper gig—someone’s paying me.’

‘Okay.’ She prods at the simmering pasta with a spatula. ‘I give up. What’s this new gig?’

‘Hampton Court.’ I grin. ‘I’m playing Anne Boleyn. And get this’—I hold up a hand to stop her from interrupting—‘Charlie is playing Henry VIII. And he’s the one who’s offered me the role.’

She gapes. ‘Charlie? Like Churlish Charlie from work?’

‘The very same.’

‘Well, that’s unexpected.’ She leans back against the counter and surveys me, crossing her arms. My twin is a little shorter than me, quite a bit fairer, and, in my opinion, far prettier.

We don’t really look that alike. There’s a family resemblance, but not much more.

She’s in her usual at-home uniform of athleisure wear, but it’s H&M rather than Lululemon.

Like me, every spare penny of Grace’s income as a physio is accounted for right now.

‘Yeah. It was pretty uncomfortable when he asked me, let me tell you.’

‘Did he say why? Like, why you, in particular? I didn’t think he liked you very much.’

I shrug. ‘He doesn’t seem to. And he didn’t really give me a big pitch. Just said the woman playing Anne is having an operation and she’ll be out of action for a few weeks, so they need someone to cover. And he knows I’ve specialised in that period in the past, so…’

I trail off. I don’t tell my sister what Zara said to me as soon as she heard the reason for my mysterious chat with Charlie this morning.

I believe her words were: I knew he wanted to rail you.

‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked her, my eyes wide with shock.

‘Oh, please.’ She swatted a hand. ‘I have never seen a man look at a woman like he wants to bang her brains out quite so much as the way Charlie Vaughan looks at you. And it’s not just that he wants to bang you, by the way.

He looks at you like he’s fucking dying , and bending you over his desk and making you his is the only way he’ll survive. ’

‘Seriously.’ I clamped my hands over my ears. ‘Stop it. That’s mortifying. He does not. He tolerates me.’

I wanted to stamp my feet like a five-year-old and shout, ‘Take that back!’ Hearing her talk about Charlie like that was making me break out into a sweat all over my body.

Sure, he was an intense guy, but she had it totally wrong.

And her words were so graphic. I couldn’t imagine what kind of woman he’d go for, but I was willing to bet she’d be a lot more meek and mild than me.

Still, I was only human. A sudden visual of Charlie looming behind me and issuing a steady stream of desperate, dirty words in my ear as he pressed my cheek to his desk and unzipped his trousers seared my mind’s eye.

Jesus Christ. That was not helpful. I needed to get. It. Together.

‘And you know he’s obsessed by Anne Boleyn,’ Zara continued this morning.

‘Like, completely infatuated. He has every single edition of every book Eric Ives wrote on her. Can you believe that? Check his bookshelf if you like.’ She patted me on the arm.

‘So, if you want to be na?ve and ignore the fact that he’s asking you to be his Anne Boleyn, the woman of his dreams, then knock yourself out, sweetie. ’

‘So what will you have to do?’ my sister asks now. She pushes her hair off her face with a gesture that looks really bloody weary from where I’m standing, and the ache in my heart galvanises me.

I wasn’t totally truthful with her just now. Intrigued as I am by this Anne Boleyn opportunity, I don’t know that I’d have the balls to take it if it wasn’t for the chance to earn a few extra quid. Everything I do right now is to show Grace she’s not alone.

Jake the Jackass may have upped and left her and Olive, but she has Mum and Dad and me.

And I won’t let her take this burden on by herself.

Not the emotional burden. Not the financial one.

She’s the other half of me. I felt her heartbeat against me months before I was conscious, and I feel her pain now just as keenly as if it were my own.

Grace and Olive don’t get to suffer the tiniest bit more than I can help. Jake took so much of their fucking dignity and love and trust when he left, and I am their person now. I will not leave them alone. I won’t let his desertion be the thing that defines them. That will not be their story.

I consider my sister’s question and decide to embellish a little. I suspect she could do with a little cheering up, a little distraction. Even if it’s at my expense.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I reply airily. ‘You know, whatever Anne and Henry used to do when they were newlyweds. Some sparring. Flirting—in the style of courtly love, of course. A little light PDA.’

Her eyes widen, and she raises her glass of cheapo Sauv Blanc to her lips. ‘Elodie Peach. Will you let Charlie Vaughan take liberties with you in front of the tourists?’

She’s been reading too much Philippa Gregory, but I’ll humour her.

‘If he bestows some high value gifts or titles upon me, I might show him my duckies.’

Grace bends over double and some wine spurts out of her mouth onto the floor. She swallows and coughs and waves her wine glass around. I chuckle and step forward to take it out of her hands.

‘Oh my God,’ she gasps. ‘That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard. Can we have a wager on how long it takes you to get your tits out—in character, of course?’

She’s so right about the term being creepy.

Duckies was a medieval slang term for breasts, a term Henry actually used in his love letters to Anne, when he told her he couldn’t wait to rest his head upon her fine, fine duckies.

Seriously horrifying. Still, I shoot her a mock-judgemental look when she straightens herself.

‘You don’t have any money for gambling, weirdo. And obviously I will behave with the utmost class at all times. Anne may not have had royal blood, but she was a woman of exceptional breeding, after all.’