Jenny Graves was dressed in a beautifully embroidered Regency style gown; the empire cut emphasising her bosom and the soft silk highlighting the curve of her hip. She was sitting in the replica coach that had been brought on set for the Darcy's triumphant return to Pemberley, wearing Wayfarers to shield herself from the sun, her historically accurate wig pinned up into decadent 19th century curls with a scarf around it to protect it from the gentle breeze. It was taking ages and she was so hot in the multiple layers that she wearing to create this so-called effortless look. Jenny hated wearing corsets – she had only taken this job because her agent promised her that it would be her last stint in period costume for a while, with promises of grittier scripts and maybe something involving full-frontal nudity, so she could commit her form to film before she reached twenty-five and it all began to sag. She sighed and pulled out her phone from the little drawstring bag that was part of her costume. Time for some historical snapchats, she thought.
When Lizzy was ushered through the security check four hours later, after having to leave her car about half a mile away, Bingley and Darcy were standing in their wedding outfits, both looking extremely dapper in their morning coats, top hats and tight breeches, talking to members of the public.
"Please can you sign it to Vicki?" the woman asked, passing him the pen and a copy of Pride and Prejudice.
Benn nodded and signed with a flourish.
"Are you excited about being Mr Darcy?" she smiled at him.
"Well, as excited as one can be about spending the hottest month of the year in a cravat."
"Can I get a selfie with you and Franklin?"
"Of course," he said, taking the phone. "Smile!"
He handed her back her phone and she giggled before returning to her group of friends who all laughed with her before walking off triumphant. He looked at his co-star and smiled; Franklin had already been christened Bada-Bingley and as he walked off to speak to some more adoring fans, was clearly loving the attention. They had been on set since half six and it was now quarter to four and the scene hadn't even been finished yet. There had been the issues of aeroplanes; the location was under the flight path of Manchester airport and ten takes in a row had been ruined by the sound of Dreamliners ferrying holidaymakers overseas, secondly Jenny could not remember her lines. She only had four and she fluffed them over and over, until he had got up and walked off set, desperate for a drink and a puff on his e-cig. He grabbed a coffee from the catering truck and asked his assistant, Leanne, to grab his bag from his trailer.
He wandered up past the Orangery and onto the Top Lawn, taking a moment to surround himself in a cloud of self-righteous pineapple vapour. It was a long day and all he wanted to vanish back to his hotel, FaceTime his girls, put on jogging bottoms and watch the cricket. At least now he was off starvation rations and could indulge in chips or something equally decadent, like cake – a whole fucktonne of cake. His new svelte figure felt good; he had been using a small gym around the corner from his house, but stopped when he saw random phone pictures appear on the showbiz websites a few months ago, where he looked frumpy and older than his forty-two years. Then the pictures of Madeleine and that French bastard, Louis, appeared; they looked shiny and polished dining at a pavement café in the centre of Paris and it seemed that everyone was delighting in his misery. He knew he shouldn't look, but it was like a car crash that he could see but couldn't avoid, and in the darkest hours of the night he trawled through websites on his phone reading comments that said he deserved this heartbreak and that he had never been good enough for the nation's sweetheart Madeleine Tennant anyway. It was horrible when people you had never met took all the things that you hated about yourself and then used them as reasons why your wife had chosen to not be with you anymore. He had called her a few times over the last few weeks, the revelation sticking with him as he wanted desperately to try and fix it, but it was no use… at least not for now anyway. Madeleine had sent him a solicitor's letters directly here to Derbyshire asking him to not contact her anymore, and another which prevented him from seeing his girls. He had an appointment tomorrow with his attorney – Madeleine could take the house, the cars, the money; but she wasn't going to deny him the right to see his children.
Sitting on a bench at the top end of the garden, he poured a good measure of whiskey from his hipflask into his coffee. Away from the tourists and all the popular bits that had been on the TV, you couldn't hear anything apart from the gentle chirrup of birdsong and your own heartbeat. It had become his favourite place to come and sit for a while and he settled back in the warmth of the afternoon sun, closing his eyes and absorbing the rays.
Lizzy was out at the far end of the ravine when she spotted Benn Williams sitting on the bench on the top lawn. She had already made up her mind that she was going to avoid him for the duration of the filming and so far she had managed it, but she was not going to be chased out of her own garden by this arrogant man who thought he was better than her, just because he could read lines that someone else had written and had a reasonably attractive face. She decided to continue with her walk and marched towards where he was sitting, planning to waltz past him and carry on to the rose garden, where the best phone reception was, and she could finish the story she was reading online with a piece of cake.
The crunch of gravel underfoot caught Benn's attention and he opened his eye to see Lady Elizabeth stomping past him, wearing a turquoise dress covered in polka dots and he was quite sure shoes with bees on them. She didn't acknowledge him but walked straight past and continued on her way. He remembered what he had said to her on his first night here and immediately felt ashamed, taking a deep sigh, he got up.
"Lady Elizabeth," he called, walking after her as fast as the stiff boots would allow. He could see that she had heard him, but she continued. He called again, his stage training helping him project, "Lady Elizabeth Darcy."
Lizzy stopped, she did not want to speak to this man. She had held out the hand of friendship to him and he had knocked it away, but what could she do now? It's not like she could ignore him when his big stupid voice was booming out across the garden, was it. Okay, she would be polite and vague, she would talk to this silly man and see what he had to say. But if he was rude again then she might punch him. She turned on her heel and found herself face to chest with Mr Darcy.
"Hello, Mr Williams," she staccatoed, in a voice that was much posher than he remembered. "Can I help you?"
Benn looked at her for a moment, he wasn't in the habit of speaking to members of the aristocracy and the working-class boy from Oldham, despite his private education and 2:1 from Cambridge, suddenly felt remarkably out of his depth.
"Erm…I wanted to say sorry," he blurted out.
"Sorry?" she questioned, quite aggressively, he thought. Must tread lighter, he decided.
"Yes, I am sorry for being so awful to you when we first met," he said apologetically. "You must think I'm a complete arsehole."
She nodded in agreement, "yes, you are a complete arsehole."
Turning back around she strode off in the direction of the rose garden and she was glad that she had worn her Bee Shoes today as they gave her a little wiggle when she walked.
The roses were now in full bloom and the heady scent of them wafted over into the tiled pergola where Lizzy was lying. The wood had been warmed by the sunshine and because the gardens had been closed to visitors for the day, she found that she could lie here undisturbed for most of the afternoon. She had tucked her cardigan under her head and was currently engrossed in chapter 23 of a Jane Austen fanfiction that had been being drip-fed for the last three months – for all she loved Elizabeth and Darcy, it was always Anne and Captain Wentworth who made her pulse race.
"It's very rude of you to walk off when I am trying to apologise," the voice was the one she recognised from countless movies trailers and television interviews.
"It was very rude of you to tell me to fuck off when I was trying to be nice," she said without even looking up from her screen.
Benn deep sighed and she could visibly hear him thinking of something to say.
"Look, Lady Elizabeth, I am really sorry for what I said. It was totally inappropriate, and I was..."
"…A complete arsehole?"
"Yes," he said resolutely. "A complete fucking arsehole."
She swung her feet around and sat up so that she could look directly at him. "Look, I understand that you have some weird method crap going on where you feel like you need to act like an arrogant prick to really get into character, and I know you probably think that it's okay to speak to people like they don't matter, but you can't do that."
"No," he said defensively. "It's not that… I was having a crap day and I took it out on you, even though you were nice and were trying to help. Believe me, I needed help that day, but I was in no place to take it."
She looked up at him, still dressed in his costume, he was almost not daring to look her in the eye, his gaze fixed on the floor. Lizzy had two choices here; she could continue with her cold front and tell him to get lost, or she could accept his apology and move on. She chose the second. It wasn't because she was over-awed by Benn Williams, it was simply because she recognised in him an innate loneliness; she had read in the papers that Madeleine had pushed for an injunction which meant he couldn't see his kids, and then there was all the drama with the Tamsin McLeod pictures from a week ago that probably weren't going to help his case at all.
"Are you still drinking?" She asked firmly, in her best teacher voice.
"No," he said limply. Benn looked at her with a confused look on his face, he thought he had been doing a good job of covering it up, was it really that obvious.
Lizzy eyed him up and down before standing to face him as best she could when he was nearly a foot taller than her.
"You smell like you've been drinking," she stated. "Does Matthew know?"
He shook his head, took a deep sigh and sat down on the bench. "Please don't tell him."
"How much are you drinking?"
"Just a nip now and then, nothing too much – nothing that will affect my work."
Lizzy knew all about the filming of 'A Peculiar Good', a tense thriller involving multiple locations and three countries, where Benn Williams had turned up drunk on more than one occasion and singlehandedly caused the budget to skyrocket when four days of filming were lost.
"Look, you seem like a nice man – honestly, Harriet thinks you are great fun and she hates everyone, so that's a big seal of approval, but you need to stop this if it's a problem for you. I know what it's like to need a friend," she said with a different softness in her voice, the haughty tones replaced by a softer Derbyshire lilt.
Benn's father had been a mean drunk, downing two bottles of wine a night to cover up the disappointments of his own life by drowning himself in cheap plonk. After Benn had made some money he had paid for him to enter a rehabilitation clinic; he didn't want to turn into him, seeing how the booze had taken a once proud man and turned him into someone who sold his story to the lowest tabloid for a modicum of cash. He sensed that she was looking at him again and turned around quickly to find her looking him directly in the eye. In her hand was a large tub of carrot cake with a dollop of cream, she handed him a spoon.
"I mean it," she told him firmly. "I am even sharing my cake."
Benn was ravenous for cake and grasped the bowl to him, savouring each mouthful of the frosted walnut and carrot confection. They sat for a moment on the bench in silence.
"Are you going to start preaching at me," he said, washing a mouthful of cake down with a mouthful of coffee from her flask and not his own.
"No,"
"Not even if I'm a complete arsehole?" He smiled with his whole face.
"I think we have both agreed on that and as long as you are happy to proceed under that understanding then I think we are both done here, don't you?" Lizzy grinned at him.
"Lady Elizabeth, I do not believe we have had the pleasure of being formerly introduced" he proclaimed in his best Mr Darcy voice, gallantly holding out his hand, which she took gracefully and shook firmly. "I am Mr Benn Williams of Clapham, formerly of the North, currently residing in Derbyshire at the home of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy."
Laughing, she played along, "Pleasure to meet you, Mr Williams!" She did a small bob. "I am Lady Elizabeth Sophia Mary Georgiana Darcy, and I am also currently residing at the home of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, and yet, I am so informally attired." She clicked her shoes together as if to prove a point.
"Wow, that's a lot of middle names," he gulped. "You are really posh, aren't you?"
"Yeeeeeeah, goes with the title," she smiled. "Please though, just call me Lizzy."
"Dearest, loveliest, Lizzy," he began, smiling at her with a newfound warmth. "Do you fancy going out for tea sometime?"
"I'm guessing you mean tea as in dinner?" She questioned, with a cheeky look on her face.
"Yes, tea as in dinner," he laughed. "I think I have some coupons for the Toby Carvery."
"Ooh," she giggled. "I love an all you can eat meat buffet."
He raised an eyebrow, "it was just an invitation to lunch, Darcy…"
Lizzy flushed a little and looked away, she had no idea why she had said that, but she liked that he teased her about it. There was more to Benn Williams than she had initially thought.
"Tea would be lovely," she grinned, recovering her composure. "Are you thinking tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow would be grand."
A small figure was running towards them, holding a clipboard under her arm and trying to hold onto her headset and radio simultaneously as she plodded awkwardly across the grass.
"I think you might be being called to set, Mr Darcy," Lizzy prompted, with a wry smile on her face. Benn groaned and got to his feet, handing her his rubbish, which she promptly placed back in the paper bag.
"Farewell, Lady Elizabeth Darcy, I shall see you on the 'morrow as business calls me away to London this evening," he swaggered, taking her hand and kissing it an overly dramatic fashion.
She laughed, "you are completely incorrigible!"
"Well, of course I am. I own half of Derbyshire and this beautiful home you see before you – my ego is as large as my fortune and you, Lady Elizabeth, are only tolerable and not handsome enough to tempt me," he began to walk off in an overly theatrical manner towards the runner, who was waving at him frantically, taking the time to say hello and sign autographs for a couple of volunteers who were on their lunch break.