The Girl from Summer Hill(9)

Kit laughed, a rich, pleasant sound.

But for all that he was laughing at Casey’s joke, he hadn’t taken his eyes off Olivia—who was studiously watching the men in the garden. Casey looked from one to the other. “Olivia is going to help me serve, and her daughter-in-law is here to audition for the role of Jane.”

Kit dragged his eyes away from Olivia and consulted the clipboard he was holding. “And you are auditioning for what part?”

“None of them,” Olivia said firmly. “I’m just here to help my daughter-in-law if she needs me.”

The tables had been set up near the big glass doors, the boxes and coolers beside them. Three men were standing nearby, waiting for food.

“I better get busy.” Casey went to the tables, Olivia behind her.

The two women worked well together, each seeming to know what the other wanted before it was done. Within minutes the big tables were covered with white paper, and breakfast items were set out. Kit had ordered dozens of pastries from the local bakery, so most of the food Casey had prepared could be saved for lunch.

As they worked, the big warehouse began to fill up with people, all of them carrying copies of the script that Kit had written during the winter with the help of Casey and her half sister Stacy. He had complained about the difficulty of translating Pride and Prejudice into a script. “She left out important dialogue and now I have to make it up.” Since he was referring to the very perfect Jane Austen, Casey had groaned.

“Look at this,” he said. “The pivotal scene of the book is paraphrased. She doesn’t tell what Darcy said when he proposed, just that he insulted Elizabeth. How? What exactly did he say? Didn’t this woman have an editor?”

They had laughed over Kit’s complaints, but he got them back by making them read the lines aloud every time he rewrote them. They got to the point where they had memorized everyone’s lines.

Smiling at the memory, Casey began filling mugs from the big urn, while Olivia opened more boxes of doughnuts. The tables were soon surrounded by workmen getting coffee and pastries—and they didn’t seem to want to leave. “At this rate someone will have to make another run to the bakery,” Casey said. “I think I’m jealous. What did they put into these that makes them so popular?”

“It’s not the doughnuts, it’s the Lydias. And the girls are here for Wickham,” Olivia said. “Look.”

A table had been set up by the exterior door, and names were being taken and badges handed out. All the Pride and Prejudice characters were represented, but Lydia was four to one. Many women had a badge saying LYDIA clipped to their shirts.

“What in the world is going on? I thought there’d be a lot of competition for the lead roles.”

Olivia nodded toward the stage. There in the center, talking to Kit, was a very handsome man. Dark-brown hair, broad shoulders, all of it encased in the red uniform worn by the officers in Meryton.

“Another one!” Casey said under her breath.

“Another one what?” Olivia asked.

“Beautiful man. It’s my day for them. I’m beginning to feel like a magnet attracting bits of very pretty steel.”

“Hey, Casey!” Josh called from atop some scaffolding. “You gonna try out for Lydia?”

“No, but I think you should try out to be Wickham.”

There was a collective gasp from half a dozen young women who gazed up at him with smiles and fluttering eyelashes.

“I’ll get you for that.” Grinning, Josh returned to plastering the wall, his back to the girls.

Eight of the Lydias hurried to Casey.

“Do you think Josh will play—”

“Will he audition with—”

“Can he wear a uniform?”

“Have no idea. Doubt it. Absolutely not,” Casey said. “Who wants an eight-hundred-calorie pastry?”

All the girls backed away except for one. She too had LYDIA pinned to her top, but she didn’t look like the other girls, all of whom had on enough makeup to start a business. This girl was pretty and blonde, tall and thin, and she kept her head down as though she was too shy to meet Casey’s eyes. She took her doughnut and a mug of orange juice and went to the side of the room to sit down and read her copy of Pride and Prejudice.

“What an extraordinarily pretty young woman,” Olivia said in such a way that Casey glanced at her. She was about to ask a question that might get Olivia to reveal something about herself, but Jack came to the table.

“Where have you been?” Casey asked. “Hiding from the autograph seekers?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “All the prettiest girls are chasing the uniform.” He looked toward the stage, where the man in red was contemplating the girls sitting in the front row. It was a whole line of Lydias.