Songs for Simple Hearts

by Scarlett Rush

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Troianne is an actress who knows about the pitfalls of professional romances. She is always going weak at the knees for all those beautiful celebrities, both men and women, who she perceives to be more famous than she. So how will she hang on to her heart when she finds herself cast alongside her screen idols, Hollywood heart-throbs, and dashing new young actors ? all looking fabulous in period costume and all with the run of the sumptuous stately home being used as the backdrop? Fame, four-posters and illicit ménages beckon, but can there possibly be love at the end of it or will she just find herself being duped again? Songs for Simple Hearts is a scintillating tale of what happens when Georgian naughtiness is recreated today. Morals might count for little when all those tight riding britches and plunging necklines get in the way.

Release date: February 20, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 197

Sample

Chapter One – Don’t Leave Me This Way

I would grant you anything if it would plead my cause.

All you are is everything and all I am is yours …

Sorry, I’m too often doing that: filling my head with random, just-dreamt-up lyrics for silly songs I’ll never get time to write. It’s soppy, melodramatic stuff at the moment because he’s coming home and I’m in the mood for love. My gorgeous boyfriend won’t be pleased to find I’m not learning my lines as I’m supposed to be. ‘You’re an actress, not a singer,’ he so often has to remind me. It cannot be denied. I chose this path when I was a mere stripling and only slightly less foolish than now, and I gladly allowed all that money to be spent taking me through drama school. The least I can do is show a bit of gratitude and focus on all things actor-y.

But I do so love music. I can’t help it. The mini-dramas of daily life get instantly reformed in my head as MTV videos. I try to conjure the poetry required to encapsulate the moment, the melody needed to help the listener envisage the heartbreak of completely forgetting one’s PIN number at the till of the busy supermarket. Or of momentarily having the doors of the bus close upon your backside because you were too busy recalling all those tuts and frowns as you hurried away red-faced, the groceries bagged but no way to pay for them, left cluttering the checkout. That’s got “hit record” written all over it: The Day My Bottom Got Squeezed by the Doors of the Park and Ride.

I can bang out a tune on the piano but I’m no Tori Amos. My voice would certainly lend itself more to folk rather than to pop music, but I’m a folky kinda girl, so it’s all good. I think I’ve got a nice voice but you can never quite tell, can you? Not enough people have heard it to give me a balanced idea. My lovely boyfriend has, which is presumably why he keeps reminding me I’m an actress and not a singer! I don’t actually have the confidence to just start warbling in front of strangers. Plus you have to properly let go and belt it out to really know if you can do it, and I’m not great at that: with either singing or acting. I’m a tad reserved, which isn’t the best trait for a wannabe performer.

‘Pro-ject!’ one of my drama tutors used to bellow at me as I mumbled my lines, pressing her chest with both hands and then throwing her arms out front to help demonstrate her point. One time she left a note in my pigeonhole, with just that simple exclamation written upon it, to act as my watchword, my mantra. Trouble was I read it as “project”, as in “assignment”, and spent a week trying to surreptitiously find out from my classmates what they knew about this mystery piece of work, and when it had to be handed in. They thought me quite mad.

My best friend, Jane, encourages my singing. She says I have a unique voice that should be heard. I remind her that Scooby-Doo also has a unique voice, but that’s no reason to hand him a microphone.

In my line of work you have to be prepared for ambiguous labels. “Unique” is just one amongst many aimed my way over the three years since I left drama school. A casting director once told me I had a “medieval face”. He frowned deeply and waggled at the air with his fingers as he tried to best give me a grasp of his meaning, vaguely mentioning girls with pearl earrings, that sort of thing. To this day I remain none the wiser. It was neither a compliment nor an insult, just an observation, seemingly another thing to be aware of whenever I am auditioning, trying to ingratiate my War of the Roses visage onto the set of some gritty modern drama. However, I suppose it helps explain why I’ve had more than my fair share of rejections. Yep, confidence and I do not go hand in hand, which is why I miss it when I’m not in the warm, secure embrace of my man – although being reminded of his success in comparison to my own can be a bit dispiriting.

Best friend Jane reckons I need to go on one of those Saturday night talent shows. I claim I’ve made just a couple too many on-screen appearances to come across as an “amateur” in the showbiz field. I’d be setting myself up for a big fall. It would look like I’m bailing out of acting because I’ve failed, trying something else that I’m equally poor at. I see it as a potential crashing and burning of both careers. Fail at singing and that’s that: the dream is gone. If I don’t give it a go the flame doesn’t have to be extinguished. To have to crawl back to acting after such a failure would be to invite harshness. I can already imagine the critic sharpening his pen: “Terrible acting from the girl whose name I forget – the one with the historically challenged face, the one who misguidedly sang like a cockerel being punched in the throat on Britain Hasn’t Got Nearly Enough Talent to do Shows Like This Every Year”.

My boyfriend should be back soon. I’ve got butterflies because of it. We see so little of each other that when we do finally get together it can become pretty intense, pretty quickly. There isn’t often time for many words. We’ve been an item for 18 months, although sometimes it seems you could condense all the actual time we have been side by side into 18 hours. It’s fair to say that a large proportion of that he likes to spend in bed. I like nothing better than to be close to him, to be his Special One. The connection could be stronger but that will come. It’s hard to click out of work mode and go back to being you, I know that. Sometimes when I’m alone I wish I knew him completely, instantly; I calm myself by remembering that there is time ahead for that – possibly even the rest of our lives. He is my first “proper” boyfriend, after all, and I told myself back when we first hitched up to be careful and take things slow!

Professional commitments are the trouble, mainly his. That’s what you sign up for when you get with a successful actor. Better that than having them kicking around despondently waiting for the next script to land. You take what you can, when you can – that’s the first law of acting. In the meantime I can be thankful that someone like him could notice someone like me at all. Because of him I have the luxury of idly sitting around when I should be learning my lines, imagining how terrified I’d be if I did actually have to go on one of those talent shows.

You’d think I’d be OK with the live audience thing, but it’s the judges who send a shiver down my spine; the instant thumbs up or down verdict to raise or ridicule you on national TV, on a whim. Just the thought of standing in front of them makes my knees weak; that pre-performance interrogation to be edited as required later, depending on their reaction. I’ve imagined the scenario many times, so I know how it would go:

‘What is your name?’ demands the Judge-in-Chief, whose massive wealth is belied by his bog-brush haircut.

‘It is Troianne Amelie Rees,’ I reply, because it is, as odd as this may be.

‘Troy Anemone Rees?’ Chief Judge says, already mugging for the cameras.

‘Yes. Troianne,’ I say, trying to ignore his smirk. ‘I’m named after a racehorse.’

It’s not strictly true. I’m actually named after my grandmother on the maternal side, and she was named after a racehorse. The filly in question, or so I’m told, got her name from a derivative of the Gaelic Troya, or Troia, which translates rather unromantically as “foot soldier”, or “warrior”. It wasn’t that fine or famous a horse, but it did unexpectedly win my great grandfather a hundred guineas on the day his first daughter was born, and so the name was bestowed as a blessing of his good fortune. It was either that or Serendipity, so perhaps I got off lightly. I was given the name for reasons of posterity, so presumably any children I manage to hatch will be required to keep with tradition and also give their first-born daughter the same. Spookily, the name seems well given, since I am adjudged the very image of my grandmother – hopefully when she was my age, rather than as she is now. Presumably we can date our matching faces all the way back through our shared ancestry, to the time when the Black Death stalked the earth.

Just my modicum of fame would see the talent show director wanting to do a little back-story piece about me, standing me in front of the very ordinary suburban semi I grew up in before I moved into my hunky, far more famous boyfriend’s flat. They would do atmospheric shots of me at a piano by a window, overlaying a suitably poignant soundtrack designed to conveniently mask the noise I was actually making. Then they would film me against a plain white background, looking hopeful and slightly needy as I tell the unseen interviewer that singing is something I’d dreamt of doing all my life. They wouldn’t care that “all my life” constitutes a mere 24 years, and that for at least the first 15 of them my dream was not to be a singer at all, but to be a unicorn farmer, or a vet on a space station, or World Kickboxing Champion. Anyway, the background music builds until the judge’s verdict is delivered:

‘… And it’s a no from me.’

‘That’s four nos, I’m afraid,’ Chief Judge tells me with a solemn expression, shooting my hopes down in flames, the strings of the soundtrack swirling along with the images of my forlorn, crumpled frame. Four nos. Fore nose. Like a nose in the middle of your forehead.

‘Is it because my face is medieval?’ I ask, begging with my eyes for a stay of execution. ‘Could I not sing something else, something less folky – just a verse?’ I’m looking desperate now and the studio audience is a mix of grumbles, sniggers, and boos, my career evaporating in this one desperate moment.

‘Christ, no – you sound like an elephant fisting a cat. You are much less thoroughbred than you are Flanders Mare!’ Chief Judge smugly knows he’s just produced the stinging witticism that will be used on the VT sequence to advertise the show. And thus the judgement is final and I am finished. I have to slink my un-slinky ass outta there, right back to obscurity. Maybe I should have strummed a lute, played to my strengths. I know my name thereafter would be mud – a name I always seem to have to explain to people, should they ever find out what it is.

Professionally I am known only as Amelie Rees. That is also what my boyfriend calls me. Actually, he calls me Emily. He introduces me as such to his high-profile friends. I come under “E” on his phone. I do point out the error but he just ignores me. He thinks Emily sounds more English, and thus will help my career, although why this might be he doesn’t explain. He thinks I should lodge the name with Equity before I get famous – which, since courtesy of him I am potentially on the verge of doing, means immediately. I’d like to think I already had too many credits under Amelie to change it now but maybe he knows best. He is the expert, after all.

At least I am never known as Troy. My father, who is too warm, humble, and good-humoured not to be loved by anyone who knows him, has always called me Trot – perhaps with just a nod towards my name’s horsey roots. I was Little Trot until I was about eight, after which he presumably decided I’d left diminutiveness behind, and so dropped the first bit. The family adopted this same nickname. Even my mother, on rare occasions, has been heard to use it. There are derivatives: Trotty, Trottling, Trotsky or Trotsk by a first cousin who is quite possibly fond of me; Trout by a second cousin who clearly isn’t. Generally, to all who know me best, family or close friends, I am simply Trot. It might not be the prettiest nickname but because it came from my father I have always liked it.

I miss him now I’m not at home. Things always seemed safe and simple back then – too safe, perhaps. Nothing like the seat-of-the-pants thrill of moving into the flashy pad of a man whose face is known to millions. My boyfriend had his big break nearly eight years ago and has been consistently on our screens in major roles ever since. He has even done film. I call him my boyfriend but he is, in fact, very much a man. He is Rufus Gann. That’s right – the Rufus Gann of Guns of Brixton fame, now in its second series.

If you are one of those non-TV watching sorts unable to pick him out of a line-up then know only that he is a wonderful man. He is a little brusque but very well respected. His gruffness is because he is so often in character and doesn’t like to break this. Those who know him best will have witnessed his charm and class. He often plays wide-boys or slightly shady characters with a loveable side. That’s how I see him, with his thatch of blond, ruffled hair, always a bit unkempt, always looking good on screen teamed with a sharp suit. Then there’s the slight gap between the front teeth, and those piercing, some might say too cold, light blue eyes. OK, he’s not everyone’s cup of tea looks-wise but plenty know where I’m coming from. He’s like the rogues he always plays and for some reason that appeals.

I feel very lucky and sophisticated around him – on those few occasions I actually get to be around him – not least because I am 12 years his junior. What he sees in me is anyone’s guess, since he could be with someone with far more star potential than yours truly. I’ve always had a thing about older men. It’s their authority, the knowledge and the maturity. I need to be in the arms of someone who won’t let me fall. I guess with Rufus I was a little star-struck and probably still am. Just recognising his face gave me a sense that I knew him, and that familiarity bred instant trust. Some famous people have an aura about them and the pull is simply compelling.

The door shuts to herald his arrival and if I don’t start breathing soon then my face will turn blue enough to make him think he’s kissing an extra from Braveheart. I want to talk but he has other ideas. What is there to say, after all? We inhabit a world of make-believe, playing other people, bringing fiction to life. We sit around all day, wearing make-up, and then reading words written for us by someone else. There’s not much to discuss about our day. As he puts it, we deliver lines and pretend; that is all.

The close embrace allows the thrilling reminder of his scent. I hate being apart long enough to forget such things but the recollection is so warming it is almost worth it. Anyway, all that is soon to change because of what he has done for me. We are to be co-stars. Well, him the star, me one of the supports.

In exactly one week we will be together on the set of the new drama, Midden Hall. Early indications are that it has all the ingredients to be a major hit. His is the lead role: the bold, proud Georgian gent in tight riding breeches. I have a recurring role as a servant wench, despite my face being hopelessly miscast by a good three centuries and thus likely to be a magnet for sniping critics. He got me the role. I barely had to audition. Back then I thought it might be just an idle promise to help get me into bed, but he was as good as his word and he didn’t know I wouldn’t have been able to resist him anyway! The idea is that Series One will concern his wife and her affair with a servant. If successful, Series Two will see him forming a similar forbidden attachment to the serving girl played by –drum roll – me!

Series One climaxes, quite literally, in my first-ever scene of partial nudity – or “boobies out” scene, as I like to refer to it, to help lessen the dread. My bodice will be well and truly ripped. Of course, as Rufus says, it’s a massive stepping stone to being recognised. I would rather people recognised me for my face or perhaps even my talents but I can’t argue with the realities. Rufus knows this game better than most, and what makes casting directors’ minds tick.

Anyway, I’ll be taking part in the scene alongside, or underneath, my lovely boyfriend, and he’ll comfort me throughout. I really, really wouldn’t have had the courage to sign up for it unless he was to be there with me. He sat me down and talked me through it and made me see that it was a good thing, a boost. He wouldn’t let anything bad come of it and he says I’ve got fantastic boobies too, worth showing to the world, which is sweet of him if not entirely reassuring. I just have to hope that my stripping is not in vain, and that others make a big enough impression for Series Two to come about, otherwise I’m just the serving girl, not the star. Here’s to bigger things!

He drags the T-shirt up and off me and leaves all the hairs on my arms standing. My bra comes away quickly and those boobies he claims to so admire receive the immediate attention of his lips. That first suck, that first drawing in of yearning flesh into hungry mouth, it always makes me gasp. He impels me backwards along the hall, away from the door. His strength always makes me feel insignificant. I lift my feet from the floor to avoid tripping and he clasps behind my thighs as my knees come up, supporting my weight as my legs grip around his waist. He kisses me, all wet and passionate, and my eyes close. I feel us tipping. I am about to release my legs from him but suddenly he is controlling the backward movement so that, when it comes, the contact from the small flight of stairs leading up to the mezzanine bedroom is nothing but a gentle press at my spine and bottom.

I perch on one step and he momentarily releases me to regard me, his hands sliding out from beneath my legs, his face all desire with just a hint of a sneer because I don’t possess the power to stop him and he just might devour me. His top comes off, leaving his hair messy over his eyes. My jeans are pulled open, tugged down, forcing me to either lift my behind to aid the removal or be dragged down the stairs. The jeans end up around my ankles, so I couldn’t run even if the thought crossed my mind. His need is almost palpable; so wonderful to be so wanted by one such as him. I just perch there, panting and waiting.

He sees to his own flies. I want the comfort of his soft bed so I use his momentary inattention to try to make a break for it, slipping onto my front and getting my knees onto the stairs. His hand at my back sees me flattened. I let out a little squeal, knowing I am pinned. The paucity of these close times means I’m still bashful of my nakedness, even if it is how he so often wants me. I feel a shiver of vulnerability. I want the electric scratch of his nails. My skin is crying out for it. My knickers are pulled down round my thighs, almost torn in his haste. I know now that I won’t make it to the bed. All that time apart, you’d think he could wait ten seconds more. The fact that he can’t only adds to my bubbling expectation.

I feel the press of him there, the smooth hardness evident. He will feel my heat. I’m almost embarrassed at how wet I am for him, but it is nothing he doesn’t already know about me. Despite my slickness the entry isn’t easily gained; more than two months since I’ve had him there and feeling like our first time. The slide is remorseless, too much longed for to be painful, pressing my crotch hard to the stair edge as he opens me up. Then I am full of him and can feel the weight of his pent-up, churning need against my wetness.

The anticipation of his desire has me whimpering. Then he goes at me. It is neither comfortable nor prolonged but it is still glorious and very necessary, for both of us. His drive is hard and loud against my flesh and keeps going on and on, building until he lets out a yell and I feel the joy of his hot bursts inside.

I lie quiet as he rises off me, a wet line traced by his tip across my exposed behind. This is neither the time nor the place for caresses, no way to scoop me into an embrace without us both sliding into a heap at the foot of the stairs. The force of his release would have ripped the energy from him and I understand he needs time to breathe. The first time after so long can often feel close to too much. I hear the clink of glass from the lounge, the splash of pouring liquid. There will be more tenderness later but for now my head is spinning from the release and my heart needs time to stop banging.

He sits apart from me upon the sleek, low leather couch, sending a thin blast of cigarette smoke up through pursed lips towards the ceiling. Funny, I hate the habit in anyone else, the smell and poisonous intrusiveness of it, but I’ve always liked watching him smoke. In some twisted, masochistic way I love his insensitivity at doing it when he knows I can’t abide it and that it keeps me at bay. We should be snuggling up and giggling together after this time apart but he is a grown man and lovey-doveyness is behind him. He’s a man who plays characters from the darker, wilder side of life. He is not your average guy. I find his indifference frustratingly arrogant, but mostly a real turn-on. Rufus radiates strength and composure. He is simply wonderful and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

‘It’s not working out,’ he tells me, suddenly out of the blue. He doesn’t specify what the “it” is but the way he isn’t looking at me instructs my nerves that they need to start jangling. My mind is instantly tumbling back through what we have just done, trying to find any evidence that might prove his point, any sign that I wasn’t what he wanted me to be. My confusion prevents coherence of thought, everything now hopp. . .