Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe. Fiona Harper

must have been rubbing harder than she’d realised, because suddenly the second tile down in the vertical strip of four gave way and her hand hit the wall behind. Her heart pounded. Had she broken the tile? If she had, she had no idea if she’d ever be able to match it again. But she hadn’t heard a crashing noise, just a dull clang as it had fallen down behind the tiles below it. She moved closer to the fireplace and dipped most of her forearm down into the hole. Her fingers reached and flexed trying to find a hard ceramic edge. Perhaps she could just balance it back in place until she found some glue to repair it?

      Louise’s fingers closed around something, but it wasn’t fired clay.

      It was paper. And a leather binding.

      It was a book.

      What on earth was it doing inside the fireplace in an out-of-the-way spot like this? Hardly a conventional bookshelf. Could it have fallen down the back?

      She stood up and checked the surround. No. It was fixed securely against the plaster wall. Frowning, she knelt down again and reached inside the square hole once more. Carefully, she pinched the book between thumb and forefinger and tried to pull it out. The hole the fallen tile had left behind was too small, but she found she could slide the next tile down out of its spot easily, and then the book was freed from its dusty prison.

      She blew on it, and instantly started coughing. Regular dust, this. It flew up into her face straight away and clung to her hair the moment the air moved around it. She grabbed the duster and gave it the once over, then wandered over to the window to get a better look.

      There were no markings on the outside and the tan leather cover was soft. She took a moment to stare at it before she opened the cover and looked inside. Her heart-rate tripled when she did so.

      This wasn’t a novel or a child’s picture book. Elegant blue ink filled the pages. Hand-written sentences. Dates and times …

      This was a diary.

      Louise closed the cover and walked out onto the balcony.

      Should she?

      This was obviously someone’s private thoughts. She now realised it hadn’t got behind that fireplace by accident. It had been hidden. But there was one very likely candidate as to the author and Louise was burning with curiosity to find out if she was right. She sucked in a breath, looked to the sky, said a silent prayer for forgiveness, and opened the cover again.

      The beginning of the diary was tame—starting in January, as new diaries often do—and detailing Laura’s glamorous life: rehearsals, parties, dinners at nice restaurants with other famous people. It all seemed so wonderful, but as Louise read on, she couldn’t help feeling as if there was something missing.

      She sighed. Laura Hastings, with her ice-blonde hair and classic bone structure, had always seemed like the perfect woman to Louise. She’d loved her films as a child, used to watch them with her dad in the afternoons when he hadn’t been feeling well. And for some reason, Louise had never even considered that Laura might have struggled with her seemingly perfect life, just as she had with hers. How odd.

      Of course, it had been the same for her. Of course.

      So Louise read on, reading not just the words, but interpreting the spaces between them, what was not said as much as what was said, and it brought a whole new sense of connection between herself and the previous owner of her home.

      And then Whitehaven was mentioned … and the boathouse …

      Louise sank even deeper down into the chair, forgetting completely about grime and dusters and pulled-apart fireplaces. And when Laura met Dominic, she pressed a palm against her chest and it stayed there as she read the next handful of entries.

       26th June, 1952

       Dominic and I have been spending a lot of time together. The nature of our job means there’s a lot of time hanging around, waiting. And even when we’re working we have a lot of scenes together.

       He talks to me. Really talks to me. In a way Alex has never done.

       I think about my marriage now and wonder why we got together. It seemed so perfect at the time—like a fairy tale ending. Industrial heir marries movie princess. But I wonder now if I just got caught up with the glamour and the whole idea of us. I know that’s one of my faults, acting impulsively, getting carried away in the emotion of the moment.

       I try to tell myself that’s what this is with Dominic, but I don’t really believe myself.

      Alex doesn’t see me the way Dominic does. I think, to him, I’m just another trophy he’s collected. He likes the best of everything, you see. And I was flattered that he thought I was the best. But I hadn’t realised that once he’s got that object he’s had his eye on, that he locks it away behind glass and then moves on to the next conquest. I’ve tried not to think about what that might mean when it comes to other women, and I’ve never even caught of whiff of scandal about him, but still …

       No, that’s horrid. I can’t blame my husband for things he hasn’t done, because I’m feeling guilty about having feelings for someone else. That’s too low.

       Alex is a good man, really. He’s just rather distant and … I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with him—except that he isn’t Dominic.

      And Dominic trumps Alex in every way. I know he feels something for me. I can see it in his eyes, the way I find him looking at me across the set a thousand times a day. Where Alex is a good man, Dominic is an extraordinary one. We talk, we sit together, but he won’t take it any further. I want to hate him for being so principled, but I find I can’t. If I were his wife, I wouldn’t want him any other way. I don’t want him to lower himself to something he isn’t for me. I don’t want to make him less, when I feel he makes me so much more.

       But when we have scenes together—scenes where Richard and Charity get close—I know it isn’t acting. I know he’s drinking every moment in, saving it up, like I am. It’s taking the film to a new level. Sam hardly says a word when we have our scenes. More than once we’ve got an important moment down in one take.

       I wrote that something magical would happen here at this house this summer, didn’t I, and it has.

       I met Dominic.

       But I also know I’m making the film of my career. Something that will last long after I’ve grown old and ugly and no one will want to watch films with me in them any more.

       Thank you, Whitehaven. I don’t know how I am ever going to repay you.

      Louise closed the diary and walked back into the relative gloom of the boathouse interior. She stared at the book in her hands, hardly able to comprehend what she’d just read, what she’d just found.

      This was Laura Hastings’ diary! And obviously written the year she’d filmed A Summer Affair here. This was … it was … amazing. She felt as if the house had given up one of its secrets, trusted her with it. She hugged the book to her chest until she realised it was leaving a dusty imprint on her front, and then she carefully wiped it down with a soft, clean duster.

      And what a romantic story.

      At least, it seemed like one from the outside. But Louise knew all about how glamorous and exciting things could seem when you read about them, when it was a whole different ball game to live through them. Part of her ached for the young Laura Hastings, too.

      She’d always seemed so perfect on the screen, had always been one of Louise’s icons. Who wouldn’t fall for that ice-blonde hair and those big, sparkling blue eyes? Laura Hastings had always looked so poised, so in control. She wondered if anyone had had any idea of the inner turmoil underneath the movie star surface.

      She flicked back through the diary again. The entries seemed to be sporadic. Sometimes they were days