Page 39 of The Happy Hour
‘You’re taking me on my own personal film tour,’ Jess said. ‘With hats.’
‘I thought, as the guide, that I needed to stand out somehow.’
‘From your audience of one?’ Jess sipped her coffee.
‘Exactly. AndthenI thought, how unfair that I got a great hat, and you didn’t. Thus, the raspberry baker-boy cap, which really suits you.’
‘A film tour with added flattery?’
‘Aren’t they the best kind? Come on.’ Ash walked up the wide gravel walkway between decorative hedges shaped like spirals, and Jess followed. The Queen’s House was starkly white even on this gloomy day, with blank windows and curved, symmetrical staircases leading up to the ground-floor veranda.
‘So, this is the Queen’s House.’ Ash kept glancing between his phone and her, managing to look both ridiculous and incredibly dashing in the ostentatious hat. ‘It was used in the recent Netflix production ofBridgerton, which I watched in great detail in preparation for today.’
Jess smirked. ‘Are you going to reenact the scene that was filmed here? All the best film tours have reenactments.’
‘They do?’
Jess nodded.
‘Right. OK, then. The – uh – main characters are arriving at a grand ball,’ Ash said. ‘It’s not one of the more intimate scenes. So we could...’ His brows pulled low as he turned in a slow circle. It was busy despite the weather, with groups of visitors dotting the golden pathways and manicured lawns. Ash’s smile widened and he pointed. ‘There.’
Jess followed his finger. A woman was pushing two children in a sleek black double buggy, a King Charles spaniel trotting happily on a lead at her side. ‘That’s your reenactment?’
‘Just imagine it.’ He tapped on his phone screen and a piece of music, familiar to Jess, filtered out of the tiny speakers. It was the string version of Taylor Swift’s ‘Wildest Dreams’ that she’d heard in the series. She glanced at him, but he was looking ahead.
‘The sky is darker, full of stars instead of clouds, and the pillars have vines and fairy lights wound around them. The air is filled with the summer scent of jasmine, and the string quartet are playing while champagne glasses clink like bells.’ He lowered his voice, and Jess had to strain to hear his words above the swoop of the violin. ‘There’s an undercurrent of anticipation. Everyone feels it, low in their stomachs, wondering who they’re going to meet tonight.’ He pointed at the mum pushing the buggy. ‘There’s Lady Violet Bridgerton.’
‘Was that aguess?’ Jess asked loudly, trying to ignore the pit of anticipation he’d put inherstomach at his words. ‘Who are the children?’
‘Daphne, of course. And... Colin. The small boy playing with the plastic tractor is obviously Colin.’ They watched as the family walked slowly in front of the house, the little girl turning in her seat to say something to her mum.
‘You’ve actually seenBridgerton?’
‘A good tour guide does his research,’ Ash told her. ‘And the dog is their faithful steed, Midnight.’
‘I don’t remember a horse being named.’
‘Everyone calls their horse Midnight, don’t they? That or Blaze.’
The family stopped in front of the wide steps and then, to Jess’s incredulity, the mum took her little girl’s tiny hand and, carefully, helped her out of the buggy. She was wearing a pink dress, the skirt floaty with a lace trim. The spaniel skittered on the gravel, letting out a single bark, as if cheering
her on.
‘There you go,’ Ash said smugly. ‘The Bridgerton family arriving at the ball. It would probably be a footman that helped Daphne out of the carriage, rather than Lady Violet, but let’s go with it.’
Jess laughed. ‘How could you possibly...?’
‘I’m just lucky.’ Ash grinned at her.
‘The dog is probably called Dave, you know.’
‘Dave sounds quite similar to Blaze,’ Ash pointed out, and Jess shook her head in mock despair. He adjusted his hat. ‘Right. Next stop, the colonnades.’ He pointed at the long walkways running either side of the Queen’s House, shaded by proud, sturdy pillars. ‘They’re used for a fight scene inBridgerton, and also in the film adaptation ofSense and Sensibility. Follow me.’
Ash kept up a happy patter of information – some of which Jess was sure he was making up – as they strolled along the colonnades and then down to the Old Royal Naval College, which stood between the Queen’s House and the Thames, a gap left between the buildings so whichever monarch was on the throne would have an unobstructed view of the water. Today it was gunmetal grey and slow moving, devoid of shimmer.
‘There’s a huge fight scene inThor: The Dark Worldthat was filmed over here,’ Ash said, leading her towards the baroque buildings.
‘Are you going to reenact that one, too?’
