‘Sometimes, they still get it right.’ Jackson shrugged. ‘Amy had my phone company hook up my cell, though, so I get alerted any time one of the sites has good info. I guess today they do.’
Instinctively, Olivia tightened her grip on his hand. ‘What now? Should we turn back and try to disappear into the crowd at the market?’
Jackson looked back and sighed. ‘Too late.’
When Olivia followed his gaze, she saw a cluster of teenage girls gathered at the top of the side street. All of them had their smartphones out, and they were whispering to each other as they looked around with narrow-eyed, predatory gazes.
They’re like vultures, Olivia thought, hunting for fresh meat! She knew that she should have been feeling tension and dread, but she wasn’t. She had to bite back a nervous giggle when she realised – here she was, in a romantic foreign city, in her very own caper. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her . . .
. . . And considering that my family is vampire royalty, she thought, that is saying something!
One of the girls let out a yelp as a tanned man wearing sunglasses walked past them. ‘Isn’t that the singer who’s going out with that soap star?’
Jackson squeezed Olivia’s hand. When she looked at him, she could see a rueful smile on his face – it may have been a weird, scary situation, but he looked like he was seeing the funny side. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘while they’re distracted.’
Olivia ran with him down the side street, struggling to keep up. He pulled her around a corner . . . and then stopped dead.
They’d come to an embankment overlooking the Thames. The river stretched before them, the sun was setting over London, and it would have looked dreamily romantic . . . if only it hadn’t been for the swell of a scream rising behind them.
They’d been spotted.
Olivia glanced back and echoed Jackson’s groan. A new group of teenage girls was thundering towards them.
‘Jackson!’
‘It’s really him!’
‘Wait for meeeee!’
Still looking over her shoulder, Olivia nearly fell when Jackson yanked her forwards, dragging her to one side and then through a narrow doorway.
‘I’ve got an idea! Keep a lookout,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me if any of them see us here.’
Olivia crossed her arms like a bouncer and kept watch through the doorway. Behind her, she could hear Jackson in a whispered conversation with someone. ‘. . . if you can just help us . . .’ she heard, along with, ‘it’s her favourite play . . .’ The girls were at the far end of the street, peering down into the passing boats as if they thought Jackson might have jumped into one of them.
Olivia felt Jackson’s hand close firmly on to her arm as she was pulled backwards through another doorway, into an open-aired space crammed full of people. Men and women stood pressed together all around, but no one moved. No one spoke. All their eyes were fixed on something behind Olivia’s back.
Then a voice spoke, uttering words Olivia knew very well:
‘Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
‘Having some business, do entreat her eyes . . .’
Slowly, Olivia turned to face the stage.
There was a patch of purple-blue above their heads – a circular gap in the roof of the theatre invited the evening sky in. Tiers of seats rose in a semicircle around a stage, where actors in Elizabethan dress performed a scene she knew only too well: the famous ‘balcony scene’, where Romeo first courts Juliet.
Olivia knew exactly where they were, now. It had to be the famous, open-air Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare himself had performed. The conversation she’d half-overheard must have been Jackson talking to a doorman, bartering for late entrance to the show – a play that they had acted in together at school . . .
. . . where they had shared their first kiss.
I can’t be here, Olivia thought, as Romeo and Juliet fell in love on stage. I can’t pretend we’re just friends while we watch this!
But there was no way out. The standing-room audience was pressed tightly around her. And even if she got out, Jackson’s fans were stalking the streets outside the theatre.
Jackson took her hand as the balcony scene continued. His voice echoed Romeo’s words, whispering them under his breath:
‘O, that I were a glove upon that hand
‘That I might touch that cheek!’
Olivia swallowed hard, fighting down emotion as his hand pressed against hers. Yes, she and Jackson had performed together in this play, but could he really have known that this was her favourite piece of Shakespeare’s writing? Or was that an excuse to get them in? If he does, she thought, he knows me better than I realised.
Heads were turning, as other audience members shot Jackson annoyed looks because he was ‘talking’. Jackson didn’t even seem to see the other audience members, though. His face was rapt with emotion as he gazed at the stage . . . and held Olivia’s hand.
When it was time for Juliet’s monologue, Olivia found herself torn.
Should I give him back the lines?
She still knew the play by heart. How could she forget? On the other hand, she didn’t want to annoy any more theatre-goers. She nibbled on her lip, hesitating.
Then Jackson turned to look directly at her as he whispered along with another line:
‘I know not how to tell thee who I am . . .’
Olivia froze, caught by the emotion in his eyes.
Was he only caught up by the play? Or did those words have any extra meaning for him?
If she hadn’t been in the middle of a theatre audience that was gripped in absolute, respectful silence, Olivia could have screamed!