Just in time for a hurricane honeymoon

NEVE McINTOSH smiles when she says that she hasn't made her mind up about where to spend her summer holidays, but she knows where she's not going . . . and that's anywhere in the world that's prone to hurricanes. Slight furrows appear on the forehead of the beautiful, dark-haired, 29-year-old Scots actress, who is starring in the ITV costume drama, Lady Audley's Secret - based on the Mary Elizabeth Braddon novel - as she recalls how stormy weather turned her sunshine dream into a nightmare.

It began like a classic Hollywood romance for the actress, who was in the BBC's

all-star, big-budget version of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and C4's gritty drama, Psychos. While filming Psychos, McIntosh and the cameraman Alexander - whom she calls ''Xandy'' - Sahla had fallen in love. He proposed and the couple got married down on the Ayrshire coast, near where her mother and gran live.

They had decided to splash out on a fabulous honeymoon, at a five-star hotel in Miami, before heading on to Belize. During the flight across the Atlantic, the couple sipped champagne and looked forward to a romantic, candlelit dinner, but when they landed in Miami they discovered that the entire area was in a state of panic. Hurricane Floyd was set to hit, locals were battening down the hatches, airports and railway stations were being closed, and tourists were being told to flee.

''It took us by surprise,'' says McIntosh, a down-to-earth girl who smiles and jokes as she talks about the nightmarish experience. ''When we flew in the pilot said the weather was lovely. The next thing we were being told was: 'Get out of Miami! Get out of Miami!' At first we did not grasp the gravity of the situation since we rolled off the plane a bit half-cut because we had been celebrating with some champagne.

''We thought that we were Scots, so a bit of bad weather didn't worry us. Then we saw people hammering sheets of metal over their homes. So we wondered how we could get out. It was a bit scary. There were no planes, no buses, and no trains. We hired a car and, after being on a plane for 10 hours, drove all the way across Florida to Naples, in the dark. We were really tired and were nipping each other to stay awake. Once we got into a motel we felt safe. Eventually, we went on, as planned, to Belize, which was fantastic.''

Even when the couple found themselves in a sunshine paradise, however, it was not the end of the unscripted drama. McIntosh, who has been riding since she 11, decided to have a gallop through the jungle. Unfortunately, she took a tumble but, luckily, was unhurt. It looked as though her luck had run out, though, when she and Xandy got to Belize airport to fly home. Delayed flights meant they'd miss their connections to London - a big problem since she was scheduled to start filming Lady Audley's Secret the next day. ''I panicked, but my husband was marvellous. He sweet-talked the airline into getting us on to another flight. After all that, how would I describe my honeymoon? Unique.''

McIntosh almost missed out on the title role in Lady Audley's Secret, a Victorian saga of scandal and passion, because she put love before career. After being cast in the role of the mysterious Lady Audley she said she wouldn't be available for the first week's filming because she was getting married. ''I was asked to curtail my honeymoon and, after a lot of deliberation, I said no because - as far as I'm concerned - I'm only going to get married once,'' she says. But the producers were so anxious to use her that they adjusted their filming plans.

According to the actress, the toughest part of her role was getting used to the bodice and the complex nineteenth-century hair-dos. ''At one time I had 160 pins in my hair and it took three-and-a-half hours to get the ringlets for one scene,'' she recalls.

Born in Paisley and brought up in Edinburgh, McIntosh has blossomed into one of Scotland's most promising young actresses. Acting is what she wanted to do ever since she was a teenager, back when she was called Carol McIntosh. ''Equity made me change my name because there was an actor called Carl McIntosh,'' she explains. ''I chose Neve because it was the nicest name that I came across.''

She left Boroughmuir High with two Highers - in Art and English. ''It took me two years to get them and, at first, I intended to go to art college. But I realised that I wasn't good enough, or single-minded enough, to make a career in art. Now art is my hobby. I take a sketch pad with me whenever I go for a wander through the countryside.''

She made her TV debut while still a student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, when Scottish Television needed some girls for a scene in an episode of Taggart. ''It was a tiny little part . . . I had no lines to speak. I was a maid at a sex party . . . for a scene in which police were coming in the door as the place got raided. It was a great experience, discovering how a drama was filmed and remembering not to fall over the camera and lighting cables.''

Since then this young actress has started to make her mark on screen. McIntosh regards two of her dramas as significant landmarks . . . Psychos, obviously, because that's where she met her husband, and Gormenghast because it started scripts flowing in. ''Being in Gormenghast was fantastic,'' she says. ''You could see the money almost dripping off the screen and just to be in the same room as Christopher Lee! Since Gormenghast was screened I have found that I am up for many more roles in TV and film. It is a very exciting time!''

n Lady Audley's Secret, ITV, tomorrow.

JOHN MILLAR