The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina Whitcombe by Sabrina Darby

stone, she turned her head, smiled at Jasper trotting over to investigate what she was doing. He pressed his nose close to her, sniffing, and then turned to the basket of food. He made a little whining sound, and stared at her with pitiful pleading eyes, but she waved him away. He whined insistently a bit more and then finally, tail down, settled down a few feet from the basket.
    Back to the paper.
    She read a much-delayed review of the Adelphi Theatre’s last performance of their season. And then pored over the detailed descriptions of Covent Garden’s Shakespeare celebration. The festivities sounded wonderful and everyone had been at the theater that night to see Kemble portray Coriolanus. Kemble could play a witch and people would flock to see him!
    A few minutes later Elizabeth Duncan’s name was there before her in bold, black ink. Acknowledged by the fiercest critics to be a sensation.
    Angelina froze. Heat filled her head. Her skin buzzed. She’d been able to pretend it didn’t matter so much, that by the time she’d finished her sojourn in Yorkshire, the episode with Lizzie would have passed and Denham would have moved on to a new lover.
    But this—this was different.
    She was going to cast up her accounts. She needed air.
    â€œAngelina?” She heard John’s questioning voice even as she stumbled from the room, darkness creeping at the edges of her vision.
    The cool air was perfect. She stopped where the small rise began its descent, stared southward, toward London.
    She breathed deep. It had been foolish of her to pretend that Lizzie Duncan was the only problem. No, Angelina and Denham had parted ways before he’d even noticed the other actress. An amicable split, everyone said, because Angelina had ensured everyone thought so. Because she had gone out of her way to continue flirting with Denham, to point out young women who might appeal to him, so that she didn’t look abandoned and desperate.
    Which she was.
    There was a trick to catching a jaded nobleman’s eye and it was to be rare, in demand, unavailable. Three months after Denham handed her her ÿonge, the only man to proposition her had been Fredric Gallant, and he’d done so mockingly. He wasn’t even interested in women.
    Then the Lizzie situation had arisen, and the flirtatious relationship Angelina maintained with Denham had backfired.
    She felt John’s presence at her back although he didn’t speak.
    John. Who she’d been hired to seduce. Who had turned down her blatant attempts at seduction and resisted her more subtle ones.
    She whirled around.
    â€œWhy?” She demanded. “You look at me sometimes as if you do desire me, but then nothing. Why won’t you touch me?”
    Touch me!
    He stared at her.
    She stepped closer till she was a mere breath away from him. His neck was taut with tension.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with me?” The emotions swirled within her, the anger and despair rising and she wanted to give in, to feel it all in her voice, her body. Let go.
    The wind was playing with her hair, whispering against the skin of her neck.
    â€œNothing’s wrong with you.”
    â€œThen kiss me.”
    On the stage, he would have grabbed her. It would have been dramatic and passionate. She would have thrown back her head in mimicry of wild abandon.
    Now he stared. And she stared back, daring him.
    The touch of his fingers stroking the hair at her temple was warm. Her breath caught in her throat. Then the back of his fingers caressed her cheek.
    Kiss me?
    She searched his expression, wanting. There were his eyes, warm, brown, like the earth. Below—the strong lines of his face, the distortion of the scar.
    He pressed his palm to her cheek. Her breath rushed out in a sigh, and she let her head rest, lie heavy against his skin.
    Closed her eyes. There was that sweet, cool whisper of a spring breeze, the warm strength of his hand, the sounds of his breath. The