The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina Whitcombe by Sabrina Darby Page B

theater, where she had borne Lizzie Duncan’s caustic wrath with a great show of humility. Even groveling could not add more dates to the theater’s season or inspire the manager to replace anyone. He had, however, offered her a small part in a melodrama at a minor theater in which he had an interest. The sort of role she had not taken even in her first days in London five years earlier.
    While she’d accepted the employment with gratitude, it was much more difficult to accept the small attic chamber Mr. Baswick was now showing to her.
    Her old landlord looked entirely unchanged—same paunch at his waist, sagging jowls, thinning gray hair, same garrulousness and eagerness to gossip—and yet, like London, he seemed different.
    â€œWhat, did you expect me to leave your previous rooms empty indefinitely? You know that Maggie Shelton has been wanting a space in the house for years. Maggie’s expecting again.” He added the last in a twinkling-eyed hush.
    â€œI suppose I hadn’t thought I’d be here again,” she admitted.
    â€œBut you’ll take it.”
    She smiled at him wryly. “Yes, Bas, of course I’ll take it. You’re my one friend in London.”
    â€œThat’s a shame,” he said. “A pretty girl like you. But come on then, as friends let’s have a cup of tea and you can tell me about your sojourn in the wilds of the countryside.”
    She followed him down to his own apartment, where she’d spent the occasional afternoon playing a game of piquet over sherry-spiked tea. At least the many flights of stairs no longer winded her quite as much as they would have before Yorkshire. Many more of those daily walks and she would have been as hardy as a country girl. As she’d once been in her youth.
    â€œI spend my days posting advertisements and fielding letters for advertisers,” he continued, huffing as they descended the three flights. “But never do I get to hear the stories that happen after a match is made, if a match is made. So tell me, what was the problem with the young man that he needed his mother to hire his mistress?”
    She laughed. Bas might have been the one to tell her of the advertisement and she was grateful to him for his help, but there was very little of the story she was willing to share.
    â€œHe didn’t know,” she said, settling once again on part of the truth. He whistled through his teeth. “And, as of the moment, he still doesn’t know. For his mother’s sake and his, I hope it stays that way.” For her own sake too. Better to be remembered at least somewhat fondly, even if he would resent her for her abrupt departure. “But enough of Yorkshire . What we really should talk about is all the gossip I’ve missed while away.”
    When she was alone in her room, her sole trunk placed at the foot of the narrow bed, she took a deep, steadying breath. The room was small even by London standards, but at least it was inexpensive. She’d learned her lesson about frivolous spending and debt.
    There was a small window, which overlooked the bustling street. She had always thought that activity exciting and vibrant. But through that opening, the stale air of the city wafted in.
    She missed fresh air and freeing space. She missed all the colors of the countryside. She missed that collie sticking his wet nose in her face.
    She missed John.
    T he house was stifling, the company insipid. The dinner party at the manor house was proving to be even more unbearable than he’d imagined it would be, as his mother apparently intended to play matchmaker. Whether it was sandwiching him between the two young Treythorn sisters, who had both been children the last time he’d seen them, or forcing him into a conversation with their cousin Miss Cooke, his mother made little attempt to hide her goals.
    He shouldn’t have come, but nights at the castle had grown increasingly unbearable.