Addie flinched when he turned around. “Hello, Philip.”
He nodded at her, but there was a slight tightening around his eyes. “How have you been?”
“Great. I spent the last year in Scotland.” Addie had dated exactly two men whom she’d wished she’d never met. He was one of them. They had barely dated, and even if she hadn’t figured out who she authentically was, Philip wouldn’t have been someone she could see in her future.
“Easier to get roles there, I bet. Less competition.” Philip was a bit of an ass even if he liked someone, and he didn’t like her. Not now. Not after their breakup. “Especially now that you can be sowoke.Do they call your sudden lesbian turn woke over there? Or are youMethod actingfor roles?”
“It wasn’t sudden,” Addie pointed out, hoping she was misunderstanding his jab. “Don’t be like this. Please? I’m just being honest about who I am.”
“Honest?” Philip sneered. “Cold fish. That’s the right label if you want to be honest, Adelaine.”
Maybe they’re typecasting his role.She stared at him in vague horror that she’d be likely to have to work with him regularly if they were both cast in the show.How do I get along with him?
But then the woman swept Addie away from Philip and into another room, where she was given a Victorian dress and told, “We want this to be the ‘full effect.’”
Addie nodded. Once the assistant or writer or whatever she was left, Addie stripped. There was no corset, and the small bustle that ought to be under the dress was missing. The dress was obviouslyfrom another production, and as Addie tried to situate it, it became abundantly clear that it had been designed for a woman with fuller hips and a smaller bosom.
There obviously were no historically accurate drawers either.
That thought had Addie’s cheeks pink, and she felt more confident than she had after meeting “Colin.” The woman who went to a shadowed garden with the author was bolder than the mouse that Addie felt like when faced with arrogant men.
“Miss Stewart?” The woman returned, frowning when she realized that the dress didn’t work as it was.
“It’s okay from the hips down, a little long, but I practiced in awkward skirts when I was inMinaoverseas.” Addie pasted on her I-can-make-it-work smile. “The top is a bit of an issue.”
“What if we added a wrap or cloak or…” The woman shifted through a hanging rack that had assorted historical pieces on it. “Try this.”
She held out a fur jacket that was entirely the wrong style and not right for the character.
“The character is more like…” Addie scanned the rack and found a capelet that felt a little more Little Red Riding Hood than Victorian, but it wasn’t a notice-me-now fur coat. She pulled it on—and mentally slipped into the character as she walked to the stage.
She remembered the pages well enough that she didn’t need to look at the script as they began their scene. This scene, unlike some of the others, was direct from the page. The personas, the words, it was just turned into a script, but Addie remembered it as words in chunks, not in script.
If there was a man more irritating than her cousin, Adelaine had never met him. Colin was a reprobate of the first order. If he couldn’t drink or debauch a woman, he was in a foul mood. Having a ward, an unmarried one at that, was impeding his pursuit of pleasure.
“I have decided to double the amount set aside for your dowry, Miss Wight.” He was breakfasting, although it was past midday already, and had summoned her as if she were a servant.
“Out of my inheritance, I presume.”
“Indeed.”
“Wouldn’t want to take anything away from your actress-expenses account,” she murmured quietly in an aside, as if he might not hear.
He did, of course. Debauchery had done little to damage his health. So far.
Colin lifted his gaze to her, peering across the table. “If you weren’t such a prim thing, you would have been properly re-wed by now.”
“I was mourning.”
“For two years?” He made a noise that was more fit for a horse than a man.
Or a horse’s back end,she thought.
“You might recall that my spouse has passed,andmy grandmother passed.” Addie kept her voice even. She’d been raised by her widowed grandmother. It had led to a somewhat peculiar upbringing—and a tidy inheritance that was stipulated as hers even after marriage. Lord Wight had only added to that inheritance.
“Join me in the library.” Colin walked away.
Silently, Addie trailed after Colin. His steps still sounded clearly, despite the muffling of the rug underfoot.The actor, Philip, stomped.He walked deeper into the house, crossing a threshold she rarely had traversed.
