“I wasn’t poking,” said Emma.

Her friend gave her a look. Jane had a way with looks.

“Well, maybe just a little,” Emma admitted. “But when he perpetrates poems like that, it’s just too tempting not to poke.”

Jane continued to look, her gray eyes amused.

“What?” said Emma defensively.

“There are better ways to get someone’s attention.”

Emma chose to ignore that. “All I did was offer a little helpful criticism.”

“In the middle of his reading,” pointed out Jane.

“Was it the middle? It’s so hard to tell when it goes on for forty-five cantos.”

“Twenty-two,” corrected Jane. She would know. Whittlesby had dedicated all of them to her, his Princess of the Pulchritudinous Toes. “Haven’t you ever thought of just conducting a conversation with him rather than embarrassing him in public? It might better serve your cause.”

Emma wrinkled her nose at her friend. “I don’t have a cause.”

Jane adjusted an already perfectly aligned flounce. “You go to every single one of his readings. Poetic devotion?”

“Consider it a well-developed sense of the absurd?” Emma suggested. “For farce, he’s better than the commedia dell’arte.”

“Almost anything is better than the commedia dell’arte,” said Jane. As Emma had learned, her friend was something of a snob when it came to theatre. It was one of the few flaws in an otherwise perfect personality. Fortunately, Emma had caught Jane reading gothic novels, or else they might never have become friends. “Care to try again?”

“It’s not like that,” said Emma. “Well, it’s not! It’s like…pining after an actor. You don’t mean anything to come of it, but he does look so very nice in his pantaloons.”

“Mmm,” said Jane. “Does he now?”

Emma felt her cheeks flush. “That was meant as a general he, not this he in particular. Although, yes,” she admitted, “he does look very good in his breeches. It’s his one redeeming quality. That and his hair. He has very nice hair. And fine eyes. Oh, stop!”