Dangerous Nights. Rosalie Ash

your breakfast,’ he ordered, shooting her a bleak grin.

      ‘I did tell you I wasn’t hungry.’

      ‘So you did.’ Leaning back in his chair, he scanned her impassively. Wriggling slightly under that cool scrutiny, she gazed about the room. There were guests at several of the tables near by. An American couple, and Germans, French and Japanese, Ana deduced, from the rich blend of languages and accents. Part of the ever-present pageant of tourists, flocking to experience Shakespeare’s county, to absorb the atmosphere left by the centuries. Stratford’s lure for visitors from so many different countries and cultures never failed to give her a warm little glow of pleasure.

      Until now. Right now, she could think of nothing except devising some casual, uninterested-sounding excuse to escape from Jed’s company…

      ‘You look tired, Ana,’ he murmured, pushing his knife and fork together and lifting a hand to summon the waiter. ‘I imagine acting is an exhausting profession?’ There was no expression in his voice.

      ‘It can be very tiring,’ she agreed equally tonelessly. The waiter poured more tea into her cup, topped up Jed’s black coffee, then disappeared obediently in search of more toast. ‘You don’t get much time off. But I love it…’

      ‘When did you last take a holiday?’

      She shrugged slightly, irritation creeping in. ‘Heavens, I can’t remember. I’ve got a free ten-day slot coming up soon, I think. Another play’s preview week. But it’s possible to do the entire season without a holiday. It’s just the luck of the draw.’

      ‘Is that why you’re looking like the walking dead?’

      ‘Spare me the flowery compliments!’ she snapped. ‘If you must know I’m feeling… stunned! I can’t believe I’m seeing you again!’ Horrified, she heard herself blurting it out. ‘I thought I never would. See you again, I mean. Part of it is like a nightmare. Part of it feels more like a dream. A dream I’ve had on and off since that weekend at Farthingley…’

      She caught her lip in her teeth, mortified. So much for her urgent desire to play it cool, to escape.

      ‘I’ve thought about Farthingley, too.’ His deep voice was guarded.

      Her face felt hot. Beneath her loose, scoop-necked emerald sweatshirt, her breasts tingled, the tips traitorously tightened like press-studs.

      How could he still make her feel like this? Fighting the waves of heat, she struggled angrily to examine her subconscious feelings. Trying to make sense of her reaction to him felt like agitating muddy water with a stick. Hadn’t she hated him, despised him, resented him, blamed him for her sexual hang-ups, for the last four years? Burned with mortification, whenever she remembered that rejection on the lawn, and then the second, even more devastating rejection, the later episode she could hardly bear to relive? Was she so weak that she could sit here now, bleating on about dreams, as if he could still mean something to her?

      ‘I don’t believe you.’

      ‘No. I guess you wouldn’t.’

      She fixed him with an intense brown gaze.

      ‘Unless it was to think back and gloat?’ she suggested tightly. ‘Presumably you got quite a kick out of that weekend?’

      Jed’s face had darkened.

      ‘I was doing a job that weekend.’

      ‘Oh, yes, the mysterious “job". The one which entailed prowling round with portable phones and two-way radios and pouncing on innocent girls practising their Shakespeare in the garden?’