Jane Actually

if she just read it again:
    Courtney Blake’s book examines the personality of Jane Austen with the tools of modern-day medicine, forensic psychiatry and textual analysis to expose the famous Regency author as being much more sexually aware and adventurous than her reputation as a spinster would suggest. Blake’s detective work even suggests Austen did not die ignorant of carnal pleasures and identifies her possible partners, both from the usual suspects and some that will surprise and even shock Austen fans. Blake is aided by in his analysis by FBI profilers, neuro-linguistics and computer-aided analysis of the text of Austen’s novels and letters.
    The press release included a picture of the book cover, which showed a woman with heaving bosom more appropriate to a bodice ripper than any sort of serious examination of Austen.
    Oh my God, this is horrible. Poor Jane. I have to tell her right away before she sees it.
Melody was shaking from the outrage of it.
    She could imagine the distress of her client and friend, further summoning her anger against this insect who would dare besmirch Jane’s reputation. Her anger could not be contained and she stood from her desk and paced angrily around her office. Finally her emotions drove her from the little space, now filled with boxes of stuff waiting to be moved, and she left her office for the hallway. She walked up and down the hallway, past all the other little offices of accountants and dentists and other professionals desperate for any space in the city that wouldn’t bankrupt them.
    Slowly her anger cooled and her instincts as agent and publicist took over. The PRNewswire release said Blake’s book was due to be released just before the AGM. It smacked of a rushed release to capitalize on
Sanditon
, hoping to ride that book’s sales.
    But it could work both ways, Melody realized. Sex sells and sex was something conspicuously missing from
Sanditon
. This Blake creature’s book could save Jane from eternal spinsterhood, even if it isn’t true.
    But what if it is? Is that so bad? Why should I resent it if Jane didn’t die a virgin
? Of course, what really worried Melody was that “surprise and even shock” line.
Is it going to revisit the accusation that Jane was a lesbian?
The thought first angered Melody and then confused her.
How can I be mad at Jane were I to learn she’s a lesbian?
    But it would be a betrayal, Melody knew. It would be the crushing realization that a very close friend had kept something from you, something that would help you understand and identify with that person. After reading and countlessly rereading Austen, Melody thought she knew everything about Jane, ignoring the very real difficulty of ever truly knowing the elusive author.
    I would have something in common with her that I never knew I had, but I don’t want her to change. I want my Jane Austen to be the Austen I grew up with.
    And then she realized that she had—for a moment—taken this man’s book seriously. She realized the danger that such a book might do. After all, even without Courtney Blake’s book, the Jane Austen she thought she knew wasn’t the Jane she’d come to know. The Jane who was her client could never be simply described as a spinster author. She’d often wondered at the thought that Jane had died a virgin and like many, considered the idea tragic. So another part of her hoped that Jane had found some sexual release, which just spiralled back to a basic disgust of having to talk about Jane having sex.
    Melody walked back to her office but rather than go inside and see her boxed belongings, she decided to lock up and go for coffee. Perhaps caffeine would help her find a tactful way to tell Jane the news of the book.

English country dance
Some experience required
    “N o, you’re the first couple, but you have to wait one go round with your partner because we have an uneven number of pairs,” the instructor said patiently, despite Mary’s frequent mistakes. Mary had gotten confused when she reached the end of the line and wanted to immediately re-enter. It was the goal of the afternoon that Mary should complete one dance without any glaring error.
    “Sorry,” Mary said to the instructor, who nodded pleasantly, probably because of the substantial amount of money the dance group was being paid to teach Mary English country dancing. 1
    “Why don’t we take a break?” the instructor suggested. “I think some of us could use water.”
    Some of the