Lady in Lace: Regency Timeslip

by Joanna Maitland

  Determined, she began to undo the fastenings so that she could peel off the golden gown…

  Chapter Three

  The bell of St Mary's finished tolling the hour.

  Followed by a silence that echoed eerily in the dark, empty museum.

  St Mary's stood across the road, solid sandstone as ever, obscuring much of the view from the research room window. The hands on its clock read seven.

  Emma's head was pounding. Her whole body began to shake. She grabbed the edge of the table to stop herself from falling. Seven o'clock? It couldn't be. It had been striking seven when she started to put the gown on and she had been gone for hours.

  Hadn't she?

  She closed her eyes for a long moment. Mistake. The room started to swim. In desperation, she clutched the table even harder.

  Was she going totally mad?

  She took a long deep breath. Then another. She forced herself to open her eyes and look around. The research room was the same as ever. The damaged lace gown was draped across the huge round table. The spotlights in the magnifiers were shining down onto it, making the shreds of gold lace sparkle, even after two centuries. Underneath, the delicate silken petticoat gleamed enticingly.

  Emma dragged a chair out from under the table and collapsed on to it. Her whole body was shuddering so much she didn't dare to let go of her support.

  Had she had some kind of seizure? Thinking she'd been transported to another place and another time? Like a daydream?

  It was no daydream. A nightmare, perhaps? If so, it was a waking nightmare. But then again, that was impossible, too. Even nightmares took time and – she checked the clock which now showed a minute or so after seven – no time had passed. She had been here when the bell began to strike seven. She had started to try on the shredded golden gown. Then she had been somewhere else, in another time and another place altogether, wearing the undamaged gown as if it had been made for her.

  And…and…

  Shocked, she realised that her body was feeling heavy and sated. Satisfied. She recognised that feeling, from long ago in the early, naively happy, days of her marriage, when sex had been joyful and fulfilling. In her daydream – and it must have been a daydream, surely? – the greatest stud in Regency London had made love to her. Here in the real world, her body had responded. It was perfectly possible to have an orgasm in a dream, she knew. The orgasm would be real, even though the dream lover wasn't.

  She forced herself to hold up her left hand. It was shaking. There was no wedding ring but there was a tiny bruise on the side of her little finger, as if someone's teeth had—

  "I'm going mad," she said aloud, transfixed by the mark on her hand. It wasn't possible. Such things couldn't happen.

  She screwed her eyes shut and dropped her head into her hands with a groan.

  I'm a sensible, professional woman. I can sort this out. I just have to think it through. There has to be a rational explanation for what I'm feeling.

  Doesn't there?

  She swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding almost fit to burst. Frighteningly. Was she going to have a heart attack? She concentrated on breathing. Long and slow, long and slow. Eventually, her heart rate dropped and her terror began to subside. She'd had a shock but she was OK. Even if she couldn't work out quite what had happened to her.

  She made herself raise her head and open her eyes. The ripped gold lace was still there, lying across the table like a threat.

  Enough of this.

  Emma forced herself to her feet. If this golden wreck of a gown had some kind of mystical power, she would find out what it was. Right now. She had fancied that putting her arm into that puff sleeve had carried her off into Regency England, had she? Well, she would do it again. Right here. Right now.

  She picked up the damaged gown and—

  She almost screamed. Underneath the gold lace gown lay a key. It looked like the key she had pocketed after locking the dressing room door.

  Not only had she been transported back to her own time but she had brought back more than the magic gown. What did it mean? If she had brought back a key from her Regency dream, then the dream had to have been real, didn't it?

  She steeled herself to reach down and pick up the key. It felt solid. Like a real key. It hadn't been in the research room before, so she must have brought it back with her. There was no other explanation, was there?

  Another thought struck her, even though her head was spinning. She had locked both the doors into the dressing room. From the inside. Her lover would try to get in, but wouldn't be able to. How would he explain that?

  The key seemed to warm in her hand. As if it had something to tell her.

  She carried it to her lips and, in that same moment, she understood. She had been fated to remove that key. Her lover would assume she had left via the outer door, locking it behind her and taking away the key. It made everything plausible. Just.

  She heaved a sigh of relief. But she was not really convinced. Her lover would wonder why no one had seen her making her escape. Locked room mysteries were always a problem. It would be better if she could go back, unlock the door again, and leave the key on the inside where it belonged.

  She had the gown. She could do it. Now.

  Grasping the key in one hand, she carefully began to slide the other into the undamaged sleeve. She held her breath, waiting for the blue lightning, the icy wind, the shock.

  Nothing.

  She slid her hand a little further, gently pulling the gown up her arm.

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  Whatever she thought had happened last time, it clearly wasn't going to happen again. The tattered gold-lace gown was nothing more than a rather sad museum artefact. In spite of that mysterious time-travelling key.

  With a sigh of disappointment tinged with relief, Emma dropped the key onto the table. She'd think about that later. What mattered now was the magic gown. She peeled it off her arm and draped it across the table. "You have a story to tell, haven't you?" she said, glaring down at it. She felt a little more in control at last. "But you've decided not to say another word today. Why is that, I wonder?"

  Very gently, she stroked her fingers across the scraps of torn lace. So costly, so delicate, so beautiful. It had been even more beautiful when it was whole and she was wearing it. A sob rose in her throat for the loss of something so precious.

  And for the man whose hands had caressed the body that wore it and taken Emma to a place of ecstasy.

  ~ ~ ~

  A night's sleep should have cleared Emma's head. But she hardly slept at all. She kept dreaming about her lover – the man on the beach and the man in the bedroom were one and the same, according to her calculating subconscious – but she would always wake up at the awful moment when she was saying something supremely foolish, like asking him his name.

  At five in the morning, she gave up and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Decent sleep was impossible, so she would do some research. She went to the desk in the corner of her tiny living room and began to trawl the internet for "the Greatest Lover in London" in the Regency period. Predictably, she found nothing very useful. Her search parameters were too vague. She needed a name.

  She sighed out a long breath and tried to relax the tension in her shoulders. Time to take stock. She'd had an out-of-body experience, and what an experience, with a dream lover in the Regency period. What's more, he had recognised her, named her, so he had met her before. Somewhere. And he loved her. Or he said he did. He was a stud, reputed to be the best lover in London, so he might say that to all his mistresses. On the other hand, Emma had seen, with her own eyes, how coldly he had rejected that buxom serving maid. The girl had been attractive enough, and very willing, but he had shown not a flicker of interest. The instant he set eyes on Emma though… Phew. That had been a reaction and a half.

  Had her out-of-body experience actually happened? That was the jackpot question and she had no idea how to answer it, though her body was screaming that
it had been real. She could see that she had two obvious courses of action. She could be sensible and professional, putting the whole episode behind her and trying to forget it as a moment's mental aberration. Or she could try to recreate it in order to find out more about her Regency doppelgänger, and about the unnamed man who made her hormones do cartwheels the moment his lips touched her skin.

  "I should be focusing on my new life and my new job," she said to her computer screen. "Any sensible woman would do that. But I'm not going to be sensible, am I?" She shook her head at her dim reflection. "I'm going to do it all over again, exactly the same as last night, just in case it works. Just in case I can get back there, and find out more, and see him…" Even alone, she didn't dare to say the rest of the words out loud but, in the secret recesses of her mind, she added, "…and make love again."

  ~ ~ ~

  Richard laughed when he arrived and found her hard at work on cataloguing the costume collection. "You must have been here for hours. You didn't have to arrive that early to open up. I'm usually the first in and Melanie never gets me here before half past eight." Melanie was his second wife, nearly twenty years younger than Richard, and he doted on her. Three days a week, she took their daughter to nursery on her way to her part-time job. She dropped Richard off at the museum, too, since they couldn't afford a second car. Being a museum curator didn't pay enough for that, especially since he was supporting the teenage children of his first marriage.

  Emma felt herself beginning to blush. She had never been very good at lying. "Oh, I didn't sleep very well last night." That, at least, was the truth. "So I gave up trying and decided to come in to work. There's plenty to be done." She gestured to the box of index cards and the computer screen. "There's weeks of work here, so even a few extra hours is a help."

  "It's not the kind of work you should be doing, though. Maybe we could get one of the volunteers to do it?"

  "Good idea. I'll have a chat during the coffee break, next time any of them come in. It's pretty boring stuff, though. They might not want to do it."

  "You could make it worth their while. Trade a couple of weeks of data entry for a day or two getting really hands-on with the costume collection. Most of them would jump at the chance, I'd say."

  Emma smiled up at him. "That's a very clever wheeze. Have you got Machiavelli somewhere in your family tree, by any chance?"

  He laughed back at her. "Maybe. You never know." He turned for the door, just as Emma tried to stifle a yawn. "Ha. Caught you. It's not my place to tell you what to do – you're your own boss – but it might be a good plan to knock off early. Catch up on your lost sleep? It's my turn to lock up."

  No, that was not the plan at all.

  "Um… Actually, I thought I might take a couple of hours off at lunchtime for a rest. I'd really like to do some more of this computer stuff and I concentrate best when it's quiet. So I was planning to stay late again. No point in two of us hanging around, is there? I'm happy to do the security stuff. Why don't you go home early, read little Chloë her bedtime story for once?"

  Richard's neck turned slightly pink above his collar. Little Chloë was her daddy's darling – his older children were both boys – and everyone at the museum knew it. "You really are a sucker for punishment, aren't you?" he said lightly.

  "Not really. If I do a couple of hours every evening, once it's quiet, I should be able to make real inroads into the backlog. Just for a week or two, until we can find a willing volunteer to take it on. It'll make it easier to sell the cataloguing, too, if the volunteers know the curator has been doing her bit. Don't you think?"

  Richard nodded. "OK. But if you're going to make a habit of working late, we'd better get a spare set of keys made for the staff entrance so you're not doing late nights and early mornings as well." He grinned suddenly. It made him look much younger. "I'm certainly not going to argue if you're determined to send me off home early today. Melanie will be surprised."

  "And so will Chloë. She's the one who really matters when it comes to bedtime stories, isn't she?"

  "You're a star, Emma. And I owe you. Thanks a lot."

  Emma watched his retreating back. He definitely had an extra spring in his step. Such a little thing, but it meant so much to him.

  And to her, too.

  It meant a chance – several chances, since she'd bought herself at least a week – to get the golden gown to work its magic again. A few more hours and she would know. Perhaps.

  She yawned again. She couldn't help it. Richard was right that the data entry was mind-numbingly boring. She would go to the staff room for a caffeine top-up. Then she would go for a quick walk around the block in the fresh air. Between them, they should wake her up enough to do the rest of her day's work.

  ~ ~ ~

  By half past six, Emma's nerves were jangling. The rest of the staff had left ages before and she was alone again in the research room with the golden lace gown laid out on the big table under the spotlights. The external doors of the museum were all locked. She didn't dare take the risk that a member of staff might find her sitting here in nothing but her underwear. It was the same golden underwear as yesterday. Because everything, absolutely everything, had to be the same. It wasn't just a question of putting on the dress. She'd discovered that after she "returned" last night. Unless she'd failed because she'd been holding that key? There was more to it than the key, she was almost sure, but she had no way of knowing what the vital elements were. So she would recreate every single one.

  St Mary's chimed three-quarters.

  Soon. Very soon.

  At a couple of minutes to seven, Emma was standing by the table, holding the glorious tattered gown in her arms, waiting. She could scarcely bear to breathe as she watched the church clock move slowly towards the hour. It didn't actually tick but she felt as if she could hear it. Perhaps it was the beat of her own hesitant heart?

  St Mary's began to strike the hour.

  Now.

  Emma pushed her arm, ever so carefully, through the puffed sleeve of the golden gown.

  And there it was again. Blue lightning, piercing cold, sucking wind.

  But this time she was not afraid. She knew where she was going. And it was what she wanted.

  She was going to meet her soulmate. All over again.

  Chapter Four

  "Lady Emma?" The fair-haired maid bobbed a curtsey, but waited by the door.

  Lady? Shocked and breathless, Emma looked around for her aristocratic namesake. She was in a totally new place this time, a salon of some kind, furnished with sofas, chairs and screens. It was lit by candles, so it was late. And there was no one else in the room, apart from a soberly-dressed older woman kneeling at Emma's feet, needle in hand.

  The woman snipped her thread and smoothed the hem of Emma's delicate golden gown with the confidence of years of experience. A lady's maid, obviously. She rose to her feet, smiling shyly. "That will see your ladyship through the rest of the evening. But your own abigail should look at it. It would be a shame if such a beautiful gown were really damaged."

  "Um, yes. Er, thank you," Emma mumbled automatically. Ladyship? Plain Emma Stanley was Lady Emma? She swallowed and managed to stammer, "I–I will."

  The questions came crowding in. Where was she? In the same house as before? And where was he?

  Oh, please, please, let him be here.

  The younger maid by the door curtseyed again. "Lady Mumford asked me to find your ladyship. May I bring you to her?"

  Lady Mumford? Who was Lady Mumford? And who on earth was Lady Emma? Was that who she'd been last time? An aristocrat? With him?

  In the tumbling recesses of her mind, Emma the historian knew one thing for sure: if she was "Lady Emma", she had her title by birth and not by marriage. She had to be the daughter of an earl, at least. A subversive little voice was whispering in her head that this dream was right up there in the Harrods class. Maybe, this time, if she closed her eyes and opened them again, she would wake up?

  Bu
t did she want to?

  She swallowed hard, lifted her chin and straightened her spine.

  She was here. She was going to stay until she found out who she was and whether he was here, too. She had to know.

  ~ ~ ~

  As Emma followed the fair-haired maid along seemingly endless corridors, her mind was working nineteen to the dozen. OK, she was Lady Emma. But Lady Emma what? Lady Emma Earlsdaughter, she supposed. Or even Lady Emma Dukesdaughter? Wow, wouldn't that be a turn-up for a divorced woman of no social standing?

  How was she to find out the truth about herself? Her history degree was no real help. But she also had Georgette Heyer, whose Regency and Georgian romances had sparked Emma's interest in history and costume in the first place. As a teenager, Emma had read some of them so often she almost knew them by heart. And they provided the fine detail that history lectures had not.

  The problem was that no one would ever call her by her full name. To servants she was "your ladyship"; to members of her own class, she would be "Lady Emma"; to her intimates, she would be simply "Emma."

  Intimates? Not a good word to choose. So far I only have one of those. Very, very intimate, too.

  She went back to the problem of her name and family. Perhaps she might refer to her father and mother, quite obliquely, and then someone else might mention them by name?

  It probably wouldn't help. The daughter of an earl took the family name. The father's title was usually totally different. He might be the Earl of Gladstone but his daughter would be a mere Lady Emma Bagg. And what if her unnamed father was already dead? It would sound very odd to have a daughter of the house speaking as if a dead earl were still alive. No, she had to find a better way.

  Of course. If someone sent her a letter, it would have her full name on it. Easy.

  She floated along the corridor for a few yards. Then she came down to earth with a bump. What pretext would she use to get someone to write to her? She didn't know anyone, except him, and writing letters to her was the last thing he intended to do.