by Louise Allen
‘That’s right, I did.’ I concentrated on how I felt, then shook my head. ‘I’m perfectly fine at the moment. Last time things went out of focus, I had a sense of unreality that came and went. Nothing like that yet.’ It occurred to me to look at the clock. ‘What if it does start and I have to get to Almack’s and the mirror and they are closed or there is something happening there and crowds of people?’
Last time I had gone through the glass of the long mirror in the refreshment room and it was the only way I knew to get back. I fought down the panicky feeling that if I didn’t do it correctly then I might end up anywhere in time. Or nowhere.
‘If they are closed then we break in,’ said Luc. ‘If there is an assembly then we’ll just have to create a distraction. James can faint onto Lady Jersey, that would do it.’
‘Please! Make it Lord Alvanley, he’s more up to my weight. I’d flatten Lady Jersey, her husband would call me out and none of us would get vouchers for Almack’s ever again.’
‘I’m going to cook,’ I said. ‘What’s in the kitchen, Garrick?’
‘There is a fine cod. I was going to make crimped cod as a remove for – ’
‘No. Fish and chips is what we need. I’ll want flour, milk and egg, salt, vinegar, potatoes and a big pan of clean fat. This is kitchen table comfort food.’
I made them work – James peeling potatoes while Lucian sliced them into nice fat chips and Garrick melted down beef dripping for frying. He blanched the chips while I whipped up a batter then coated the fish. Then we fried the chips for the second time and did the fish, all golden and gorgeous.
‘These are called scraps,’ I explained, fishing out the fragments of cooked batter and draining them on one of the old dish cloths we’d sacrificed in lieu of kitchen paper. ‘They’re good too.’ I dumped it all in the middle of the table, dealt out plates and sat down. ‘Now we eat it with salt and vinegar and using our fingers if we want. Elbows on the table is perfectly correct.’
The food was good and the mood better. We were glad to be alive, glad that Talbot and Coates had been avenged, happy to be together. Then the chip pan caught fire and we stumbled about the smoke-filled kitchen throwing wet cloths over it and coughing.
We retreated to the dining room to finish the chips, drink ale and recover.
James eventually went home, smoky, slightly tipsy and decidedly greasy. Garrick took himself off to bed, muttering about what Peggy would say in the morning when she saw the kitchen and Luc and I went to his room.
I suppose it was inevitable that our mood would take a swoop downwards in sheer reaction. ‘I just want to cuddle,’ I mumbled, burrowing up to him and letting the feather mattress engulf us. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, that’s what I want too.’ Luc pulled me tighter against him. ‘What a perfectly bloody mess.’
In more ways than one. ‘One over-indulged young man with only average intelligence, one man with power and no scruples about using it, some hideous prejudice, and a vulnerable young woman. If Elliott Reece had just kept his prick in his pants…’
‘If Sir Thomas had seen his nephew for what he was… I suppose he was all he had as an heir so he thought he was making the best of things…’
We were both mumbling ourselves to sleep. I buried my nose in Luc’s dark chest hair and breathed in the subtle mixture of clean man and exclusive cologne with subtle overtones of chip fat and drifted off.
I woke up with the vague feeling that I’d heard a clock chime. It was a full moon and, even within Albany, enough light reached the windows to penetrate the thin draperies and show me the room in black and white. Tilting, blurring black and white.
‘Luc!’ I shook his shoulder. ‘Wake up!’
‘What?’ He surfaced fast. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I need to get to the mirror – it has started.’
We scrambled into clothes. I pulled on the gown I’d been wearing, there was no time to find my own clothes, no time for underwear or stockings.
Lucian opened the door, roared, ‘Garrick!’ and began to haul his shirt over his head as the other man came out, nightshirt over breeches. ‘We need to get to Almack’s. What’s the time?’
‘Three.’ Garrick turned back into the kitchen.
By the time we stumbled out, cloaks flung over our jumble of clothes, he re-emerged in a greatcoat holding a hessian bag that bulged. ‘Tools,’ he said.
We ran, down the Lime Walk, through the house, down the steps and across the yard into Piccadilly. The street was virtually empty and we were across and pounding down the slope of Duke Street, across Jermyn Street, straight towards Almack’s. It is a five minute stroll normally but I have no idea how long it took us – two minutes, perhaps.
Lucian skidded to a halt just short of Duke Street. ‘Quietly now, there will be a watchman.’
If there was he could probably hear me gasping for breath. I tried to get myself under control, clinging to the railings beside me while Luc and Garrick went and surveyed the street which was wavering ominously.
‘There – you can see the light from his lantern.’ Garrick pointed. ‘Upstairs. If we go into King’s Place we can open a window.’
King’s Place was a narrow, smelly alleyway on the western edge of the building. Luc propped me against the wall while Garrick gave him a leg up to jemmy open a window with a tool from the hessian bag. Then he leaned down and hauled me up and through. ‘Go and make a disturbance at the front door,’ he whispered and closed the window.
We were in the service area I realised as I tried to walk steadily and quietly. Luc found a flight of uncarpeted stairs and began to climb, then there was a splintering crash from the front, followed by another. Garrick was breaking windows. There was the sound of pounding feet overhead, someone was shouting – the watchman presumably – then there was the racket of a hand bell as he signalled for the Watch.
‘Run,’ Lucian ordered. ‘It doesn’t matter about making a noise now.’ We were upstairs by then, rushing along a passageway that opened out suddenly into the assembly room.
I knew where I was and the refreshment room and its mirror were through the closed double doors ahead of us. We flung them open and ran for the mirror.
‘Yes, look at it,’ I panted. Moonlight was striking the surface and we could see not only our reflections but a swirling grey mist behind the glass.
‘Cassie.’ Luc kissed me, hard, desperate. ‘Come back soon. Promise.’
‘I promise,’ I said. Somehow I would. Somewhen.
Then I reached out to touch the mirror and my hand went right though into cold, dry, moving fog. ‘Luc – ’
He let go of my other hand and I was though, into the wind, into the dark, the sensation of his lips on mine still so vivid that I stared into the void, straining to see his face. Nothing. There was a sound like a door latch snapping shut and I was whirling through space and time, turbulent air rushing in my ears, trying to think, trying to prepare for a hard landing, trying, desperately, to hope I was on my way home.
There was no warning, no time to roll with it. I landed painfully, face down, on something hard. When I opened my eyes it was the familiar imitation wood flooring of my kitchen, and I was hazily grateful that I hadn’t got round to replacing it with slate as I’d been promising myself I would.
A heavy weight landed on the small of my back and made a loud, and presumably obscene, remark in Cat.
‘Trubshaw, get off me.’ I started to roll over and he obliged, grumbling, and then came to butt his head against my cheek when I just lay there staring at the ceiling trying to pull myself together and ignore the fishy cat-breath. ‘Oh, all right.’
I sat up in a tangle of long skirts. Somewhere I had lost a shoe and the other, a delicate blue kid slipper, was stained and battered. Last time I had returned home within minutes of leaving, so I crawled on hands and knees over to the desk, hauled myself up and stared at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Eleven forty five, eleventh of May. I’d been gone about ten minute
s.
My paperwork was scattered, of course – Trubshaw’s usual way of demonstrating displeasure. I grovelled about, picked it all up and found the miniature portrait of Lucian buried underneath, undamaged. Fortunately it seemed that Trubble hadn’t plucked up enough courage to chew it.
It was cool to the touch and I hung it back on its cat-proof hook, touched the painted lips through the glass with my fingertips, pressed them to my own tingling mouth and took a minute to pull myself together before I tried to do anything that involved coherent thought.
Shower, change, stop imagining you can feel Lucian’s kiss lingering on your lips…
‘Ouch! No, I am not going to feed you again, Cat.’ That helped anchor me back in time.
The status quo was restored an hour later even though sleep was impossible. I was clean, dressed in jeans, slides and an oversize cotton top, Trubshaw was sulking and I’d got my accounting programme open with the first invoices ready to send. Luc had not entered my head more than twice a minute. I was fine. Absolutely fine.
The next morning I was still as fine as someone who’d had about two hours sleep and was covered in emerging bruises could be.
I made breakfast, argued with Trubshaw, rang Sophie to find out what she’d bought at Slink the day before. Or was it ten days ago? I checked my emails, sent some more invoices. Yes, I was absolutely back to normal.
The doorbell rang and I answered it so fast that the three on the landing jumped back with a synchronised gasp of alarm. They took another step, presumably at the sight of my manic grin of welcome. I got it under control. ‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning,’ the one with the hipster beard said back. ‘Er… Polworth, Prendergast and Ponsonby. I’m Polworth.’
‘I remember from last time. You’ve brought me another box?’ Daft question, Ponsonby, the short stocky one who seemed to be the designated box-carrier, was peering over a black deed box, just like he had the first time.
‘Absolutely.’ That was Lucy Prendergast who seemed to specialise in being perky. She elbowed Ponsonby, he held it out.
‘Oh good. More naughty diaries from my ancestress,’ I said, taking hold. ‘Or perhaps this is her love letters. Very scandalous according to all the family legends. Thank you so much.’
From their faces I could tell that the three junior members of the ancient firm were agog to watch me open the box, perhaps hoping for a reading of the fictitious ancestress’s purple prose.
‘Must get back to work.’ I began to edge the door shut with one foot. ‘I’m in the middle of a tricky Spanish translation about water purification plants. Bye!’
I dumped the box on the table and broke the seal on the red tape threaded though the hasp to secure it. There was my bag and its contents, my clothes and a folded sheet of paper.
It crackled with age as I opened it, but the black ink was unfaded and the single line of writing was instantly recognisable as Luc’s.
Come back to me, my heart. Bring back my kiss.
‘Yes,’ I promised. ‘I’m coming back.’
THE END
About the Author
Louise Allen lives on the North Norfolk coast close to the 18th century seaside town of Cromer. She is a passionate collector of late Georgian and Regency ephemera and prints and is the author of over sixty historical romances and non-fiction works, mainly set in the Georgian and Regency period. She also blogs about Georgian life at http://janeaustenslondon.com/
Twitter: LouiseRegency
Full details of all her books, including extracts and buy-links, can be found at www.louiseallenregency.com
I do hope you have enjoyed this book – and I would be very pleased if you would leave a review. Every review helps me connect with readers and make the next book just that bit better.
Thank you,
Louise
