She was falling in love with him.
No. She had already fallen in love with him. Hook, line and sinker, just exactly as she’d always dreamed. Just exactly like a dream. Because it was a dream? Or not?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. What mattered was that she loved him. And didn’t they say that love—true love—conquered all? Reality check, Errin! Even Romeo and Juliet only had a couple of warring families to conquer. Two hundred years’ time difference—that was a whole other ball game.
The situation was impossible. Perhaps if she bought the chair, took it back to New York? Could they keep this thing between them going forever?
Come on, Errin, I said reality check! Love means being with someone properly. Completely. Always. For the bad bits as well as the good. It was about making a life together, which for them was impossible. And what about Richard? What if he met someone or decided to marry for the sake of the title, as he was saying just the other day his sister was encouraging him to do? One thing for him to have a mistress, but a mistress that wouldn’t be born for two hundred years? No way. And anyway, she didn’t want to be a mistress. She didn’t want to share. She wanted it all. All of it, all of him.
But she couldn’t have it all, or even very much of it. Unless...
Unless it was what Richard wanted too. Except he’d given no sign at all that he did. So...
Errin swallowed hard. So. Tonight must be the last time. It had to be. If she couldn’t have it all, she’d be better, much better, living without. She owed it to herself. ‘Somewhere out there, Errin McGill,’ she told her reflection in the hotel-room mirror, ‘is Mr Right. A twenty-first-century Mr Right. And when you meet him, what you sure as hell don’t want to have to explain is that you’re already in love with a guy who will be two hundred and thirty-three years old next birthday.’ Except she was. And what if Richard was Mr Right, the only Mr Right? She didn’t want to think about that one. Way too scary.
Errin picked up her bag and headed for the door. Out in the muggy London afternoon, the early rush hour had just begun as people streamed to the Tube stations for the mundane journey to suburbia. In Pandora’s Box, the wingback chair was patiently waiting to provide transport of a quite different sort.
* * *
For Richard, three months had passed since they had first met, though for Errin it was twelve days. They had dined that evening on lark pasties and sweetbreads Provençal, then gone to a ridotto, a masked ball, to which Errin wore one of her exquisite gowns, a half robe of gold satin with an overdress of scalloped lace. ‘French trimming,’ Richard had informed her as he ran his hand sensuously down her spine, ‘in the style made popular by the ladies of the Palais-Royal.’
‘You forget, you told me that there are no ladies in the Palais-Royal.’
Richard laughed. ‘So I did. But you need have no fear—no one would ever mistake you for a member of the demi-monde.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. There’s something about you that sets you apart. A sort of innocence.’
‘I’m not an innocent. In my world, that would be seen as criticism.’ Errin said, startled.
‘I’m glad I don’t belong in your world, then.’
‘I’m beginning to feel I don’t belong in my world.’ She said it only half-jokingly, wanting to test his reaction, but Richard said nothing. He simply put the button hook down, turned her towards the mirror and told her how lovely she looked. She knew he meant it. She loved that he always made a point of complimenting her, but tonight it wasn’t enough.
‘I wish...’
He looked at her enquiringly, but she could not bring herself to spoil the moment. ‘Nothing,’ Errin said. Richard kissed her forehead, and she was almost relieved when he did not press her further on the matter.
The ball had exceeded all her expectations. Masked and dominoed, the haut ton mingled with merchants, courtesans and those of the middling class whose curiosity had overcome their scruples, all freed by their disguises to behave outrageously with impunity. Errin longed to dance but knew neither the steps nor the music to the cotillions and quadrilles, and the MC’s instructions to jeté, coupe balote or pas de basque meant nothing to her. Eventually a waltz was struck up and Richard swept her onto the floor, holding her so close she had no option but to follow him, twirling and whirling round the floor just exactly as she’d seen them do on that celebrity dance show. Errin threw herself into the festivities with gusto, abandoning her reserve and managing to forget all about the awful task that lay ahead of her. The end of the evening. The end of everything.
Later, back in Kilcreggan House, they sat together in the firelight, idly picking over the highlights of the evening until Richard noticed her distracted air. ‘A penny for them.’
‘I have to go back to New York tomorrow.’
‘And?’
‘Don’t you see? The chair, the thing that links us, it’s here in London. I’ll be thousands of miles away.’
‘But I assumed you would be taking it with you on one of these flying ships you’ve described to me. I just assumed—’
‘What, Richard?’ Errin interrupted, her voice harsh with the threat of tears. ‘What did you assume?’
‘I assumed you wanted things to continue between us.’ Richard’s voice hardened. ‘Obviously I was mistaken.’
‘We can’t go on like this.’
‘Why not? What is wrong with wanting to continue to enjoy what we have? We’ve been granted a unique opportunity. Don’t throw it away on a whim.’
‘A whim! You think I’ve not thought this through?’
‘Why are you getting so upset?’
Errin sniffed valiantly. ‘I’m not getting upset. I just—Richard, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I can’t carry on like this anymore. It’s not enough.’
‘We have something no one else has, and it’s not enough! What more can you possibly want?’
She opened her mouth to tell him, but the words wouldn’t come. He didn’t get it. He didn’t want real intimacy. He didn’t want her to be an integral part of his life. He just didn’t love her enough.
‘Errin? What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?’
She dashed her hand across her eyes, relieved to find the tears that were clogging her throat had not risen. ‘It doesn’t matter. There’s no point trying to explain.’
Richard had a nagging sense that he was missing something vital but he could not for the life of him work out what it was. ‘Why not?’
She stared at him for a long time, wanting to tell him, aching to pour out her heart to him, and she almost did. But she knew, deep in that very heart, that to do so would end what they had as effectively as her planned abandonment of her visits to the wingback chair. He didn’t love her. She didn’t want him pretending he did simply in order to continue as they were until he had had enough. ‘If I have to explain, then it’s pointless,’ she said, finally accepting defeat. Her head had told her she needed to end things for her own sake. Her heart had held out a desperate hope that Richard would prove her wrong. It seemed, sadly, that her head had the right of it as ever.
‘I thought I understood you, but you’re behaving totally illogically,’ Richard said, his confusion turning to irritation tinged with a hint of panic. ‘I thought you were different.’
‘And now you’re discovering that underneath it all, I’m just like any other woman. So deal with it. Logical or not, this has to end. Tonight.’
‘Devil take it, Errin, you can’t possibly mean you’re just going to sit in that damned chair and disappear and not ever come back?’
‘I’m saying exactly that. I have no choice, Richard. You’ve left me with no choice.’
‘No.’ He pulled her roughly into his arms. ‘No, I won’t let you. You can’t mean it. It doesn’t make sense. You’re wrong. I’ll show you you’re wrong.’
‘How?’
‘If I have to explain, then it’s pointless,’ he said, using her own words against
her like weapons. Then he kissed her.
She tried to resist him, but that too was pointless. He would not be resisted, and she did not want to resist him. Instead, she returned his kiss with a kind of brutal passion, biting his lip, devouring his mouth, savaging his lips, punishing him for not seeing, not wanting, not being able to give her what she so desperately needed, knowing she was being unfair yet unable to stop. She pushed him back onto the chaise longue, kneeling over him, trapping him, kissing him hard, passionately, rousing in him a similar storm. He pulled her close, breathlessly close, clutching at her bottom through the silk of her dress to press her down onto his throbbing erection.
She tore at the starched folds of his neckcloth, the silver buttons of his black evening coat, desperate to touch bare flesh. She moaned, a deep, earthy shudder of a moan, when Richard responded by tearing the neckline of her dress to free her breasts, to cover the soft flesh of them in hungry kisses, to pluck a tearing response from her as he sucked hard on her blossoming nipples.
She had an overwhelming urge to lower herself onto him without ceremony, lifting her petticoats without finesse to sheathe him inside her, to possess him. She tried to, fumbling with the buttons of his breeches, longing to feel the hard, hot length of him filling her, for it was both their punishment and their reward.
But as she fumbled and tore at his clothing, he stilled her. His kisses became velvet soft and cajoling. His hands coaxed not sharp pleasure from her but liquid sensation, stroking her, breathing calm into her as he would when breaking a wild filly, and she was instantly tamed.
‘This is why you’re wrong,’ he said to her, licking the soft underside of her breast before capturing her hands, lifting them to his mouth and kissing her fingers one by one. ‘And this is why,’ he said, stroking her hair, kissing her ear, her neck, lifting her from him, standing her before him so that he could admire her physical perfection. The graceful line of her spine as he unhooked her dress. The crook of her elbows as he eased the silk down over her arms. Her shoulder blades as he unlaced her corsets. The valley between her breasts as he took off her chemise. The gentle swell of her belly, the crease at the top of her thighs as he removed her pantaloons. The back of her knees as her garters were untied. By the time she stood before him completely naked, she was his, and at that moment, she didn’t care if he saw that.
In the candlelight, Richard had a dark and brooding presence that would be intimidating were it not so sensual. He disposed quickly of his own clothes, dropping them carelessly onto the floor, moulding her naked body to his, making her purr with contentment as her curves met his planes, as his erection pressed into her sex, as his hands stroked and his mouth licked.
By the time he pushed her back onto the chaise, spreading her legs to settle his mouth on the soft folds of her damp, hot sex, Errin felt as if she were floating on a pink, fluffy cloud of ecstasy. It was a place she could float forever were he to continue with his gentle teasing, but he did not. His tongue unerringly found the hard nub of her arousal, and he kissed her there too. The soft cloud turned from coral to cerise to carmine, and her climax rocked her so violently and suddenly that she cried out, clutched at his hair, his shoulders, calling his name over and over and over.
He left her no time to recover. The long, slow onslaught had taken its toll on his own self-control. He was hard and achingly ready. Wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, Richard lifted her from the chaise, perched her on the edge of a Hepplewhite half-moon table that stood against the wall panelling and entered her with one long, slow stroke. He closed his eyes and breathed, his erection gently pulsing in her, feeling her pulsing around him too. This, her, this is what he wanted. He would not let her go. Not yet. Not now. He slowly withdrew, then thrust again. This. How could she not want this?
He kissed her, thrusting his tongue deep into the warm cavern of her mouth, aware in the recesses of his mind that he was surrendering to base instinct, to stake his claim, to possess, to mark. The logical part of him noted this primal behaviour, noted with surprise that he was even capable of it. But even as it did, Richard banished the thought. He withdrew, thrust, kissed, relishing the slick wet, the clinging silken heat of her, resisting his retreat, opening up to welcome him back inside her. Her mouth, too, pliant and welcoming and clinging. Her hands on his buttocks, her legs around his waist, and still it was not enough. His need to possess her was tangible.
Errin was beyond thinking. She could only feel. Richard inside her, stretching her, filling her, pushing high and hard and thick into her. She heard the little grunt of his pleasure as he thrust, heard her answering whimper as she gripped, felt the onslaught of another climax, heard him moan as she reached behind to caress him. His rhythm was fast and focused now, taking her with him to a furious place where they must climb and grasp and reach for something that they found together, suddenly, abruptly, unbelievably. They rode the wave of ecstasy together until they tumbled, spent and sated, and clung to each other as the receding ripples of their passion lapped around them.
* * *
He did not let her go. He would not let her go. Still holding her, he laid them both down on the rug by the fire, nestling her close, so close they felt they inhabited one skin. He stroked her fiery hair, smoothing it, pressing kisses to her brow, whispering her name over and over, as if saying it would, like some magic incantation, make her stay.
‘Richard,’ she said, for she could think of nothing and no one else, for she too wanted to use his name as a talisman against loss. ‘Richard, Richard, Richard.’ She pressed herself closer, feeling the rough hairs of his thighs on her own smooth limbs, the rough hairs of his chest on her cheek, the weight of his manhood, still damp from their lovemaking, lying against her thigh. She pressed a kiss to his shoulder. Then his throat. Then another to his chest, the delightful hollow between his pectoral muscles, then the flat, salty taste of his nipples. She kissed as he had, tasting and imprinting him on her tongue, working her way down his body, over his body, back up, by which time he was hard again, thick and pulsing again, and she took him in her mouth and kissed there too. The length of his shaft. Kissing down, licking round, then taking him gradually into her mouth, sucking and licking until he came, bucking under her as she had bucked under him. An act of adoration. Of devotion. Of worship. She knew it was. She had never done it before, nor been able to understand the pleasure until now of purely giving.
An act of love. And her next and final act of love must be her leaving forever. With a heavy heart, Errin began to disentangle herself. Her own clothes, the clothes in which she had arrived, were upstairs in Richard’s bedroom. She decided to do without them, to leave this time in her gown, to allow herself this one indulgence as a memento.
Richard watched her dressing, his eyes hooded. ‘Errin, don’t, you’ll regret it. We’ll regret it.’
Tears, hot tears, acid tears, filled her eyes. Words clogged her throat, but she could not speak them, for to give voice was to make it real and to deny herself the chance of a future. ‘Maybe, but I have to do this nonetheless.’
Always, it had been he who walked away, certain that a swift amputation was better than a slow death. Never before had any woman rejected him. He had never been ‘not enough.’ It hurt. It hurt a lot, but he knew it would not last. It was not in his nature for it to last. ‘I won’t beg you,’ Richard said, though he wondered if he’d be able to stop himself.
‘I don’t want you to beg.’
‘When you change your mind, I’ll be here, waiting.’
‘I won’t change my mind, Richard. I’m sorry.’ She leaned over to kiss him. He did not respond. ‘I’m sorry,’ Errin said again, and took her seat on the chair, forcing herself to surrender this one last time to its familiar magical embrace. As her lids began to close, she saw him leaping to his feet and called to him, ‘Richard.’ It was too late. ‘Richard, I love you,’ she shouted, but the words were lost in the mists of time, where they joined countless other similar declarations utte
red over the centuries, doomed to remain unheard, forever unrequited.
Chapter Four
He tried to forget her. He tried to immerse himself in his old life. When that did not work, he tried to create a new life, determinedly cultivating new people, new interests, but that did not work either. Nothing worked. He missed Errin every hour of every day. He missed her voice and her scent and her body. He missed the way she talked and the way she made him laugh, and the way she made him look at his world anew. He missed the way she argued with him, and the way she swore so comically, and the way she listened, as if he were the only person in the world whose opinion mattered.
She made him discontented with his perfectly acceptable lot, and he resented her for that. He resented the way her absence hovered like a spectre, dogging his every step. He resented the feeling of having lost something, of being not quite complete. Of not being whole. He hadn’t ever felt like that before—had he? Richard thought back, but it was difficult to remember a time before Errin, just as it was increasingly impossible to contemplate a future without her. The irony of this conundrum, since his future would take place before her birth, would have fascinated the former man of science, but it simply irked him now. He missed her. He missed her more every day, and he hated her for it.
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