So I stepped through, not looking forward, my gaze still on Lucian’s face. I could hear nothing now, not his words as his lips moved, only a rushing sound like a great wind. Had he said – ? No, I did not want him to say that, feel that. It was hard enough without this
half-formed, untested sense that this was the man I was destined to be with. This, the one man I could not possibly have.
One more step and I was through. There was a snap like a latch fastening and the wind caught me, spun me, tossed me into darkness.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Just as it had before the jarring, tumbling ride lasted seconds before I hit solid ground with a thump that rattled my teeth. I lay there for a while, just breathing, not certain that I could believe what my senses were telling me. Then I opened my eyes and found I was millimetres away from the naff faux-wood vinyl flooring that I had been promising myself I would replace with slate tiles just as soon as I could afford a new kitchen floor.
When I lifted my head, wincing at the bruises that had made the journey with me and the new ones from the impact of landing, I saw the handwoven rug I had brought back from last summer’s holiday in the Greek islands. I could smell chilli.
Someone was swearing inventively in Cat. I levered myself up into a sitting position and there was Trubshaw, glowering at me as he muttered, his tail twitching.
‘You don’t look too bad for a cat who has been abandoned for nine days,’ I told him and he got up, ginger bottlebrush tail aloft, and stalked off into the living room.
‘Pleased to see you too,’ I muttered and got to my feet. Lucian’s portrait was lying on the floor under the table and I reached for it, relieved to see there were no teeth marks on the frame. It felt quite cool to the touch and the man in it looked back at me haughtily, nothing more than a skilful creation in paint.
Had I dreamed it all? Fallen and knocked myself out and hallucinated the whole thing? I went to my PC. It was still on-line and I glanced at the date and time in the bottom of the screen. An hour had passed since I last recalled looking at it. So that was it. A fall, concussion, a dream concocted from that portrait, my few weeks of celibacy, police work and too many Regency romance novels.
I straightened up and wondered whether I should go to casualty and find out if I had concussion. Perhaps a check of my pupils first before I wasted anyone’s time would be sensible. The bathroom mirror reflected back perfectly normal-looking eyes and no blood from my ears or nose and… a coat and shirt and Belcher neckcloth that were straight out of the 1800s.
I reeled back and into the bedroom and the long mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. There I stood, looking as though I had been dragged through a hedge backwards while wearing my black trainers, breeches, a tail coat and a man’s shirt.
It hadn’t been a dream or an hallucination. I looked round for my bag and that, of course, was nowhere in the flat. It was back in 1807 in an apartment in Albany along with my phone and my wallet and my Special Constable’s ID and my best mascara. And the man I… cared about.
There really wasn’t anything I could do about any of it, not at this time of night with my brain and my emotions and my sense of reality all scrambled like eggs. Under it I felt blank, unable to think, unable to plan. To feel.
A shower washed away the grime of the day’s adventures. I picked up the shower gel, one of Sophie’s expensive and luxurious gifts, put it back again and just used the plain soap I had bought especially not to quarrel with the gel. I wasn’t sure I wanted to replace 1807 with the scent of the twenty first century, not quite yet.
When I woke up I was back in 1807. Of course, I had never left, I realised sleepily, my nose buried in soft linen smelling of the soap that Garrick used on Lucian’s shirts. It had all been a dream after the shocks and terrors of rescuing Arabella.
Then something landed on my stomach with a thump and I sat up to find Trubshaw, purring rustily as he made heavy-footed circles on the duvet. I let go of Lucian’s shirt that I had been clutching and stared at him. Trubble made that complicated sound that translates roughly as, ‘Where’s my breakfast, you sorry excuse for a cat owner?’ in feline, jumped off the bed and made for the kitchen.
I followed him, with a stop at the bathroom for a few moments of gratitude for modern plumbing. Then I dragged on jeans and an ancient tee shirt that said something vaguely obscene in Croatian.
The boiling water had just hit the tea bag when the doorbell went. Who the hell was that at – a quick glance at the clock – nine o’clock on a Saturday morning? If I was being cold-called I would use some of my newly-acquired Regency street slang, because I had no time for this and no mental capacity for dealing with other human beings.
But it wasn’t a cold caller. There were three of them and they stood in a row in order of height like out-of-season carol singers. One lanky red-headed twenty-something with a big nose and a hipster beard, one medium sized brunette with a big grin and one stocky guy with brown hair, brown eyes and a big black box he was peering over the top of.
‘Miss Lawrence?’ they chorused.
‘Yes,’ I admitted warily.
‘I’m John Polworth.’
‘Lucy Prendergast.’
‘Frank Ponsonby,’ the box carrier finished.
‘From Polworth, Prendergast and Ponsonby. In the High Street. Solicitors. You know?’
‘Only we aren’t the senior partners,’ the brunette confided, in case, presumably, I thought that the oldest firm of solicitors in the town – and probably the county – was now headed by a trio just out of law school. ‘That’s Daddy and Uncle Francis and Cousin James. Only we pleaded so hard they let us come and deliver it. We’ve been waiting more than two hundred years, you know.’
‘Not personally,’ Polworth assured me. ‘The firm.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked when they finally subsided, beaming.
‘This.’ Ponsonby junior held out the box which I realised was one of those black tin deed boxes you see stacked in the corner of solicitors’ offices. I’d assumed that these days they were just for show.