‘We will find her.’ Lucian’s voice was a reassuring rumble in my ear. ‘And we will get you back to your own time somehow.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘I have no idea,’ he admitted. ‘But I will try my hardest. Although…’ He broke off and just held me.
‘Although?’
‘Would it be so very terrible if you had to stay? No, ignore me,’ he said, sounding angry with himself. ‘Of course it would be terrible. Your friends and family would be distraught, you would be stranded so far from everything you know and love. Ignore me,’ he said again. ‘I am being selfish.’
‘Selfish?’ I pushed back in his embrace until I could look into his face.
‘I would not be sorry, for myself, if you stayed,’ Lucian admitted. He seemed deadly serious, but what did he mean? I had no experience of men of this era, only what I had read of them, and it would be all too easy to see what I wanted to see, a modern man dressed up in romantic Georgian clothes. Yes, I could have an affair with him, or a one-night stand, and then what happened if I truly was stuck here? Would he make me his mistress for a few months and then…
‘What are you thinking?’ His eyes were deep, dark, green. Mysterious, warm, heavy-lidded.
I tried telling myself that this man had ceased to exist more than a hundred years ago. It wasn’t working very well as a tactic. ‘I am thinking that I can only exist one moment at a time. That is all any of us can do. And right now, in this moment, I want to kiss you.’
‘Good,’ was all Lucian said before he bent his head.
I was lost. It wasn’t simply that he was a very good kisser, although he was. It wasn’t even that my body was clamouring to get close to his, to get our clothes off, to make love. It was something more. Lucian was not just an attractive, interesting, man he was, somehow, my man. I stopped thinking, stopped worrying and kissed him back, found the top button of his waistcoat and began working on it, felt his hand sliding under my skirts, caressing up my stockinged leg to the bare flesh above the garter.
We both went very still. Was he waiting for agreement or simply savouring the moment? Was I going to say yes, or pull back and give way to the panic that was still fluttering somewhere at the back of my mind?
The door opened and then closed rapidly and that moment, savoured or not, was gone. I found myself back sitting upright on the sofa, skirts elegantly arranged around my ankles, and Lucian was two strides away, twitching his neck cloth into its usual immaculate folds.
‘I apologise.’ He turned back to meet my gaze.
‘What for? Stopping?’ I sounded snippy and that was how I felt. Cross, frustrated and embarrassed.
‘For making love to you on the sofa when Garrick might walk in at any moment.’
‘Well, I can see it must be a terrible shock to him to realise that you have a sex life,’ I began and then stopped when I heard how I sounded. Lucian had colour up over his cheekbones – I had shocked him again with my language – and he had been attempting to act as a gentleman should, according to the mores of his times. ‘You are quite right, of course, I am sorry I snapped.’
‘I think it would be better if I go out to dinner this evening. You must be very tired. A quiet evening and an early night is what you need. I will tell Garrick to come and discuss what you would like to eat.’ Lucian was gone before I could protest.
And anyway, why should I protest? He had an entire life out there and he should be living it, not stuck in his apartment with me. He was probably going to visit some glamorous and expensive courtesan…
‘Miss Lawrence?’
I jumped so much I almost came off the sofa. ‘Oh. Garrick.’
‘I wondered what you would care to eat this evening.’
‘What do you recommend, Garrick?’ Fish and chips and a tub of ice cream sounded perfect. Or a takeaway curry, viciously hot. I could go to sleep with indigestion and wake up in the morning in my own bed.
‘I have some poussins. I suggest roasting them spatchcocked, removed with whitebait fried in seasoned flour, a dish of green peas, duchesse potatoes, a mixed sallet of greens and a fruit tart and cream to follow.’
‘That sounds fabulous, Garrick, thank you.’ He looked as gratified as I had ever seen him allow himself to look and turned to leave. ‘May I help you cook? And will you share it with me?’
‘Miss Lawrence?’
‘I would love to learn to make some dishes from this period and I would be sorry to have to eat alone.’
‘You cook, Miss Lawrence?’
‘More or less,’ I said. ‘I don’t keep servants, Garrick, very few people in my time do. I don’t prepare meals from scratch much though.’ He looked puzzled. ‘You show me how you cook and I will tell you how I cook.’ I can make pizza from basics and I wondered if I dare introduce Georgian society to the American Hot. I probably wouldn’t be able to get the chillies, I decided regretfully, imagining Prince George after consuming one. It would have given the caricaturists something to fire their imaginations and it would certainly be a fitting revenge for his wandering hands.
‘Very well, Miss Lawrence. If you would find that entertaining I would be most interested.’