Lady in Lace: Regency Timeslip

by Joanna Maitland

  What rakes did. She corrected herself automatically. It was not real. None of it. She had been in some kind of trance, but she was still here, still in the museum, still plain Emma Stanley. Will Allmay must be a figment of her sex-starved imagination.

  She took a deep breath and tried to force her thoughts into some kind of order. If…? No, she couldn't possibly go back to Will. For a start, no Regency lady could appear in Green Park dressed in nothing but a lace evening gown. Especially at seven in the morning. And how would she get there, anyway? On foot? In those flimsy evening slippers? They'd be in shreds before she'd walked a hundred yards.

  But what would he do when she didn't appear?

  Her stomach clenched. She felt a little sick and had to swallow hard to control it.

  No point in agonising over that. Her window of opportunity had closed. The earliest she could go back to Will, if she were mad enough to do it again, was the following evening, when the church clock began to strike seven. And—

  And she couldn't do it the next day, in any case. They were expecting her at the Lamb House to work on the collection there. It was miles away. By the time she'd finished there and driven back, Richard would have locked up the museum and she wouldn't be able to get in.

  The subversive voice in the back of her mind would not be silenced. It was suggesting that even a two-day wait in the real world might not prevent her from keeping her promise to Will. After all, she had made the transition twice now, to different times and different places. From Will's reaction in the corridor by the oriental monstrosity, more than a day had passed in Regency London between her first and second visits. If Regency time could expand, perhaps it could contract, too?

  Emma shook her woozy head, trying to clear it. It didn't work. Was Will a ghost? But how could a modern woman make love to a ghost? And hadn't she vowed to have nothing more to do with philandering men?

  One thing she was sure of. She needed to see Will again. He was her lover. The lover with whom she had committed adultery, breaking her marriage vows to a husband whose name she didn't even know.

  ~ ~ ~

  Emma went to the museum early to open up. As soon as Richard arrived to take charge of the keys, she set off for the Lamb House. She really enjoyed the drive. It was early spring and, although it was cold, the sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, so blue it could have been the Alps rather than England. Some of the trees already had little puffs of acid green clouding their branches, like fuzz on a baby's head, and soon they would burst into fresh leaves. She had promised herself that this year, by the spring, she would be happily settled into her new life.

  Will Allmay – Captain Sir William Allmay, KCB, RN, according to the clues she had put together – had put the kibosh on that. She would never be able to settle to anything until she sorted out what was really going on with her strange visions, or dreams, or whatever they were. She had found a man she truly loved, but was he real? A quick internet search for a Regency Sir William Allmay had produced nothing at all, even with variant spellings. Maybe she'd misheard the name?

  She racked her brains. As far as she could remember, the gossips had called him all sorts of things, including "Captain Will", "rake" and "Will May All". To his face, the women had said only "Captain" or "Sir William". Neither helped narrow down Emma's search.

  Will Allmay might never have existed at all.

  And even if he were real, somehow, did he love her in return? After all, he was renowned for how quickly he moved from one lover to the next.

  Worrying won't help me. I can't do anything until tomorrow evening at the earliest, so better to enjoy the sunshine and the treasures of the Lamb House.

  That prospect made her smile. She had visited the Lamb House as a tourist, ages before, but now that she was the costume curator, she would be able to go behind the scenes and explore all the nooks and crannies of that little jewel of a house. Plus the wonders of its costume collection.

  And she was being paid to do this? She felt blessed.

  Following the directions she'd been given, she drove round to the back of the Hall and parked alongside a couple of other cars by the kitchen door. The Lamb House wasn't yet open to the public. The staff, mostly volunteers, would be finishing the pre-season clean and restoring all the treasures to their places, ready for the visitors who would soon be trooping through the massive front door. Emma had noticed on her previous visit that the medieval stone lamb above the lintel was totally out of keeping with the architecture of the house, but the guide had explained that it was a talisman for the then owners, the Lambester family, and had been recovered undamaged after the fire that destroyed the medieval manor house. It was not recognisably a lamb – its lumpy body and four legs could have been anything – but Emma accepted it had been a lamb. Once.

  The Lamb House's costume collection wasn't on display, apart from a handful of items, but it could be viewed by appointment during the season. And Emma Stanley, costume curator, would be conducting those viewings, so she had to learn all about the collection, in double-quick time.

  She beamed at the thought as she made for the kitchen door.

  ~ ~ ~

  Three hours later, she hadn't stopped beaming inside. But her back ached from lifting and replacing the long costume boxes, stacked on rudimentary racks about eight feet high. The Lamb House, as visitors saw it, was an delightful Regency gem but, behind the scenes, it was pretty basic. The back stairs were gloomy and forbidding in their austerity; the costume stores were little different except that they had long windows, shrouded by blinds to keep out the destructive sunlight.

  Emma stretched her back and flexed her shoulders. She needed caffeine, she decided. After working so long, she reckoned she deserved it. No problem about finding it, either, since the house manager had shown her where the volunteers congregated to make coffee.

  She rattled down the servants' staircase and through the kitchen to the snug that had once been the housekeeper's room. It was empty. She made a cup of coffee and sank into an old leather armchair with a sigh of contentment. She had spent a blissful morning unpacking treasures, not all from the Regency period. She particularly admired the velvet waistcoats from the Georgian period when gentlemen were happy to parade around like peacocks. The workmanship was exquisite: not just fine embroidery, but silver and gold thread decoration as well. No doubt the poor seamstresses were paid a pittance for their weeks of work, but it was probably that or starvation. And better than the brothel.

  The Regency period was no better, she knew. Years and years of war took their toll until Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815. When everything should have been back to normal, with returning soldiers to till the fields and sailors to man the trading ships, Britain had been hit by the Year Without a Summer. Instead of peaceful harvests, there was famine. People begged for food. And some starved.

  What year was it when I was with Will? Before or after Waterloo?

  Emma thought hard. The ladies' gowns were no help. Even for an expert like Emma, it was difficult to place a style in a single year, because not everyone could afford to follow the latest fashions. She had reckoned that her gold lace gown dated from the later part of the Regency, but it could have been pre-Waterloo. Just.

  Had Will said anything helpful?

  Actually, no. Everything he had said was related to her, or rather to Lady Emma. He had spoken about how he desired her. Even in the music room, surrounded by lustful, leering ladies, he had been focused solely on her.

  A vague memory stirred.

  Yes, hadn't he mentioned ex-soldiers riding in the park? That might mean the war was over. And the fact that Will himself had retired from the Navy might suggest the same. Then again, possibly not. Officers had retired throughout the war.

  She'd have to find out. She was bound to put her foot in it otherwise. What if she said something about the Regent's daughter when the poor girl was already dead?

  Princess Charlotte could be Emma's route to the answer. Or perhaps
the Regent's wife would be better? Caroline had lived for some years after her daughter's death. She had even become George IV's queen, though he had stopped her from being crowned. If Emma could get someone to tell her the latest gossip about the royal family, it might be possible to work out which year she was in.

  So, next time she was with Will, she would—

  "Emma. There you are." It was the house manager, Geraldine. "Glad to see you're taking a break. If you're not going back to work right away, would you like to do that house tour now?" Geraldine had promised to take Emma round all the rooms that were not open to the public. Some were in the process of restoration. Some were so far gone that public access would never be possible.

  Emma grinned and got up at once. "That would be great, Geraldine."

  They spent an hour exploring rooms and peering into cupboards. In one imposing bedroom, the floorboards shifted unnervingly under their feet. "Couldn't let the public in here without very expensive repairs to the floor," Geraldine said with a grimace. "And the budget won't run to anything like that, not for years. Come and look at the master bedroom instead. We've got all the original furniture. Even the bed. And the restoration should be finished before we open."

  Geraldine led the way along the corridor and threw a door wide. The red velvet curtains had been drawn back and the sun was straining to penetrate the blinds on the floor-to-ceiling windows. In the half-light, candelabra and ornaments gleamed on tables and chests. The huge fireplace was empty and cold; there was no fire screen. The canopy and curtains had been replaced on the tester bed, but the bed itself had not yet been made up.

  That same bed? That same fireplace? And candelabra, too? Emma's brain refused to believe what her eyes were seeing. She was so shocked that she blurted out the first words that came into her head. "But shouldn't the curtains be green?"

  Chapter Six

  Emma fixed her gaze on her racks of costume boxes and forced herself to focus.

  It had been the same bedroom. She was sure of it. She'd found Will naked in the bath, right here in the Lamb House. The windows, the bed, the fireplace, the dressing room; everything was exactly the same. And she'd felt that it was Will's room. There was a sort of presence that she'd recognised instantly.

  That gold lace gown has history here. It must have. It took me to the Lamb House for our first kiss. So Will must have history here, too.

  In the master bedroom, Emma had shivered as if he were touching her again. As if he were there, in the room, beside her. She was reminded of their very first encounter, in the museum store room, with sand beneath her toes. She had touched him but he had melted away. Would he desert her again if she went back into the master bedroom alone? Or would he stay?

  That annoyingly sensible part of her brain reasserted itself yet again. Even if she had had sex with a ghost – and she had surely dreamed that, since it was impossible – it had happened in his time, not hers. To meet him again, she had to go to his time and she needed to wear the lace gown to do it. When she wasn't wearing it, Will had been a shadowy apparition that faded at a touch. So nothing could possibly happen in the restored master bedroom of the Lamb House.

  Emma had done her best to pass off her comment to Geraldine as a strange fancy from the books on Regency design she'd been studying, but the house manager had given her a very old-fashioned look and had become a little distant for the rest of their tour. No wonder. She probably thought Emma was soft in the head. And she might not be far wrong, either.

  Emma resolved to make an effort to be extra professional around the house manager in future. With her brain in gear, so there would be no more betraying slips.

  Especially not about Will Allmay and his relationship to the house.

  Emma needed to get closer to Geraldine, who was the keeper of all the history of the Lamb House. Now that Emma was sure Will had been here, it was vital to find out everything she could about the place.

  Was there a real Lady Emma? And was she ever here? I need to know.

  ~ ~ ~

  The sun had gone down long before Emma left the Lamb House. Half-way back, it started to drizzle, just enough to make the wipers smear the windscreen. It made the roads greasy, too. For some reason, she was feeling cold, so she turned the car heater up to max. It would be nice to get back to her cosy flat. She would heat up a tin of soup, perhaps, or have tea and hot buttered toast. Familiar, comforting things might help her to come to terms with what she'd discovered at the mansion.

  At Will's mansion, she corrected herself. Since she'd found him in the master bedroom, and she knew she had, then he was clearly the master. But his name wasn't "Lambester". So how had he come to be there? Was he a tenant, rather than the owner? The house records might contain some clues. The research would probably be fascinating, exactly the kind of work that Emma loved.

  But I don't have time to do it. I'm not due back at the Lamb House for several days and Will is expecting me to meet him in Green Park— Correction: Will was expecting me to meet him in the park. This morning. Hours and hours ago.

  If she waited another twenty-four hours before she put the lace dress on again, she might miss him altogether. Tonight, on the other hand…

  She put her foot down. She was driving too fast for the conditions, she knew, but at this speed she'd get back to the museum before seven. If she was lucky, Richard would have stayed late and she'd be able to get in.

  OK, it was a one in a thousand chance. He always left on time. But after the shock of seeing that bedroom today, Emma had to check.

  By the time she reached the museum car park, it was raining hard and very dark. The car park was empty. She told herself that didn't matter. Since today was one of little Chloë's nursery days, Richard wouldn't have had the car. He might still be here.

  St Mary's clock was showing ten minutes to seven as Emma ran across the car park with her driving coat slung over her head to keep the rain off. At the staff door, she pressed the bell and waited. After a minute, she pressed it again. Her coat slid down onto her shoulders and she caught it just before it slipped to the ground. With a struggle, she managed to push her arms into its wet, tangled sleeves. "Damn the thing," she said aloud, huddling back against the door to make the most of the little shelter it offered.

  She was cursing the fact that the museum was locked up and she had no chance of getting in. The precious lace gown was in there, only feet from where she stood, but it might as well have been on the top of Everest. In desperation, she pressed the bell again, holding it down. No one inside could possibly fail to hear that strident jangle.

  No one came.

  Then St Mary's struck seven.

  She swore again, louder and longer. It had been stupid even to try, stupid to drive so fast on wet roads, stupid to imagine that Richard might have stayed late for once.

  She leaned back against the cruel door. She would not cry. She would not.

  Time to go home to that hot buttered toast. She straightened her shoulders. Did she need to put her coat over her head again? Or could she make it back to the car without getting too wet?

  At the edge of her field of vision, something moved. Something human-shaped.

  Emma's breath caught. Who would be in a deserted museum car park at this time of night? It wasn't on the way to anywhere.

  All she could make out was a dark shadow, half hidden in the hedge. Someone tall and quite broad. A man, then. Wearing a hood, pulled low.

  Why shouldn't he wear a hood? It's raining hard.

  The hooded figure didn't move out of the shadows. It just stood there, motionless. She knew it was staring at her, even though she couldn’t see its face. Something about the set of the shoulders seemed familiar.

  Emma's stomach clenched. She had to swallow hard to stop herself from throwing up. She recognised that sinister shape now. She glanced across at her car, measuring the distance. Then back at the shadow. If she ran, could she make it to her car before he caught her?

  She slid her fingers into her soggy
pocket for her car keys. She could use them as a weapon if she had to. And, with the keys ready in her hand, she had a chance of starting the car in time to get away. Provided she could reach it before he—

  She launched herself out into the rain, sprinting towards her car. Five yards from it, she pinged the lock. Seconds later, she was wrenching the door open and throwing herself inside.

  Lock the doors. Shit. Where's the switch to lock the doors?

  Her desperate fingers found it at last. Followed by a lovely solid click. She let out the breath she'd been holding and started the engine. Feeling fractionally safer, she dared to glance out into the gloom to see where he was.

  The bastard hadn't moved. Still hidden in the hedge. Still hooded. Still staring.

  He'd got to her just by being there. Without having to do anything but stare.

  She cursed him again as she gunned the engine and shot out of the car park onto the main road. But in her mind, she could hear him laughing.

  Julian had always laughed when he saw her fear.

  ~ ~ ~

  She slammed the door of her flat and double-locked it. Then, before she'd even taken her coat off, she grabbed the landline and dialled her police liaison officer.

  It went to Flo's voicemail.

  Emma had run out of curses. So she left a fairly polite message, reporting what had happened. With luck, Flo would ring back later in the evening. But she might have moved on. After all, it was months since they had spoken. They had both assumed that Emma was safe here, in a new location, with a new job and a new place to live.

  I should have known, Emma thought. As far as Julian's concerned, nothing has changed. That devil thinks he owns me.

  She realised she was clutching the phone so hard that her fingers were going numb. She flung it down in disgust.

  This time, she was going to sort him. Properly. She refused to be afraid again.

  ~ ~ ~

  By the time Emma fell into a troubled sleep, Flo hadn't returned her call. Emma tossed and turned, pursued by shadowy figures in her dreams. So when the phone did ring, eventually, her brain was too groggy to produce more than a slurred "H'lo?"