What I did like was the feel of muscle under my hand and against my side, his height, the dark, brooding looks and the scent of him. He smelt like a man ought to – clean, with the faint muskiness of fresh male sweat not suppressed by endless products, with only a subtle tang of some kind of citrus cologne. If you could bottle the overall effect the result would be a sell-out marketed as Hot Male.
And all of that was beginning to make me feel just a touch hot and bothered. Veils had their uses, I decided as we crossed Piccadilly with crossing sweepers sprinting to clear our way and scramble for the coppers Lucian tossed to them. We went down the slope of Duke Street and across King Street to Almack’s as I did my best with my deportment and tried not to stare about myself too obviously.
There was no press of expensive coaches now, only hackney carriages, delivery carts and a bustle of working people and tradesmen. A nearby clock, probably the one on St James’s Palace tower, struck the half hour. Ten thirty.
There was a man in a sacking apron polishing the brass handles of the double doors when we arrived outside Almack’s. He straightened up when he saw Lucian, stuffed the cloths into his apron pocket and gawked at bit. ‘My lord? Er, ma’am.’
Apparently Lucian was known by sight by even the man who polished the brass. Unless he greeted all gentlemen as my lord on principle.
‘Good morning. My cousin lost an earring here last night. Has one been found?’ Something that chinked changed hands.
‘They won’t have finished cleaning the public rooms, my lord. I’ll tell the steward – ’
‘We will look ourselves.’ Lucian was already through the doors, sweeping me along. ‘My cousin believes she knows where it might have been lost.’
‘My lord – ’
‘I know the way.’ Lucian carried on, leaving the faint protest behind. Obviously no-one ejected an earl.
I frankly stared as we went up the stairs, along some corridors, through what must be the ballroom. Every Regency romance, just about, features Almack’s and yet it was not as impressive as I’d imagined. Perhaps it needed the glamour of candlelight and gorgeous gowns and music. The great candelabra were lightless, there were dust cloths thrown over what looked like stacks of chairs and the musicians’ gallery was empty. It smelt too, nothing I could put my finger on, but it made my sanitised twenty first century nose twitch.
‘Here, this is where that mirror is.’
He led me into a room that had long bare tables along both sides. The mirror was on the end wall, almost full-length, its frame a swirl of gold curlicues that I thought might be Baroque. Or Rococo, perhaps. I can never remember the difference. It looked like a perfectly normal, if very splendid, antique mirror, with the grey tinge of lead glass and a slightly wavy surface.
I stood behind and to one side of Lucian and we stared at our reflections.
‘No,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘Look, you are a correct mirror image now.’ He reached out and touched the glass, leaving fingerprints on the surface.
‘I saw you too,’ I admitted. I tugged off one glove and looked down at the long claw mark right across the back of my hand, then moved so that I was between him and the mirror. ‘It must have been this room, there was movement and colour behind you, blurred. And a lot of candles. And I know that you saw me too.’
‘So it definitely was real.’ Lucian turned, rubbed his hand across his eyes in the first gesture I had seen him make that was less than assured. ‘You were very clear for a moment, better than at Angelo’s, the fencing master’s school, which is when I first saw you. I was working off a solid night’s drinking and card playing.’ He broke off. ‘I apologise, I should not be speaking of such matters to a lady.’
I waved it aside. He hadn’t seen me out with the girls on a Friday night, obviously… ‘Tell me.’
‘I thought I was still drunk. You were very blurred and I was committed to a thrust. One moment you were there in the long mirror on the wall, then you were not.’
I held up my hand, my back towards him. ‘This was done by my cat. He can see you too and he is scared of your portrait.’
Lucian took my scratched hand and raised it to his lips. Just the merest brush of his mouth, or perhaps it was only his breath. I snatched it back. It was that or walk into his arms and I didn’t think either of us was ready for that.
‘Well, this mirror is not working at the moment and I don’t imagine you can get me into Angelo’s.’
He studied me for a moment, head to one side. ‘You know a lot about this time, more than most people now would understand about the year 1607 if they were to go back two hundred years, I would wager.’
‘It is a very popular period in my time. People enjoy fiction set in it, admire the art and architecture.’ I tried to express what attracted me. ‘Things are going to change, very soon, within your lifetime. Steam power, industrialisation – ’ I stopped before I could mention anything he would not have heard of. ‘This is a world on the very brink of transformation. That makes it fascinating to look back on. And people find it glamorous.’
We stood looking into the mirror, side by side, thoughtful. ‘There is something,’ I said, tentatively. ‘Just a vague feeling as I stand here, as though the air is moving oddly, as though the ground is not quite steady. This might be a gateway, a portal or whatever the word is.’ I touched the glass with my bare fingers, pressed. Was it my imagination that it gave, very slightly? I pressed harder but the resistance now was firm. ‘For some reason it doesn’t want to let me back through now.’
‘We will try again,’ he said. ‘Did you have any warning that something was about to happen?’
‘Not a great deal. I felt dizzy… The miniature of you is what triggered this and that is still in my kitchen which is where I was.’ I tried to work it through logically. ‘If there is a link between this mirror and the portrait then it will be unbroken.’ Unless someone has discovered I am missing and breaks into the flat and moves the miniature… The sick feeling of panic swept up again and I fought it back. No-one would do that, not yet, not for days, surely?
Lucian was silent as he escorted me back to the front doors. ‘I will take you to Albany, then I must visit Cottingham, see if there is any news.’
‘Take me with you,’ I said on impulse. ‘If I could speak to the maid I might find out more than a brother would.’
‘How am I going to explain you? He has only to look in the Peerage to see that you are not my cousin.’