Flirting With Forever (19 page)

The window was on the second floor—a tal second floor

—and Cam got her first view of the world beyond the studio. Dozens of people in period dress—wel , contemporary dress to them, she supposed—fil ed the street. There were couples laughing, a group of young men shoving and talking, an obviously drunk woman retching on her shoes and four or five dogs fighting over a scrap of food—in short, just like a late-night strol down Craig Street in Pittsburgh.

She held up her phone and with three proud bars showing dialed Jeanne’s cel .

“Holy Christ!” Jeanne screamed. “Where are you?”

“You’re kinda not going to believe this.”

“You freakin’ blew out of here like Dorothy from Kansas.

There’s orange Crush everywhere.”

“Calm down. I’m okay. Wel , relatively.” Cam thought she heard a noise at the door and looked over her shoulder, but the noise stopped.

“Where are you?” Jeanne repeated.

“Okay, remember how I told you I was looking for a book on Amazon?”

“Omigod! You’re starting this story with book shopping on Amazon!”

“Jeanne, I found a book I needed there. I started to search inside. When I clicked ‘Surprise Me!’—
poof!
I disappeared.”

“But where are you?”

“In the sixteen hundreds.”

“In the sixteen hundreds where?”

“In the sixteen hundreds of the sixteen hundreds. Sixteen hundred.

One-six-oh-oh.

The

century.

You

know,

Shakespeare, Galileo, the Great London Fire—Oops.”

Cam wheeled around to check the candles in the room.

“You’re tel ing me you’re in a different century.”

“Yes.”

“I ain’t buying it. You’re hiding somewhere. Can you see me on the phone?”

“Jeanne, real y. I’m here. It’s London, sometime in the reign of Charles the Second.”

“Send me a picture.”

“I can.”

“I know you can. You do it al the time. I even got to share your joy when your Snuggie blanket arrived. Send one.”

“What are you, from Missouri? You could just try to believe me.”

“Two words:
pic ture.
”

Muttering, Cam clicked on the camera and stretched her arm as far out as she could. “Can you stil hear me? I’m taking the picture.”

“Goody,” came the faint reply.

She angled the camera so the armor chest plate and stuffed boar were directly behind her. The sun had dipped below the horizon, but there was stil light in the sky.

Click
.

“Did you hear that?” She pul ed the camera in and thumbed in Jeanne’s email. “It’s coming.”

Whoosh
. The picture went.

“Hang on,” Jeanne said, and Cam heard the keyboard clicks. “Got it. Jesus. Are those cutouts for
breasts
?”

Cam turned to look at the armor breastplate. “Yes.”

“You’re not in the sixteen hundreds. You’re at the GLBT

Affinity Group’s Lascivious Costume Bal .”

“Jeanne, it’s like nirvana for a researcher,” Cam said excitedly. “The studio was fil ed with nude models when I landed. Peter spends half his time hiding the king’s mistresses from one another. Nel Gwyn thinks I have an excel ent eye for gowns. And I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out how the old breast-out-of-dress thing happens.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

“Jeanne.”

“Gimme a break, huh. You’re asking me to believe you’re hanging around with, like, Marie Antoinette.”

“She was a French queen and a hundred years later, but I see your point. Nonetheless how else are you going to explain the orange Crush?”

There was a long pause. “I’l give you a temporary pass.

Very temporary.”

“Thank you. I feel better knowing someone believes this.”

“Peter Lely, huh?”

“Yes, and he’s amazing. You’d think he’d be such a narcissist—I mean, you know how painters are—but he’s real y so sweet, like this closet good guy. And he’s cute, with these eyes the color of …” She groped the air, searching for the right words. “… Kit-Kat bars. And he’s got this sort of
Karate Kidl Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
thing going on the way he can just look across the room and make magic happen. And don’t even ask about the way he moves when he paints. Oh my God. You can tel by the way he runs the place that he can do absolutely anything.”

“Jeez, you must have gotten a ton of stuff on Van Dyck.”

Cam clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d total y forgotten Van Dyck.

“No,” Jeanne said in disbelief. “You are
not
going to tel me you’ve been in the sixteen hundreds for an hour and didn’t ask anything about Van Dyck.”

“I-I—” Cam wracked her memory. Had she heard
anything
on Van Dyck? “He might have had a relative who managed a theater.”

“Wow, that’s gonna bust the art biography world wide open. What about dirt? And what are you doing in that getup?”

Cam looked down, confused, then remembered Jeanne had the picture. She clutched the gown tighter.

“Ah … there was an accident.”

“Mustard?”

“Funny. No. A too-many-mistresses-at-once accident.

Nel Gwyn, the one I mentioned? She’s one of them—the good one. There was a bit of a kerfuffle with the other one

—a real bitch of a duchess. But anyhow, she—Nel , I mean

—real y admired my dress—long story, but we had to switch.”

“I see. Then the olive gown in your picture is Nel ’s?”

Cam thought of Nel ’s robin’s-egg blue dressing gown upstairs on the floor near the fire. “Wel , no. Not exactly.”

There was a short pause in which she could feel the wheels turning in Jeanne’s head.

“Real y?”

“Real y?”

Cam yel ed, “Wait!” but it was too late. She heard the sound of the phone drop.

Oh, I’m toast.

“Wel , wel , wel ,” Jeanne said. “Here I am on page twelve of that lovely exhibition book and what do I see? An olive gown with ruffled sleeves. You’re posing for him!”

“What? No. Me?”

“You’re posing for him, don’t lie.”

“I-I—”

“Tel me,” Jeanne said, “that breast was not exposed.”

Cam bit back a smile. “I, uh, can’t actual y.”

Jeanne whooped so loud, Cam had to pul the phone from her ear.

“You didn’t!” she screamed.

“I did! I did!”

“Verbal high five! So how did he get you to do it?”

“What?”

“The breast. What was the secret? Magic? Hypnosis?

Some sort of Restoration era date-rape drug?”

Cam considered her answer.

“Oh God,” Jeanne said. “He didn’t actual y drug you, did he?”

“Wel , no, it wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like?”

Cam shifted. “Wel , he did offer me a glass of wine.”

“We’re going to have to file charges. I hope you kept the glass.”

Cam laughed. “It was pretty strong wine.”

“The rogue. And then I suppose he made some sort of

“The rogue. And then I suppose he made some sort of offhanded comment like ‘So how do you want to pose?’

And the next thing you knew you were clawing your gown open. I mean, what’s a girl to do?”

“Wow, it’s like you were there.”

“Cam.”

Cam looked at her bare toes, smiling. “I don’t know.

You’d have to meet him. I just wanted to do it.”

“Wel , I guess that’s better than ‘He saved me from genital herpes,’ which is how you hooked up with Jacket.”

“I didn’t ‘hook up’ with Peter,” Cam said, “or Jacket, for that matter. My God, I’m practical y a journalist. I was just doing, uh, a little first-person research.”

“On Van Dyck.”

Cam felt her ears redden. “Ha-ha. So how do we get me back?”

“Maybe you should ask Peter. He clearly knew how to get you front.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“Thank you. Wel , it seems pretty straightforward to me.”

“Real y?”

“Sure. I mean, if you got there with ‘Surprise Me!’ why wouldn’t it work going in the other direction?”

“Omigod, Jeanne, you’re amazing! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Mrs. Post?”

Cam jerked back into the room. Mertons was standing at the door with a look of confusion on his face. She swung the phone behind her gown, but had it been too late?

“What are you doing here?” His eyes narrowed. “To whom were you talking?”

“Myself.”

“What are you doing in this room?”

Cam could feel Jeanne squawking into her hip. “I was looking for the privy.”

“Wedged out the window?”

“Sometimes they’re in the oddest places.”

Mertons looked at her as if he were trying to tease out a puzzle. Al he needed was a magnifying glass and one of those Sherlock Holmes hats with the earflaps. She prepared for a run.

“There you are.” Peter appeared in the doorway. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I was looking for the privy.”

Peter bit back a smile. “I hope you’ve satisfied your curiosity here, then.”

“Thank you. Yes.”
Men
. She gathered her purse and slipped the phone in her pocket in one smooth move.

“Would either of you be wil ing to redirect me?”

Peter coughed. “Certainly.”

“Peter,” Mertons said. “Might I have a word?”

“Aye. Just one. No.”

“But, Peter, there are certain oddities—”

“Mertons, I know we have a shared appointment. But as far as I can tel , the sitter we so anxiously anticipate has not arrived. Am I correct?”

“Wel , aye, but—”

Peter took Cam’s arm and began to pul her out of the room. “Then I think you might do wel to concentrate on your room. “Then I think you might do wel to concentrate on your brushwork. I’m afraid Stephen has commented on your lack of practice. Twelve hours a day, my friend. That’s what makes a painter. Familial connection can only carry you so far.”

Cam frowned. Bald-headed Mertons was related to Peter?

As Peter fiddled with the paints, waiting for her return from the privy, he found himself almost nervous. “Good God, man,” he muttered, smiling, “you can’t even hold a brush.”

He heard her footfal on the stair and watched as those beautiful blue eyes found him.

“You’re back,” he said.

“Indeed.”

He couldn’t help but remember a time before Ursula, when the measure of a good time had been guiding whatever lady-in-waiting had met his eye that evening to the closest private wal , where he would loosen her gown, hook her leg over his arm and plow her until she cried, dry mouthed, for more. Ursula had taught him the value of soft bedding and long-drawn-out afternoons, but looking into Camil a’s eyes now, the thought of those rough wal s and incandescent joinings seemed very, very appealing.

Did she see his longing, feel him stripping her with his eyes? He hoped not.

He dropped his gaze. “I do apologize for the king’s intrusion.”

“’Twas nothing. Real y.” She darted to the chaise and dropped her bag before returning to his side, a tentative smile on her face. “I take it he requires a lot of attention.”

Peter laughed. “Aye, like an underdisciplined child with the army of Hannibal at his command.”

“Not a promising combination?”

“No. He is a most demanding patron.”

That ringlet stil hung loose. His fingers burned as he remembered pul ing the pin. She caught him gazing at the tendril and tucked it over her shoulder self-consciously. He wanted her—in every way a man can want a woman. He had been moved at the beginning by her resemblance to Ursula, but now his desire had many sources—her courage, her wit, her wild, untamed spirit. There wasn’t a woman in a hundred who would have inserted herself into Nel ’s spot to save him, and there wasn’t a woman in a thousand who would have bared her desires before him the way she had.

He said, “Shal we rest a bit before I begin painting again?”

“Yes. That would be good.”

“Perhaps something warm to eat or a—”

“Is this yours?”

She had stopped in front of an unfinished canvas. It was of little Jane, the daughter of Viscount Harrison. The day had been warm, and the girl, no more than ten, had found the long period of enforced stil ness difficult. He had said he would al ow her to move the rest of her body if she would keep her hand stil . She agreed readily, and he placed a peach in it. Jane’s image, therefore, was barely started, though the hand and especial y the thick impasto of fruit and its green-brown leaf represented a nearly finished passage.

“Aye. I do not normal y start on the hand”—he flushed again, thinking of how the movement of Camil a’s hand had drawn his eye earlier—“but it helped the girl sit stil .”