Flirting With Forever (7 page)

As she brought her finger down, Cam’s gaze slipped to the cover of the Lely catalog in Jeanne’s hand, wondering once again what sort of man it took to earn such a bemused, smoky look from an obviously entranced subject.

Click
.

A noise like a giant vacuum cleaner fil ed the room, so loud Cam clapped her hands over her ears, and wind blew everything off her desk, flinging her purse like a rugby bal into her lap and her chair into the radiator behind her. It was like the blast of a jet plane, only Jeanne, who looked at her, horrified, didn’t seem to be affected by it at al . Cam was on the verge of dropping to the floor for protection when the wind stopped, the room went black and the edges of her laptop stretched out like arms to envelop her.

Boom.

Cam exploded into the doorway of a high-ceiled, rococo-trimmed room fil ed wal to wal with naked women

—a good thing, she thought with a part of her brain that apparently processed input even in the face of chaotic upheaval, since she, too, was naked. She flung her arms around herself and gasped for air.

A thousand questions flew through her head. Where am I? Who are these women? Where’s my laptop? Am I dead?

She felt confused, slightly nauseous and hugely exposed.

“My apologies,” she said as the women’s heads swiveled. “I, ah, tripped.”

Several had been playing cards on a heap of cushions, two were admiring a horned hat, one was leaning on a carved club, another was dangling a loop of yarn over the batting paws of a kitten and one, holding a shield and wearing an armor helmet with an enormous plume on top, was swinging a wooden broadsword, chanting “I am Athena. I am Athena.” Not one seemed even moderately concerned by her own state of undress or the arrival of an equal y undressed companion.

The women were long-limbed and shapely, and Cam scrambled to determine which prospect of her body would be the least revealing to share with the room, deciding at last on a foot-forward beauty pageant stance, with her arms taking the place of both an underwire bra and Spanx and her ass tucked beside the doorframe. The woman with the kitten said, “Oh, look, Kate, ’tis the new girl.”

Kate tucked the club under her arm and ran over with an amiable smile. She wore cuffs of maple and oak leaves around each ankle.

“Oh, thank the Lord,” Kate cried, “a tal one! At least we are matched.” Kate drew a hand along an invisible line between the top of Cam’s head and her own. She extended the club, which, after a spit-second deliberation, Cam accepted with her Spanx hand, and picked up another.

“Supporters make a very poor showing if they are not matched, I think.” Kate laid the club across her shoulders like a Highlander ready to do battle and took on what Cam assumed to be a supporter’s proper sneer. “We are the wild men on the Danish coat of arms, do you see? The lord-general of the Danish army is coming. Peter said it would amuse him. Are you cold?” she added, looking with curiosity at Cam’s stil -rigid arm.

One of the card players said, “I’d be more interested in amusing Peter,” and they laughed.

Cam heard the sound of a far-off door opening.

“You had better get your headdress on and be quick about it. He doesn’t like it when we’re late.”

Kate held out a large furred and antlered headdress, which made Cam think of Fred Flintstone’s Loyal Order of Water Buffalo or the natives who hunted the castaways on
Gilligan’s Island.
Reluctantly Cam freed the bra hand to accept it.

“Put it on.”

Cam did. The front hung past her nose, like a centurion’s helmet with two eyeholes. Great. Now the only thing she had covered was the one part of her she didn’t care if people saw.

“Oooh, this is a fine bit of enamel work.” Kate touched the ring at Cam’s breastbone with awe on her face. “Was it a present from Peter?”

“I, er—” There was more going on than she could process. But before Cam had a chance to answer, the sound of men’s voices rose beyond the doorway and terror leapt up in her now uncovered chest.

“Peter’s here!” Kate chirped. The women bounded toward Peter, and Cam flew in the other direction, toward the open door of a large darkened closet, slipping between a ladder and some stacked buckets. It wasn’t til she was safely in the dark, however, that she noticed the painter’s drop cloth folded on the floor on the opposite side of the doorframe.

Thank God
. Whatever was coming next in this nightmare could only be made better with a cloth around her.

She stretched out a toe, but the doorway was large and she couldn’t quite reach the edge without bringing her body back into view of the room.

Should she dare it? It was the old “bird in the hand versus two in the bush” question. On the bird side, she might be naked but she was out of sight. Given the bush in question, however, she decided that trying again was the only option.

She hugged the wal next to the door, and did a squat with one leg while extending the foot of the other. Jeez, how wide did a closet door need to be? No luck. Sighing, she decided to hold the headdress at her side and use it like a shield. With that blocking her body from the view of the room, she’d just hop over, grab the cloth and hop back.

Surely the forest of gorgeous naked women would keep the eyes of whoever this Peter was off a single, mortified tree for the two seconds it would take her to snag some covering.

Cam lowered the headdress, shot across the doorway and bent. Just as her fingers grasped the cloth, the closet fil ed with light. Only it wasn’t a closet, it was a hal way, and two men now had a bird’s-eye view of her ass.

“—better if we tried a more private entry—
Oh!
” Cam jerked the headdress over her face and unbent. She could see the looks of surprise on the faces of the tal , handsome man in centuries-old clothing and a companion behind him.

It took one of her hands to hold the headdress upright, which left only one to serve as a whol y inadequate bikini bottom. Unlike those of his companion, the eyes of the tal man stayed on her face. He was exceedingly handsome. If this were the Peter they were waiting for, she could see why this were the Peter they were waiting for, she could see why they were excited.

“I beg your pardon, er …” He attempted to see into the eyeholes. “Er, wel , I beg your pardon. We were just heading for the salon. Would you let the other models know not to disturb us?”

“Yes,” she squeaked.

With an abbreviated bow, the man passed by, clearing his throat sharply to snap his col eague out of his openmouthed reverie. He opened a door at the other end of the narrow stretch and the two disappeared.

Cam blinked. Where in the name of God was she?

Naked women and costumed men—Cam could only imagine an adult version of a Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe play. But how had she gotten here? And where were her clothes?

She peered around the door back into the room. The women, having given up on Peter’s arrival, had begun to disperse. They spoke with English accents, and so did the tal man—Peter, she had to conclude—though his accent had an odd, guttural tone to it.

She needed to find out where she was, and in order to do that she needed clothes. She grabbed the drop cloth and was just wrapping it around herself when Kate wandered up.

“Is this reticule yours?”

The object dangling from her hand was Cam’s smal fringed clutch.

“Er, yes. Where did you find it?”

“In the doorway. It, er, seems to be growling.”

Kate held the clutch to her ear. Cam could hear the sound of her phone vibrating.

“It’s my phone.”

The woman stared at her blankly.

“My phone.” Cam held an imaginary phone to her ear.

Kate shook her head.

Cam had a sinking feeling. “Are you an actress?” The tremble in her voice surprised her.

“Oh my, no.” Kate smiled. “Just a model.”

“Is this a backstage?”

Kate shook her head. She was beginning to look as spooked as Cam felt. The phone stopped vibrating.

Kate said, “Do you have a puppy in there?”

Cam nodded slowly. “Yes.” The sinking feeling was sinking lower.

“Named ‘Fone’?”

“Y-Yes.”

“He must be very smal .”

“Yes.” A vague dizziness was overtaking her. “Can you tel me where we are?”

“Do you mean where in London?”

London!
Cam clutched the wal for support. “Sure.”

“Covent Garden, specifical y, Peter Lely’s house in Covent Garden.”

Oh my God!
Peter
. The man was Peter Lely! How could she have missed it. He looked exactly like his self-portrait

—dark, wavy hair, warm brown eyes and rugged profile.

“Either is fine.” Cam needed to sit. Lely’s house. In Covent Garden. A moment ago she’d been at her desk with mustard on her shoe in Pittsburgh. She looked at her foot.

No mustard. Not even a shoe. Holy crap. She was in another time with a Restoration-era painter! It was almost too much to integrate. “I-I … Can I have a seat?”

Kate ushered her to a chair. “Quick, ladies. She’s il .”

The women circled her. One offered a glass of water. Cam gulped it.

Kate removed Cam’s headdress and petted her forehead. “You’re not warm. Did you get a bad eel? The cook here is wonderful, but you never know with eel.”

Bad eel? Maybe a bad hot dog. Cam shook her head, which was already shaking.

“Are you with child?”

Cam choked. “No—heavens, no.”

Kate turned to her friends. “I think we should cal Peter.”

“No!” For some reason, the thought of facing Peter Lely terrified Cam. There was something about coming face-to-face with someone from her university art history book that scared her. “I-I’l be fine. I just … need a dress.”

Another woman clapped excitedly. “A dress! Is Peter doing you in a dress?”

Whatever reply Cam was forming stuck in her throat like a wine bottle cork. “Doing me?” Then it struck her. Painting.

The woman meant painting! “Yes.”

“Are you standing in for Nel ? If so, you won’t need a dress.”

Cam was definitely not standing in for Nel , then. “No. I’m on my own. And in a dress. Definitely.”

“And how did Peter say to look? Like a goddess? A shepherdess? A lady? A whore?”

“Er, not that last. A lady, I think.”

Kate turned to the woman with the kitten. “Mary, find something in the trunk. Several new ones came in last week. Something dark, I think, to set off that hair.”

Cam’s hair, her one source of physical vanity, was long, curly and bright copper.

“Peter keeps dresses on hand?” she asked.

“You never know how he’l want us to look. And many ladies prefer a new gown when they pose. It’s one of the reasons they come here. Peter encourages women to become something new when they sit for him. He cal s it

‘putting on a second skin.’”

Cam remembered Peter’s particular penchant for skin.

She hoped the gowns had bodices. Her mind searched for possible

explanations

for

her

appearance.

She

remembered having dreams where she became aware she was dreaming, but she also recal ed that that realization usual y made her wake up. This felt nothing like a dream, nor was her obvious awareness of the incongruity having any impact on her state of wakefulness.

The phone booped. The sound of a text. She made a show of peeking inside her bag, as if to root for rouge or cheek lard or whatever they cal ed it here.

“Is the puppy asleep?”

Cam halted for an instant, then found the phone and made a show of patting it gently while stil keeping it out of sight. “Good little boy,” she said in a baby voice. “Yep,” she added to Kate, “sleeping.” The text was from Jeanne.

“WHERE DID U GO?!!!!” Cam flung her hand back like she’d been burned.

Kate’s brows knitted. “He nips.”

“Typical man.”

Jeanne didn’t know where she was. A bad sign. A very bad sign. Cam felt terror beginning to tighten around her chest. She needed to move, to act, to do something. She jumped to her feet. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Outside?” Kate eyed the drop cloth.

“Bathroom—er, privy?”

Kate pointed to the closet/hal way Cam had just left. “To the right. Down the hal . Left at the statue of Mercury. First door on the right. Ring the bel when you finish.”

Cam fled, jogging through the maze of hal ways and past Mercury, who not only towered over a curved staircase leading to a downstairs entry hal but was unquestionably a Bernini, which nearly caused her to fal down the steps.