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drink, set the glass aside, and took me unhurriedly into his
arms. “You’re glad to see me, then?”
    I was not a woman given to rolling my eyes, but I
rolled them then. “Need you ask?”
    “Sometimes, yes,” Peter said quite seriously. He
kissed me then, his mouth warm and smoky with the taste of whisky;
and I understood, as much as I liked Brian, as attractive as he
was, what the difference was. And, alas, it had nothing to do with
still wanting Peter for a friend had he been born a woman.
    “So what happens next?” I asked, after Peter released
me, and went to find another mini- bottle in the well-stocked
fridge.
    “I’m wounded,” Peter said. “I’d hoped you might still
have some faint recollection of those few precious —”
    “Not that ,” I said, trying not to laugh. “Of
course I remember that. I meant, what will you do next? Are you
planning to return to the Lakes?”
    “Yes. Are you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sure about that? You haven’t been in a tearing rush
to come back.”
    “Things…kept coming up.”
    “Yes, I’d noticed that.” His gaze held mine.
    “I always intended to come back.”
    I was surprised when—abruptly—he let it go. “Lovely.
Now we’ve got that settled…”
    He had another drink. We sampled the desserts,
chatted, and Peter brought me up to speed—although he would have
loathed that term—on how everyone was back in Innisdale. I filled
Peter in on my impressions of the Dangerous to Know production .
    “ You’re sure you won’t regret
passing up your chance to make movies?”
    “Maybe a little, but to tell you the truth there’s a
weird vibe on that set. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe I’m just
not used to Hollywood types.”
    “Perhaps.” He surprised me then. “You’ve got good
instincts, though. How’s the book coming?”
    “I think I’m narrowing down my list. Have you ever
heard of Laetitia Elizabeth Landon? She was sometimes called the
‘female Byron.’”
    “‘ While lingers in the heart one
line, the nameless poet has a shrine,’” Peter quoted, surprising
me.
    “That’s her, yes. Letty Landon. Anyway, it suddenly
occurred to me that in many ways she embodies the poets I
want to write about. The ones who really are forgotten, nameless
now.”
    “I don’t think L.E.L. has been utterly forgotten. The
mystery surrounding her death guarantees her a certain amount of
immortality.”
    “For all the wrong reasons. Think about it: at one
point she was one of the most popular writers in England, male or
female, but I don’t feel I’ve read anything that begins to capture
who she really was. It doesn’t help that all the information on her
is so contradictory and confusing.”
    I didn’t want to admit that part of what fascinated
me was the idea of this brilliant young poetess giving up
everything and everyone familiar, journeying across the ocean to a
distant and foreign land—all for love of a man she barely knew. He
was liable to find the parallels a bit…much.
    Peter’s mouth tugged into a reluctant curve. “So
what’s your theory? Was it murder, suicide, or accident?”
    “I don’t have a theory. The real tragedy to me is
that the drama of her death overshadows her literary legacy. It’s a
shame, because I find her a compelling figure. Maybe because she
was so ordinary, so…everywoman.”
    “Every woman is not an influential critic, poet, and
celebrated literary figure by the age of twenty.”
    “True. Anyway, I can’t wait to get home and really
get to work.”
    He smiled; I listened to the echo of my words, and
smiled, too.
    It was well after one in the morning when we finished
nibbling and drinking. Peter shrugged off the hotel robe and
dropped onto the bed with a small groan of relief. Much more
self-consciously, I undressed to my panties and bra and slipped in
beside him.
    His arms closed about me, drawing me close, and it
was like coming home. The geography of the heart, I thought. Home
was not Los Angeles; it was