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him, scientific
advances she could have revealed to him. But all he had been interested in was
her. Only her.
    ‘Errin.’ She didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t, though it
didn’t stop him saying her name many times in the course of the following week.
It didn’t stop him constantly reliving every moment of their encounter, which
made his longing for her increase with every passing day. And with every passing
day his certainty that she would never return increased also.
    The clothes duly arrived from Madame Celeste but he couldn’t
bring himself to send them back. They hung like spectres in his dressing-room
closet. He remembered thinking, just before Errin appeared from nowhere, that
there was something missing from his life. He remembered thinking there should
not be. Now he knew that there was, and who it was, and that she would always be
missing. The future stretched out before him, unappealing, grey and tedious.
    * * *
    Errin awoke the next morning determined to put what she
had by now almost convinced herself was a particularly vivid dream firmly behind
her. She filled her day visiting sale rooms and going through the catalogues of
two upcoming country-estate auctions, but come four o’clock she found herself
not far from Pandora’s Box and couldn’t resist going back in. Just to satisfy
her curiosity, she told herself.
    The wingback chair was there in exactly the same position. She
sat down nervously. Get a grip , Errin . You’re losing the plot , she told herself. And then she felt it envelop
her, and it happened again. Just like that, she was back in Richard’s library in
1816 and he was there and it all started again. The attraction. The connection.
The fun. And the lovemaking.
    * * *
    A pattern emerged. At the end of every day, Errin went
back to Pandora’s Box, acquiring in the process all sorts of unusable bits and
pieces of junk to justify her visits. Sometimes only a few days had elapsed in
Richard’s time, sometimes more. She dressed in her Regency clothes and played
the Regency lady. She dined with Richard and breakfasted with him and supped
with him. They went riding, and later he kissed better the bruises on her
pommel-chafed thighs. They went to the opera, and Errin, used to the reverential
hush of the Met, was appalled at the constant hum of chatter and laughter from
the audience, most of whom seemed oblivious to what was happening onstage.
    She knew she should put an end to these episodes before it was
too late, but she could not. It was like playing the ultimate virtual-reality
game. She quickly became addicted and, like all addicts, became a master of
self-delusion, persuading herself that she was simply acting out a fantasy that
would run its natural course. What harm could there be in continuing? As Richard
kept reminding her, there was no logical reason to artificially cut short such a
fascinating once-in-a-lifetime experience. In fact, it would be a criminal
waste. And the insights she was getting into Regency life, surely they would
contribute in untold ways to her career?
    Errin didn’t argue, because she didn’t want to. And then she
didn’t argue because it was too late. Life with Richard was no longer simply
fascinating but altogether necessary. Her real life, her real self, began to
blur and recede, to take on a dreamlike quality. She felt she was acting out a
role she no longer understood or cared for, alienated from the life she had
worked so hard to create. She was truly herself only when she was with him.
Richard had become her reality. Errin McGill, Manhattan interior designer,
became a shadowy figure compared to Errin McGill, Regency lady.
    He was the first person she thought of when waking and the last
person she thought of before she fell asleep. She spent her day saving up things
to tell him, share with him, ask his opinion of, imagining how he would laugh,
or how his brow would furrow in concentration. Whatever she had to say, no
matter how trivial, he always