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listened. He didn’t interrupt her or trample on
her opinion with his own, and he didn’t hold forth the way Mark had, even on
subjects in which he was expert. She had never been in the company of a man
whose desire for her encompassed her mind as well as her body, whose delight in
her was so universal. But then, she had never met anyone like Richard. He was so
perfect she wondered many times during the course of each day if she had somehow
invented him, if he existed only in some bizarre parallel universe that she had
created. She’d rush through whatever she was doing then, arriving terrified and
anxious at Pandora’s Box. Each time she awoke in the chair to find Richard
before her, it was like a little death—or a new breath of life.
    She was falling in love with him.
    No. She had already fallen in love with him. Hook, line and
sinker, just exactly as she’d always dreamed. Just exactly like a dream. Because
it was a dream? Or not?
    It didn’t matter, she told herself. What mattered was that she
loved him. And didn’t they say that love—true love—conquered all? Reality check , Errin ! Even Romeo
and Juliet only had a couple of warring families to conquer. Two hundred years’
time difference—that was a whole other ball game.
    The situation was impossible. Perhaps if she bought the chair,
took it back to New York? Could they keep this thing between them going
forever?
    Come on , Errin , I said reality check ! Love means being with someone properly.
Completely. Always. For the bad bits as well as the good. It was about making a
life together, which for them was impossible. And what about Richard? What if he
met someone or decided to marry for the sake of the title, as he was saying just
the other day his sister was encouraging him to do? One thing for him to have a
mistress, but a mistress that wouldn’t be born for two hundred years? No way.
And anyway, she didn’t want to be a mistress. She didn’t want to share. She
wanted it all. All of it, all of him.
    But she couldn’t have it all, or even very much of it.
Unless...
    Unless it was what Richard wanted too. Except he’d given no
sign at all that he did. So...
    Errin swallowed hard. So. Tonight must be the last time. It had
to be. If she couldn’t have it all, she’d be better, much better, living
without. She owed it to herself. ‘Somewhere out there, Errin McGill,’ she told
her reflection in the hotel-room mirror, ‘is Mr Right. A twenty-first-century Mr
Right. And when you meet him, what you sure as hell don’t want to have to
explain is that you’re already in love with a guy who will be two hundred and
thirty-three years old next birthday.’ Except she was. And what if Richard was
Mr Right, the only Mr Right? She didn’t want to think about that one. Way too
scary.
    Errin picked up her bag and headed for the door. Out in the
muggy London afternoon, the early rush hour had just begun as people streamed to
the Tube stations for the mundane journey to suburbia. In Pandora’s Box, the
wingback chair was patiently waiting to provide transport of a quite different
sort.
    * * *
    For Richard, three months had passed since they had
first met, though for Errin it was twelve days. They had dined that evening on
lark pasties and sweetbreads Provençal, then gone to a ridotto, a masked ball,
to which Errin wore one of her exquisite gowns, a half robe of gold satin with
an overdress of scalloped lace. ‘French trimming,’ Richard had informed her as
he ran his hand sensuously down her spine, ‘in the style made popular by the
ladies of the Palais-Royal.’
    ‘You forget, you told me that there are no ladies in the Palais-Royal.’
    Richard laughed. ‘So I did. But you need have no fear—no one
would ever mistake you for a member of the demi-monde.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I don’t know. There’s something about you that sets you apart.
A sort of innocence.’
    ‘I’m not an innocent. In my world, that would be seen as
criticism.’ Errin said,