Chameleon in a Mirror: A Time Travel Novel by Ruth Nestvold

Author:Ruth Nestvold [Nestvold, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Dragon Books
Published: 2014-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

16

Let us, since wit has taught us how,

Raise pleasure to the top:

You rival bottle must allow,

I'll suffer rival fop. . . .

All this you freely may confess,

Yet we'll not disagree:

For did you love your pleasures less,

You were no match for me.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, “To a Lady: in a Letter”

“Oh, Clarinda!” Aphra said when they were finally in the privacy of her own sitting room. She pulled Billie into a friendly embrace and then stepped back to look at her. Aphra's age was beginning to tell. She still didn't look the thirty-five or thirty-six she must be. But while three years ago there had still been something girlish about her, now the rounded line of her cheek looked almost matronly.

“It's good to see you again, Aphra.” Billie felt ridiculously moved as she said the words.

“Faith, you've hardly changed at all,” Aphra said with a smile. “I see the years have been kind. And I'd been in fear for your life!”

“I'm sorry I sent no word, but it was impossible.”

“And have you escaped your kidnappers now for good?” Aphra asked.

“There is no one who can force me to go back,” Billie said, surprised at her own words. Well, she would just have to make up her story as she went along. She owed Aphra one.

“No husband?”

Billie shook her head.

“No father to force you into marriage?”

She shook her head again.

“Then the news is good,” Aphra said with a smile. “I would you'd tell me the story someday. I've imagined a thousand adventures for my lovely American heiress, escaping the evils of forced marriage in a pair of breeches.”

Billie gave Aphra a pained smile and did her best to put a hint of unshed tears in her voice. “'Tis not quite as you imagine. Give me time yet, and perhaps I will be able to relate it.” Assuming she could come up with it, that is.

“You have been so far away, you may not have heard how the nobility is inspired to imitate you.” Aphra was obviously changing the subject for her sake, and Billie was grateful, but for very different reasons than Aphra probably imagined.

“No, I haven't heard.”

“Perhaps half a year ago, in January, if I recall, the Duchess of Mazarin arrived in England dressed as a man. 'Tis rumored the King himself is interested in her.”

“Well, I have not come here to seduce the King,” Billie said drily.

Aphra let out a peel of laughter. “I am so glad you are back in London, my dear. And all is well.”

There was just a hint of a question in the last sentence. Billie nodded. “All is well.”

“I am talking too much and you must be tired from your travels.” Aphra took Billie's arm and began to lead her toward the door. Billie snatched her lute and bag from the settee. “I have had Katherine prepare the room you had before. You will find the things you left behind there.”

The old lute! What a relief that Aphra hadn't just given or thrown it away.

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