Chameleon in a Mirror Read online

  “You would choose a book as a Valentine's gift?” Ravenscroft teased her, but the light in his eyes told her he enjoyed her eccentricity.

  Billie would have loved a book, a seventeenth century original bound in calfskin, but it might be too bulky to lug back to her own time. If she ever made it back to her own time.

  She shoved the thought away and chose a shawl of heavy silk, gray with a silver shimmer. She could have stood fingering the fabric for hours, it was so beautiful. Afterward, they took a wherry across the river to New Spring Gardens at Vauxhall, where Ravenscroft bought her what was advertised as “cheese cake.” The confection had an actual cheese flavor, a bite of sharp cheddar, refined with a hint of almond. The crust resembled shortbread and the cheesecake was filled with raisins. Billie loved it. Ravenscroft certainly knew how to spoil a woman.

  “Thank you again for the beautiful shawl, Mr. Ravenscroft,” Billie said as they strolled through the gardens away from the food booths. And away from the crowds, she suddenly noticed, darting a suspicious glance at her companion.

  “Must it be 'Mr.'?” Ravenscroft asked wryly.

  “I think so,” Billie said.

  “And here I bought you such a lovely present!” Ravenscroft exclaimed dramatically. “You would think in return, the lady would oblige to call me 'Damon.' 'Tis hardly intimate — nearly as public as Ravenscroft, you know.” He pulled her hand into the crook of his arm and gave it a squeeze. “Although I must admit, any other woman of my acquaintance would have demanded real silver for her present this day rather than merely cloth of that color. And none except Astrea would be greedily eying the books.”

  “Then on the next occasion I will also ask for silver.”

  “Only if you promise to call me Damon.”

  Billie laughed. Ah, it was no wonder that Ravenscroft was a threat to her resolutions — he didn't seduce with angry, burning looks like Hoyle did, he seduced with jokes. “Oh, all right, Damon,” she said.

  “I would have another request in return for the Valentine's present,” Ravenscroft said in a low voice, stopping in the path and turning to look at her directly. With her arm linked through his, there was nothing she could do but stop with him.

  “And what would that be?”

  His eyes were hooded and there was a slight smile playing about his lips. “Why another kiss, of course, as I'm sure you could have guessed.”

  “No way, Jose,” Billie said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “'Tis an expression we have in America,” Billie explained, reverting to a passable imitation of seventeenth century English. She'd been practicing. “It means 'no.'“

  “I presumed as much.”

  “And I presume I owe you nothing after the rude awakening this morning. For that I deserve a bit of silk.”

  “Ah, but I swear you would enjoy it; 'tis the least I can do for my Valentine.” Ravenscroft gazed straight into her eyes, his lips twitching with a suppressed smile.

  “It's not a question of enjoyment,” Billie said truthfully.

  Ravenscroft removed his arm from hers deliberately and cupped one hand against her left jaw. Billie closed her eyes and sucked in her breath.

  “What then, my dear?” he asked as her eyes fluttered open again.

  Suddenly she realized what made his pursuit so much easier to bear than that of modern lady-killers — he acted as if he had all the time in the world. For him, flirtation wasn't just a means to an end, it was an end in itself, an art to be practiced with care and dedication to detail. Her eyes widened suddenly, and the smile he had been suppressing burst across his face.

  Ravenscroft drew the palm of his hand away from her face, the first and middle finger lingering along her jaw and sliding down to her chin in a gesture that was utterly seductive. It was a brilliant imitation of love. Billie couldn't help herself — she was falling for it. The man was a master at his craft.

  “You never answered my question,” Ravenscroft said.

  “And I'm not going to,” Billie replied. The best defense was a good offense. She raised her hand to his face, letting her fingers creep from the line of his jaw to the back of his neck. She didn't want to think about getting stuck in the seventeenth century, about exchanging favors for financial security, about what that might do to her relationship with this man.

  She just wanted to kiss him.

  Ravenscroft's eyes narrowed before she drew his face to hers. His hand found her waist, and he pulled her against him. The hand at the small of her back drifted higher.

  “Yes!” Ravenscroft said, one thumb sliding lightly across her breast. He pulled her tight, and Billie pushed her hips against his. Ravenscroft drew away from her briefly, a look of astonishment on his face, but only for a moment. Taking her face in his hands, he gave her a very deliberate, very long kiss. Billie threw her other arm around his neck and buried her hands in his hair. She could hardly believe how good he felt.

  “Enough, Damon,” she said finally, pulling away, shaken. He let go of her immediately. They both took deep breaths, then looked at each other and laughed.

  “My dear?” Ravenscroft said, offering her his elbow.

  “Wait.” Billie ran a hand through her mussed curls and pulled a dislodged ribbon out of her hair.

  “You look charming,” Ravenscroft said. His pupils were dilated and his eyelids even heavier than usual.

  “I bet,” Billie said, mumbling through the ribbon in her mouth as she tried to smooth her hair back with her hands.

  “You bet?” Ravenscroft repeated, puzzled.

  Billie took the ribbon out of her mouth and looped it around her locks. “It's just another saying we have in America,” she explained. “In this context, it means more or less — I believe you but I know why you said it.”

  Ravenscroft chuckled. “Will you tell me who you really are now?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then at least your name?”

  “You can call me Billie.”

  Ravenscroft laughed and shook his head. “Billie? Like Will? Strange. I always thought you more a Will than a Clarinda, although I was convinced you were a woman.”

  “Then you were right.” She pulled the bow tight as they turned onto the main walk.

  “Ravenscroft!” John Greenhill hailed them. He was coming down the path with his sallow young poet friend, Nathaniel Lee.

  “Greenhill,” Ravenscroft replied, sweeping his plumed hat off his head. “Strange companion you have chosen for Valentine's Day.”

  Greenhill laughed and Lee glowered. “We're the odd men out, Ravenscroft. You beat us to the prize.” Greenhill gave Billie a suggestive look, smiling widely.

  Billie wondered how mussed her hair was and blushed. “I'm not a prize,” she said, irritated.

  Greenhill laughed again, and Billie started to wonder if he was a bit sloshed already, this early in the day.

  “Why, I would say that is a matter of opinion, Miss Armstrong. Hmm,” the artist mused out loud. “Does Ravenscroft knows what he's getting into now?”

  “Ravenscroft is not 'getting into' anything, gentlemen,” Billie said. “He was just about to bring me back to Aphra's lodgings.”

  “Why, I was heading that way myself!” Greenhill declared.

  “Was not,” Nathaniel Lee objected.

  “Was too. I have a sitter coming. I only hope he is not already there and waiting on me.” The painter turned to Billie. “Would you care to visit my studio, fair Clarinda?”

  “I would love to,” she said, grinning at Ravenscroft's gathering frown. “Who is your sitter?”

  “A Mr. John Locke.”

  “John Locke?” Billie repeated. “The famous philosopher?”

  Greenhill laughed out loud. “I would not call Locke famous precisely, or if he is, 'tis more for his politics than his philosophy. Mayhap you've confused him with someone else.”

  “Perhaps I have.” Obviously, Locke had not yet written his essay on human understanding.

  “Locke i
s a doctor who owes his political career to Shaftesbury,” Ravenscroft said. “No one of particular interest.”

  “Nonetheless, I would be curious to see Mr. Greenhill's studio.”

  Ravenscroft nodded agreement, still frowning. Greenhill only laughed again and led the way.

  It was amazing how many famous people Billie could meet in Restoration London just by hanging out with artists and playwrights. Although, as Greenhill had remarked, the craggy-faced gentleman with the long nose was not exactly famous, at least not yet. Billie was still in awe at the sight of John Locke, one of the most famous philosophers of the seventeenth century. When she learned he was a secretary for the so-called “Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas” she was a bit worried he might discover that she was a fraud, but it turned out he had little interest in some young woman Greenhill dragged along.

  Then she started asking him about his thoughts on the ideal state, and that changed. He grew so garrulous that Greenhill forgot any amorous intentions he might have been nourishing towards Billie and drew her aside.

  He pushed the unruly locks back from his forehead. “While I am grateful you prove so adept at entertaining Mr. Locke, I think I need some time alone with my sitter.”

  Billie chuckled. “Forgive me! His ideas are fascinating.”

  Ravenscroft sauntered over, trailed by Nathaniel Lee. “You had best not reveal to your hostess how deep your republican leanings run.”

  “Why not?” She shrugged. “Royalist or not, Aphra has a marked weakness for Whigs.”

  “Your woman has a point,” Nathaniel Lee said. “Political leanings matter little to her where — “ he cleared his throat — “friendships are concerned.”

  “I am not 'his woman'!” Billie objected, only to be thoroughly ignored.

  “At the moment, I care little what Aphra might or might not think of Mistress Clarinda's political opinions,” Greenhill said. “As much as I value your captivating company I would like to request that you all leave my studio. I need quiet to work on Locke's portrait.”

  Ravenscroft, for one, seemed very happy at being thrown out. He clasped Greenhill's hand with both his own. “Certainly, my friend! Anything for the arts, yes?”

  9

  All I ask, is the Priviledge for my Masculine Part the Poet in me, (if any such you will allow me) to tread in those successful Paths my Predecessors have so long thriv'd in, to take those Measures that both the Ancient and Modern Writers have set me, and by which they have pleas'd the World so well: If I must not, because of my sex, have this Freedom, but that you will usurp all to your selves; I lay down my Quill, and you shall hear no more of me,... for I am not content to write for a Third day only. I value Fame as much as if I had been born a Hero; and if you rob me of that, I can retire from the ungrateful World, and scorn its fickle Favours.

  Aphra Behn, Preface to The Lucky Chance

  When Billie entered the sitting room, still flustered from the morning's adventures, Aphra was too preoccupied to notice the state her guest was in. Which was just as well, since Billie didn't want to talk about it. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer — any day, she'd give in and find out how a seventeenth century man made love.

  “I have decided to answer my critics,” Aphra announced. “'Tis much better than moping here.”

  “How answer them?” Billie asked.

  “I'm working on an epistle to the reader that will preface my Dutch Lover when it is printed. 'Twill be just the thing!”

  Billie smiled. Aphra was definitely looking better, with more color in her cheeks and a healthy glint in her eye. The epistle wouldn't improve her financial situation, but it was doing wonders for her mood.

  “Listen, Clarinda, and tell me what you think,” Aphra said. “'Good, Sweet, Honey, Sugar-Candied Reader, which I think is more than anyone has called you yet.'“ Billie laughed out loud, and Aphra gave her an approving smile. Of course, Billie knew the preface to The Dutch Lover — every feminist Behn scholar did — but it was very different read playfully by the author herself.

  “'I must have a word or two with you before you do advance to the treatise,'“ Aphra continued. “But 'tis not to beg your pardon for diverting you from your affairs, by such an idle Pamphlet as this, for I have dealt pretty fairly in the matter, told you in the Title Page what you are to expect within. Indeed, had I hung a sign of the Immortality of the Soul, of the Mystery of Godliness, or of Ecclesiastical Policie, and then had treated you with Indiscerpibilty and Essential Spissitude (words, which though I am no competent Judge of, for want of Languages, yet I fancy strongly ought to mean just nothing) with a company of Apocryphal midnight Tales cull'd out of the choicest Insignificant Authors; If I had only presented you with the worst principles transcrib'd out of the peremptory and ill-natur'd (though prettily ingenious) Doctor of Malmsbury, I were then sufficiently at fault ... '“

  “Who's this 'Doctor of Malmsbury'?” Billie interrupted.

  “Why, that's the philosopher Hobbes, my dear,” Aphra said with a smile. “Don't you know him?”

  “Not personally, no.” Although now she could claim to know John Locke, even if he wasn't anyone yet. “Isn't it a bit dangerous to attack someone as important as Hobbes?”

  Aphra waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “The man is an absolute cynic. Hates everyone except himself, it seems. How he came to be so much the fashion, I can't imagine. He writes philosophical tracts about how selfishness is the first law of human nature.”

  “He may not be too far from the truth,” Billie said, shrugging.

  “Male nature perhaps,” Aphra replied. “But you cannot convince me that it is human nature.”

  “Don't you care for men, my dear?” Billie asked with a grin.

  “Certainly. But I have seen such vile examples as you wouldn't believe.” She stared off at a spot somewhere just above and to the right of Billie's head, and Billie suspected she had retreated to her memories of Surinam and the bad guys of her autobiographical novel Oroonoko. It was strange having this kind of knowledge about Aphra, especially when the other woman was unaware of the intimacy.

  “Well, at least writing this epistle seems to be good for you,” Billie said. “But don't you think a little 'maidenly modesty' would be in order?”

  Aphra shot out of her chair and took Billie by the upper arm. Billie looked at her, startled. Apparently, it was not the right kind of thing to joke about with her hostess.

  “Maidenly modesty is the last thing we need!” Aphra said, her voice low.

  “It was only a jest.”

  “I know. But in part of our minds we mean the jests we make.” Aphra dropped Billie's arm and turned away. “I will not be modest. That's the problem with so many of these scribbling women, they are all so humble, so fawning, they tell men exactly what they want to hear, like the matchless Orinda. Of course, the crazy Duchess isn't that way, but she's crazy. No one takes her seriously.”

  “Margaret Cavendish?” Billie asked, trying to keep up.

  Aphra nodded. “The Duchess of Newcastle. She understands the power of the pen and she's willing to use it. But she doesn't have to live by it.”

  Billie took a deep breath. “I didn't mean to pain you.”

  “Ah, child, you didn't pain me.” Aphra sat down at her writing table again, motioning for Billie to take a seat too. “I have thought much on what you said recently, and I have wanted to speak with you again on the subject.”

  “About what?”

  Aphra's smile was gentle again. “Clarinda, you are much too intelligent to make light of your own works. Every young spark who comes to London and rhymes a couplet fancies himself a poet, but a woman like you who has written dozens of songs does not. Do you know the work of Katherine Phillips?”

  Billie shook her head. “I've heard of her, but I haven't read her poems.”

  “Sometimes I think she is so praised merely because she said she expected no applause.” One side of Aphra's mouth twisted up in a wry smile. />
  “See?” Billie said, daring another joke. “You should use a little maidenly modesty!”

  This time Aphra laughed. “My temperament is probably closer to that of the crazy duchess, although I find her essays incomprehensible. But her ambition I understand. She calls herself Margaret the First!”

  “You desire fame as much as if you had been born a hero,” Billie quoted her idol. She had always loved that line — as did most feminist scholars. It seemed as if every second article she read about Behn used it.

  “I do,” Aphra agreed. “If only I did not have to write for bread. A pox on it!” She picked up her pen and twirled it idly between her fingers. “And yet, Clarinda, withal 'tis a fine thing to be a writer. I can make my enemies fools and my friends heroes.” Aphra looked up from the pen into Billie's eyes, then placed it in her guest's hands and closed her long fingers around it. Billie looked at their locked hands holding the fountain pen, and she was struck by a sense of wonder. “The power of the pen, my dear,” Aphra continued quietly. “It is in your hands. Will you use it, or will you deny it?”

  “The power of the pen ...” Billie repeated, staring at Aphra's pen as her mind gathered for a daring lunge. The power of the pen! Of course! What contemporary poet living in London did Billie know better than herself? A rush of excitement coursed through her whole body, and her stomach knotted.

  Something must have showed in her eyes, because Aphra leaned back in her chair with a knowing smile. “I see there is hope for you. But I must return to my epistle before I lose the thread.”

  “Certainly,” Billie replied, rising. Spontaneously, she leaned over and gave Aphra a quick kiss on the cheek. “You've done more for me than I can say.”

  Aphra's smile blossomed. “I'm happy to help, my dear.”

  Billie hurried up the stairs, her thoughts an excited muddle. If her own verses did manage to get her back to her own time, where would she end up? Would it have to be something that had to do with London or Richard? Or would she just end up wherever the mirror from the exhibit happened to be? Suddenly her euphoria died as quickly as it came. If the exhibit itself were part of the equation, she might never get back — it had been dismantled weeks ago now.