He did not want to touch it. It was absurd. And he knew now that two of those words about his feelings were correct-he was both breathless and afraid. But afraid of what? Afraid of dropping it? Of losing it? Of sharing his family heritage and therefore himself with a stranger? Good Lord, Allison was not a stranger. She was his fiancée. They had been together for two months. Intimately together.

He picked it up. It felt warm, as if it had been worn recently. The heat from his body had warmed it through his wallet and through its wrappings. He slipped the ring onto her finger.

"There." He smiled at her. "The deed is done. You are mine, body and soul. I love you, Allie."

"I love you too." The tears that brightened her eyes were unexpected. She was not an overly emotional person. Passionate, yes, but not emotional. "I do, John. I know we do not see eye to eye on everything. You half meant it a moment ago when you suggested coming here to live for the rest of our lives, didn't you? And I would die of such an existence. But we do love each other. We will make this work. Won't we?"

Allison did not usually need reassurance. She was abounding in self-confidence. She sounded anxious now, endearingly so. Sometimes, treacherously, considering the fact that he was living through the 1990s, he wished she were a little more dependent. But that was certainly something he would never utter aloud.

"Yes," he said, releasing her hand in order to wrap his arms about her. "Of course we will. We will adjust to each other's needs. Because we love each other."

He kissed her and lowered her back onto the bed. He followed her down until he was lying beside her, his mouth still against hers. Surprisingly, though, he found that it was not desire they shared but tenderness. Passion would come later, in the night. Now was the time for love-in the moments following their official engagement. He reached one hand down to hers, to take her ring between a thumb and forefinger and twist it.

He was not sure at what precise moment he felt the other ring. At first his fingers merely brushed against it. Then they moved curiously to it and felt its smoothness. It was a plain band, like a wedding ring. He stretched his hand out along hers, palm to palm. Hers seemed smaller than usual. It was as if the ring had dwarfed it. Her lips had softened to exquisite gentleness. For the first time he noticed her perfume-subtle and unobtrusive, but unmistakably lavender.

The drive had tired him far more than he had thought. He doubted that he was going to be able to get up for dinner. He even doubted-alarming thought-that he was going to be able to make love to her tonight. He was so tired he could hardly exert any pressure against her hand and against her ring-her rings.

And then, before he opened his eyes, he realized something. He realized that it was not Allison he held in his arms at all. It was another woman. And in fact it was he who was lying in her arms.

Perhaps the most disorienting realization of all, though, was that he knew who she was.


******************

"Adèle," he murmured, and opened his eyes. Even doing that took great physical effort.

She had dark eyes and dark hair, worn rather formally in a topknot with wavy tendrils at her temples and neck. She wore no makeup. She was wearing a dress of some flimsy stuff, low and scooped at the neckline, drawn in by a wide ribbon beneath her breasts. The sleeves were short and puffed. Empire style, he thought. Regency.

She was looking at him with such naked love in her eyes that his heart turned over.

Adèle? How did he know her name? How had he known he would open his eyes to see her? How did he know he loved her more than life?

"John?" She released her hand from his and lifted it to his face. She set the backs of her fingers against his forehead. They felt cool. He saw the ring on her finger-the rings. They both looked very shiny and new. "You slept for a while. The fever seems to have cooled a little. Would you like a drink? Water? Lemonade?"

He did not want her to have to leave the room. She could fetch water from the bathroom. Had he had the flu? "Water, please," he said.

She sat up and got off the bed and reached out to pull a strip of silk beside the bed. Of course, he thought, his eyes following her movements. One of the servants would bring it. And, yes, definitely Regency. Her dress-it was made of muslin-fell soft and straight to the floor from beneath her bosom. She was small-he knew that he had to raise his chin only a little to be able to rest it on the top of her head when they were both standing.

His eyes roamed the room, seeing with a curious mixture of surprise and recognition the ornate canopy above the bed, the finely carved bedposts, the velvet curtains, which were pulled back so that he could see the rest of the room. He could see the ornate Adam furniture, the gilding on the high ceiling.

He must have dozed again for a few moments. She was taking a glass from a tray held by a maid-the same maid who had removed the blood-spotted cloths some time ago.

Flu? He had been coughing blood.

She turned back to the bed with a smile. He had never seen such luminous tenderness in anyone's face as there was in hers. She half knelt, half sat beside him and lifted him-there seemed to be no strength in him at all-until his head nestled on her shoulder. The water tasted good, though it was not very cold. He half expected to feel it burn his throat, but it did not. He drew a deep and careful breath, expecting to feel a burning in his lungs, but he did not.

"Thank you," he said. "You are an angel, pure and simple, Adèle."

"You will feel better for the rest," she said. "The journey was a long and rough one, John. It was madness to come so far. But I know now what you meant about this place." Her cheek was resting against the top of his head. "It is the loveliest place on earth. And I am glad we came. I think you will get better here."

He could tell from the bright warmth of her voice that she did not believe her own words. He was dying. He had come here to die.

"I already feel better," he said.

What he did feel was strange-a massive understatement. A few minutes ago he had been lying in this very room with another woman-with Allison, his fiancée. Both room and woman had changed. Even he was different. He could see his legs encased in tight pantaloons with silk stockings instead of in jeans and socks. He could see his waistcoat. He had seen the ruffles of his shirt cuffs when he had lifted his hand briefly to the glass-and his hand was thin and emaciated. Yet he knew he was not asleep. And he knew he was not mad. He knew all this though his mind was sluggish on the details.

He saw her rings again when she set the glass down beside the bed. She was his wife. He held out his hand to her on the bed and she placed hers in it. He raised it to his lips and kissed the sapphire of her ring. Damn, but he was weak.

"But I should not have done this," he said.

He was not quite sure what he meant by the words, but she knew, all right. He could hear the tears in her voice when she spoke. "John," she said, "please do not. Please do not keep on saying that. I know that it was I who asked you to marry me. It was unpardonably forward of me to do so, and I never would have done it if I had not thought that perhaps you needed me."

"Adèle," he said.

"No," she said. "Talking takes your energy. Just rest. Please rest, my dearest love. John, I wanted to marry you. More man anything else in this world. I love you so very dearly. I have always loved you, from the moment you lifted me down from that stile when I was four and you were eight and the other children were jeering because I was stuck and frightened."

He smiled at the memory of the infant with the soft baby curls and huge eyes.

The memory?

"This is what I have always dreamed of," she said. "Being your wife, John. Being wim you like this. I do not care for how long-" She broke off suddenly and he could hear her distress in the silence. "But you are going to get better. I know you are. I feel it. I am going to make you better. They said you needed a dry, warm climate and so you went off to Italy for a whole year and came back worse. I do not care what they say. This place will be good for you. And I will be good for you."

He pulled on her hand until she was lying beside him again. He turned onto his side to face her.

"You are good for me," he said. "You are all I could ever need, Adèle. How foolish I was to go to Italy and waste a whole year I might have spent with you. But no matter. We have the rest of our lifetimes together."

Her eyes were bright with tears, brimming with love. The rest of a lifetime. How much longer did he have? A few weeks? A few days? And yet, weak as he felt, he did not feel ill. He should, shouldn't he? He had tuberculosis- consumption. Didn't he?

"How long have we been married?" he asked her.

She looked frightened for a moment. Perhaps she thought he was delirious. Then she smiled. She had a dimple in the middle of her right cheek. It had been there since she was a child-How did he know that?

"For shame," she said. "Have you forgotten the number of days? But it was a long journey for you-four days, with the wedding just the day before we set out. It has been five days and four hours, sir. We are an old married couple."

Yes, he knew how long they had been married. He had remembered as soon as he asked the question. He knew, too, that the marriage was unconsummated, that she fully expected it would forever remain so. She had married him anyway.

"I love you," he whispered to her.

Her eyes filled with tears again. "Yes, I know you do, John," she said, "even if not quite as you would have loved a bride if you had had more opportunity to choose. But I know you love me. I am content."

Had he ever given her the impression that he did not love her totally, to the exclusion of all other women? He knew he had. He knew it as soon as he asked the question, silently this time. He had always loved her as a friend. He had loved her, too, as a woman, though there had always been a niggling doubt. Was it just habit that made him believe that he loved her? Did he really love her? Was he prepared to give up all other women in order to spend the rest of his life with her?

Finally the question had become immaterial. He was dying. He had come back from Italy to find her still unmarried at the age of twenty-four, still waiting for him, still loving him. And so he had married her.

But looking at her now, he could hardly believe that he had ever doubted the depth of his feelings for her. There was something about her just a little too soft, a little too dependent, he had thought. He might prefer someone rather more forceful, someone with a more vivid personality. He could not understand why he had never before fully appreciated her strength of character. She had remained true to a dying man. She had married him, knowing that there was no future with him-because she loved him.

And yet-his mind became dizzy with disorientation again. It was not he who had doubted. And it was not he who now loved her with all his heart. That was another man, the one who usually occupied this weak, thin body. He-John Chandler-could have no feelings for Adèle at all. He was in love with Allison Gorman. He was engaged to her. He had just placed on her finger the ring that Adèle was now wearing.

He knew what had happened, of course. He accepted it with a calm that puzzled and amazed him, as if it were an ordinary, everyday occurrence, or as if he finally understood the feelings he had always had about the house and the ring. He had slipped back into history. When he could set his mind to working rationally, he would even be able to work out exactly who in history he was impersonating. He had a smattering of knowledge about the family. And this was a Regency man. He should not be difficult to trace.

"If I had had an opportunity to choose my bride at leisure and in full health," he said, "I know whom I would have chosen."

She closed her eyes. He knew she was steeling herself against pain, though she showed no other outer sign than that.

"The Honorable Miss Adèle Markham," he said softly, "now Adèle Chandler, Viscountess Cordell. How could I ever have chosen anyone else when my heart was given to her?"

Her eyes opened again. "How kind you are," she said. "Kinder than usual." She touched his lips with her fingertips. ' 'And you are talking too much. You will tire yourself and start coughing again."