In Bed With Lord Byron

he came to have his famous love affair with Caroline Lamb, who called him “mad, bad and dangerous to know”.’
    ‘So how many women did he have altogether?’
    ‘Oh, hundreds. Boys too.’
    Silence.
    ‘He went travelling around Italy. That’s when he wrote his masterpiece,
Don Juan
. What else? Oh. . . er . . . and he had a love affair with his half-sister,
Augusta.’
    Suddenly Nigel woke up.
    ‘Half-sister? You’re kidding! But in those days surely you’d get hung, drawn and quartered for that sort of thing?’
    ‘Well, yes – and it was made even more awkward by the fact that Augusta was married. There was a massive scandal, and in the end it was one of the reasons he left England in exile.
He died at the aged of thirty-six. All the Romantic poets died young. Keats, Chatterton, Shelley. It was the fashion, really. When they did an autopsy on Byron, they found that the sutures of his
skull were fused together, which is normally a sign of old age. He really had lived life to the full.’
    ‘God, it makes me feel as if my life is so boring,’ Nigel said glumly, and I smiled in sympathy.
    The risotto was ready.
    We ate dinner and gradually the conversation dwindled. Feeling self-conscious, I suggested we skip dessert and have coffee; he shrugged sheepishly.
    Coffee was a little more intimate. We sat down next to each other on the sofa. Close, this time. I couldn’t help feeling guilty, as though I was being unfaithful to Anthony. I reminded
myself that I was free and single, but doubt still writhed in my stomach. That’s the trouble with fantasies coming true: reality is always slightly frightening. Anticipation intensifies and
enriches emotions, but reality seems to smooth them out into a kind of blank bewilderment. Then I saw the desire in Nigel’s eyes and Anthony was forgotten.
    Well, for a minute, anyway. As he kissed me, I felt taken aback by his style. Anthony and I had always shared soft butterfly kisses which deepened into something more sensual. Nigel was strong
and forceful, grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me in close. I closed my eyes and something clicked and I sank into the mood. I ran my hands through his hair and it was just as luscious as
I’d imagined.
    Beep-ding-a-dong-a-ding,
his mobile sang.
    He broke off and said, ‘Hello?’
    I watched, breathless and indignant. Couldn’t he switch the damn thing off?
    ‘OK . . . yeah . . . sure . . . right . . . I’m sure she’s fine . . . lovely . . . come on, be good . . . OK.’ He put it down and rolled his eyes and cupped my face.
    ‘Who was it?’ I asked suspiciously.
    ‘Nobody.’
    He cupped my face in his hands and carried on kissing me.
    Five minutes later, his mobile rang again.
    ‘Oh, Jamie – for God’s sake! OK . . . yes, yes . . .’ I was taken aback by the emotion in his voice. ‘Sure, I’ll come home, I’ll come home right now.
OK, sure, Daddy’s coming . . . yep, OK.’ He pressed the red button. ‘Sorry, I have to go.’
    ‘Back to your wife and kids?’ I said furiously.
    ‘No – there is no wife. Just a kid, from my last girlfriend. He’s four. It’s a bit complicated. I got him a babysitter tonight, but he hates them . . .’ He looked
tired – the way he had done the morning I had asked him out – and suddenly a lot of things fell into place. He let out a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a sob of frustration
and buried his face in his palms. My heart went out to him.
    ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘We can meet another night. Don’t worry, it’s cool . . . I understand . . . it’s fine . . .’
    ‘It’s not fine. It’s crap. I bet you’ll never buy a
Daily Telegraph
off me again. I bet you’ll upgrade to
The Times
from that fat geezer across the
road,’ he said, shooting me a sidelong glance, and we both laughed.
    Out in the hall, he tried to kiss me goodbye, but it felt strange, so I turned it into a peck on the cheek. He looked hurt, but I said another warm goodbye and ‘I’ll see you
again,’ even though I knew that I wouldn’t. Somehow it just didn’t seem like it was meant to be.
    After Nigel had gone, I sat staring at the dinner table, watching the candle melt into a disfigured stump, dripping fat wax tears on to the lacy cloth. I was so upset, I barely
even noticed Lyra jumping on to the table, whiskers bristling excitedly. I felt utterly flat with disappointment. I’d been expecting a night of wild passion, a perfect rebound fling, but
reality