“They’re too old. Thirty is as old as I’m prepared to take,” he answered curtly.
“But this is a historical village, correct? Surely having some older women working there would make it look more realistic,” she cajoled him.
“I’m not interested. They’re not fertile. That is to say, in 1901, the average woman was dead at age forty. I want them in their twenties. Look harder.” He hung up.
“That man is definitely strange,” she said to herself as she punched the button to tell Moss to keep looking.
“He’s weird, all right. He came here dressed in his costume, looking like something out of an old movie. Ellie said he gave her the creeps, like he was undressing her or something. She sent Frank in with the coffee. Refused to be anywhere near him,” said Moss.
“Well, he didn’t listen to me any more than he listened to you, so I guess you’ll have to keep trying.”
“Shame, he’s so damn rich. That village of his is a huge tourist attraction. They also hire it out as a movie set. Earn a packet from that, too. Well, I’ll keep trying, but I’m telling you, twenty-somethings don’t want to wear a costume and bake and iron for minimum wage and no tips,” he replied.
Xonra shrugged it off and turned to her next problem. She tapped her fingernails, turquoise today, against the desk as she scrolled through a spreadsheet, then looked down and noticed the color on her left index finger was already chipped. Sighing, she grabbed her purse from under her desk and sifted through the bottles of nail polish there before picking up the correct color. Her eyes were focused on her hand as she repaired her nail, but at the back of her mind, memories of her awesome night of sex with two men danced around, dampening her panties and making her nerves tingle.
* * * *
Glenn and Morgan had talked for a long time, trying to decide on the weekend program.
“Suggestive is okay, but not raunchy,” said Morgan.
“Agreed. But there’s nothing on that really speaks to me as an ideal show.”
“Yeah. I’ve been through the entertainment guide more times than I care to count, and you’re right. There’s a handful of possibles but nothing outstanding. Nothing that would be a draw card.”
“So instead of a weekend in a nice city hotel, we need a weekend away somewhere she’ll like. And don’t say Barbados or something!” added Glenn.
“Actually, I was thinking of Hawaii when you said that. Somewhere warm enough to sit on a beach. I bet she’d look awesome in a tiny little bikini.”
Glenn groaned. “My dick likes that idea, but my brain says she’ll say a flat no.”
“That’s what I thought, too. So what are we gonna do?”
“Damn if I know. Time for an internet search, I guess.” There was silence for a long time until Morgan gave a shout. “Berisford Village!”
“Huh?”
“Berisford Village. It’s only an hour away. It’s that place where they have an old gold mine and you can walk through the workings, see all the old machinery. There’s houses with people doing things the way they did back in the late eighteen hundreds, little shops, a school, smithy—”
“Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about now, I just didn’t recognize the name. Sounds perfect. Let me see the website.”
Glenn jumped up and leaned over Morgan’s shoulder to look at the website. As Morgan clicked through the various pages, he became excited. “It’s perfect. There’s so much to see and do there, it’ll definitely take an entire day to see it all. Plus there’s a couple hotels right nearby so we can stay overnight and go back again the next day if she wants to.” Exuberantly, the men high-fived each other, then Glenn sat at his own laptop as they checked out the hotels.
“I’m thinking the Berisford Grande. Executive suites with large hot tub, choice of two fine-dining restaurants,” recited Morgan.
“My thoughts exactly. Let’s book it all, then ask her and present her with a complete plan. I reckon if the dates don’t suit her for some reason, we could likely exchange the bookings for a different weekend. I don’t want her to feel railroaded, but I agree, we want to have a firm date when we put it to her, so she sees we’re serious about this,” said Glenn.
“So, next weekend or the one after? How much warning should we give her, do you think?”
“Next weekend. Time enough to get organized, but not so long she can think of a good excuse to stand us up.”
“All right.” They high-fived again and Morgan arranged the tickets for Berisford Village while Glenn booked an Executive Suite complete with hot tub at the Berisford Grande. “Sure looks nice on the webpage. I hope it lives up to its advertising,” he said as he keyed in his credit card details.
“If it’s not, we’ll go back to my original plan of simply fucking her brains out. That way, she’ll never even notice,” said Morgan.
* * * *
“Berisford Village? I hadn’t thought of going there, but yes, I really would like to come with you.”
“We’ll pick you up at eight on Saturday, then. That’s not too early for you, is it?” asked Glenn.
“No that’s fine. I’m usually at work by then anyway and I tend to get up at the same time on weekends.” And how pathetic does that make me sound?
“Great. It’s on thirty acres and there looks like a lot to see and do, so it’ll be good to have two full days. We’ve got Weekend Pass Out tickets so we can go back to our hotel if we get tired, then come back later for the Sound and Light Show at night either day.”
“Sound and Light Show? I didn’t know they had one. I’d better check out the brochure and make a list of what I want to see.” And now I sound like a boring nerd.
They chatted for a few more minutes, then hung up. Xonra shook her head at herself. “You’d better practice talking like a normal, intelligent woman, or this is going to be the worst weekend of your life instead of the best,” she warned herself. However, she couldn’t resist changing screens from the paperwork she was supposed to be checking, and instead looking up Berisford Village.
It had never occurred to her to research Jeremiah J. Curlin’s historical town. But as soon as Glenn mentioned it, she knew she’d love to visit it. She wanted to see for herself what it was all about, why Mr. Curlin was making so much money out of it, and especially why young women didn’t want to work there. “I guess an hour is quite a long commute, but plenty of people take that long to get to work each day. Maybe not for minimum wage, though. Likely that’s the problem. He simply isn’t paying them enough.”
General store, candy store, candlemaker, blacksmith, tinsmith, drapery store, apothecary, wheelwright, bakery, post office. Then there are the houses, the school, a horse bazaar, and the Big Hill Mine. The mine tour alone takes an hour. I can see why we’ll need a couple of days there. But it sounds awesome. I can hardly wait until the weekend. Plus the sex. Oh God! Must pack sexy lingerie!
Xonra looked around her office hurriedly, hoping she hadn’t said that last remark out loud, but there was no one walking past her open door or standing around in the hallway as far as she could see, so she gave a grateful sigh and very deliberately closed the Berisford Village screen down, and concentrated on her job.
Chapter Three
Xonra had expected to be sitting in the backseat, but the car they arrived in, unlike the sporty little vehicle they’d used to travel from MaryAnne’s memorial service, was one of the few cars that still had a triple front seat, so she was tucked between them for the drive out to the village.
The hour flew by as they laughed and chatted about everything and nothing, finding that they agreed about many things, and when they didn’t, they were able to discuss it in a companionable, not argumentative, manner.
They decided to simply follow the map and look at everything in order. “Seeing we have the entire weekend, there’s really no reason to rush from display to display,” said Glenn.
“There are five different places where we can get a meal, so whenever we want lunch, it shouldn’t b
e too far to walk,” added Morgan.
“Good point,” said Glenn.
“Thirty acres is quite a large area. Looking at the map, when we go underground into the Big Hill Mine, we travel a long way to come out at the other end,” said Xonra thoughtfully.
“Well, maybe we should do that straight after lunch then, when we’re fresh and rested,” suggested Glenn.
They wandered along the boardwalk, looking into the various stores. Some of them were just storefronts with window displays, others were real period-style shops with attendants dressed in costumes and the wares of the late nineteenth century on display, some available for purchase. Xonra was fascinated by the tinsmith’s store with its metal plates and metal cookie cutters and other goods.
Four women were dipping candles in the candlemaker’s store. They looked to be hot bending over the pot, dipping the wicks in again and again as the candles gradually grew fatter.
“No wonder the candles are so expensive,” whispered Morgan. “It must take hours and hours to make them.”
“And that’s after they’ve assembled all the ingredients. I bet there’s a lot of work involved in the preparation before this stage, too,” added Glenn.
Xonra just nodded. The women doing the candle-dipping looked young, barely eighteen, she guessed. And it was hot, hard work, bending over all day like that for minimum wage. No wonder Jeremiah J. Curlin constantly needed new staff. Surely he could pay them more than minimum wage. Everything she’d seen so far in the stores was very expensive and she knew he was making a lot of money out of the village, although undoubtedly there would be some heavy expenses, too.
They watched the apothecary and his assistants hand-rolling pills, spent some time in the drapery store where visitors could dress in period costumes and have their pictures taken, and decided to look in the candy store later, when it wasn’t so crowded.
The next interesting area was a musket-firing range. Xonra sat on a log seat and watched while the men were shown how to load the musket, then fire it at the target. Like most of the people with them, Glenn and Morgan were hopelessly inaccurate shots.
One of the men in costume beckoned to a small boy standing nearby. The child looked to be maybe seven and was dressed in costume. He stepped up to the range, loaded a musket and fired, hitting the bullseye.
While everyone was clapping, the child handed back his musket, took off his cap and walked around the crowd collecting coins.
Xonra watched him as he handed his cap of coins to the man in charge of the range, who put the money in the till. Oh wow, unfair! The kid doesn’t even get to keep his own tips!
“I’m starving. Let’s eat,” said Morgan. The bakery was just down Main Street a little way. It offered fresh bread baked in a stone oven and served still warm with home-made berry preserves and cheese.
“Yum, nectar of the gods,” murmured Glenn, taking a third slice off the plate.
“Look,” said Xonra, pointing to a sign on the wall. “They make the butter and cheese themselves using the milk from their own cows. The same with the preserves. They grow their own berries to make the jam. No wonder it tastes so good.”
“I remember my grandma making jam,” said Glenn. “She let me stand on a stool and help her stir it in a huge cauldron. It was a summer tradition all through my childhood.”
“Let’s go see the mine now,” said Morgan, jumping up as excited as a schoolboy.
Xonra and Glenn laughed and followed him out of the bakery and down the path into the Big Hill Mine.
At the entrance to the mine, they were given a stern lecture by the guide. “Parents are responsible for their children. Everyone must stay in the main shaft which has been fully restored and is perfectly safe. We’re in the process of restoring some of the minor shafts and you can watch the workers through the iron gates, but must not enter. Other tiny shafts are quite unsafe and no one may enter them.”
He then handed out maps to everyone, reminding the parents to keep a close watch on their children. Finally, they were able to walk down the slope and into the mine. Small lights near the top of the shaft gave enough light to walk safely, but it was dim and a little spooky. Some of the children screamed while teenagers teased each other.
Xonra, Glenn and Morgan stayed near the rear of the group, letting the children and young people get ahead of them. “More peaceful this way,” murmured Glenn.
Both men were fascinated by the old machinery and equipment, Morgan even going to the extent of taking photos of some of it on his cell phone, while Xonra was thinking of all the men and boys who’d spent twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, down mines like this, so many of them dying young from lung disease or accidents. Even today, mining has a bad record for safety, she thought.
They’d fallen well behind the last of their group, Glenn and Morgan waving their arms and arguing amicably about a piece of machinery that Xonra could not identify and wasn’t interested in anyway, when she heard voices talking from a side shaft. Well aware of what the guide had told them, she stood quietly to the side of the main shaft and looked through a locked metal gate, down the side tunnel. Two men in costume were standing in front of a wooden door, one holding the arms of a small boy, while the other unlocked the door with a huge iron key. As Xonra watched, the man on the left opened the door, and the man on the right pushed the boy through, then followed him inside, while the first man locked the door again. What the hell was that about?
Assuming the man was about to come toward her, Xonra quietly rejoined Morgan and Glenn, and waved her hand in front of their faces. “Shall we catch up with the rest of our group, or were you planning to stay here all night?” she asked.
“Oh no. Our plans for tonight involve a big, soft bed,” said Glenn, and the three hurried after the group.
Their conversation became general, but at the back of her mind, Xonra’s subconscious was trying to make sense of what she’d seen. And she realized that the costumed man had never re-entered the main tunnel.
By the time they emerged from the mine, they were all ready for a rest and a cold drink. Unsurprisingly, right by the exit was the blacksmith’s, the horse bazaar, and coach rides. Morgan wandered down Main Street to buy them some sodas, while Glenn and Xonra looked at the horses.
“Wow, fifty working horses in the village. That’s a lot.”
“Not just any horses, either. All Percherons and Clydesdales, which means big horses. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to brush them and feed them,” said Glenn, waving an arm at the stables where several men were watering a long line of animals.
“Oh, yes. Imagine having to muck out fifty loose boxes every day. Not my idea of fun.”
Xonra looked at the men working in the stables. They were most definitely not aged eighteen to thirty. She thought about all the men she’d seen here. The guide at the mine, the man at the musket firing range, the shopkeepers, the apothecary, the photographer. Not one of them was in the eighteen-to-thirty age group. Most of them would have been late forties, early fifties, a few approaching sixty. Now that is weird.
Morgan arrived back with three ice-cold drinks and they sat on a log seat drinking them, while they watched people playing a game of chess on a life-sized board. The white squares were sand and the black were gravel. People in costumes were the chess pieces, with children for the pawns and adults for the rest. The two people “playing” the game called out the moves and the “pieces” stepped forward, backward or diagonally as instructed.
“Bad move,” said Xonra, shaking her head.
“Huh?” asked Morgan.
“Mistake. Checkmate in two moves.”
The “pieces” waited impassively and sure enough, the game was over in just a few moves. As soon as it finished, a little girl walked through the crowd with her apron held out and people threw coins into it and compliments to her. The child smiled a little tentatively, and then walked back to an older man, who scooped the coins out of her apron and placed them in a leather purse at his waist. Then
all the characters left the area.
“Next game will begin in half an hour, folks,” called the man in charge.
“You choose, Xonra. Where would you like to go now?” asked Glenn.
Xonra checked the map, then her watch. “It’s four-thirty now and the Sound and Light Show doesn’t start until nine. But we need to allow time for a meal, and it’d be good to have a bit of a rest first, too. How about we go back and check out the candy store, the Post Office and the school, then call it enough for today?”
“Since it’s four-thirty, won’t the kids have gone now? Maybe we’d better leave the school until tomorrow?” suggested Morgan.
“The brochure says the school is open eight a.m. until seven p.m., but maybe they just mean you can go in and look at it, not that the children and teachers are there. If there’s no one there, we can come back tomorrow, sure.”
The candy store was just as crowded as before, but this time they squeezed through the crowd to look at the old-fashioned boiled sweets and sticks of candy. From the long lines at the counter this was a very popular item. Signs above the counter proclaimed all the candy was made in the village from original recipes.
The Post Office had a series of “Wanted” posters on the walls, and both Glenn and Morgan had their pictures taken and their heads inserted into posters. “I’m going to put this up on the wall in the office,” said Glenn. “I’ve always wanted to be famous!”
The doors of the school room were wide open with a teacher standing at the front of the room, a long ruler in his hand, pointing at various things on the chalkboard. The older children were answering questions as he pointed to each one in turn. On the far side of the room was a group of smaller children, each copying letters onto a slate. A girl of maybe twelve was supervising them.
Triple Treat (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 3