Deverell, who had also risen, said,“I’ve arranged for several trunks to be in the attic. They contain appropriate wardrobes for you and Miss Drum-mond, uniforms for the house staff, and livery for the butler and coachman.”
Amelia blinked. “We don’t have a butler or coachman.”
“You do now. I used that ugly object you call a telephone to contact an employment service and engaged them to begin work tomorrow.”
“But I don’t own a coach.”
“You do now.Your new coachman will find it buried under several layers of junk in the stable. I transported it here from an earlier time when it won’t be missed. The coach needs some spit and polish, but it will do quite nicely.”
Amelia reached one hand out to grab the jamb of the unopened door and put her other hand to her heart. Fearing for the older woman’s health, Josie rushed to her side. Amelia, seeming to gather her strength, faced the ghost.
“I suppose you transported horses, too,” Amelia said with only a faint quaver in her voice.
“Nonsense,” Deverell said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on the back of a leather chair. “Live animals are more difficult to move than inanimate objects. I purchased horses.”
“How?” Josie asked but he either didn’t hear her or simply ignored her question.
“Also two saddle mounts. Not the best blood, but adequate.” He straightened and slapped his thigh. “I have missed riding since you disbanded the stable.”
“Do you know what it costs to feed a horse?”
Amelia cried, her voice rising.
“How did you purchase the horses?” Josie asked again.
Amelia put her hands on her hips. “Yes, where did you get the money? Horses cost more than a few odd pounds. Did you transport that, too?”
“That would be robbery!” He straightened to his full height and assumed a haughty mien. “I am not a thief.”
“Then, where did you get the money?” Forget the horses for the moment.Where does a ghost get money if he needs it?
“I have not spent the last two hundred years under a rock.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,”Amelia said.
His expression remained impassive, but the tips of his ears turned crimson.“Perhaps we should discuss family finances at a later time,” he said with a slight tilt of his head toward Josie.
“You’re the one who decided to make her a part of your scheme,”Amelia argued.“She might as well know all the details.”
After a moment of strained silence,Deverell nodded. “Very well. I obtained a credit card in your name, Amelia. Did you realize a person can order practically anything delivered without ever leaving home?” He examined his fingernails.“Quite handy.”
Amelia closed her eyes. “You’d better hope the séances are real, and Josie helps the gypsy recover Sir Robert’s emeralds.We’ll need a treasure just to cover the bills.”
He took Amelia’s hands in his.“Please trust me,”he whispered.“I promise everything will turn out right.”
Josie was glad she wasn’t in the other woman’s shoes. It would be hard to deny the pleading look in his eyes, hard to deny him anything. She looked away.The unscrupulous ghost would use any means to achieve his ends. She’d do well to remember that.
Josie knew the exact instant Amelia succumbed to Deverell’s blatant charm because the woman relaxed and smiled.
“In for a penny, in for a pound. If the family Waite is going down, at least we’ll do it in grand style.”
Deverell bowed gallantly and kissed Amelia’s hand.
“I’ll meet with the staff right away.We’ll dress for dinner, of course. The dressing gong will sound at seven o’clock,” she explained to Josie.“The next tone will be the signal to assemble in the hall.” Amelia opened the door, now mysteriously unlocked, muttering a list of things to do. “Fetch the trunks. Polish the silver. Candles! We must have candles.”
Josie turned to follow. She didn’t want to be alone with Deverell. She admitted that she was in over her head. Admitted the crazy, charming, insufferably arrogant and handsome ghost was more than she could handle.Why didn’t she wise up and leave? If she was as smart as she thought she was, she would run screaming from the room and never look back.
Yet she hesitated. She’d already learned so much. He could manipulate the physical world, moving things at will. He could transfer things across space and time. Or that’s what he’d said.He’d used the word “transport.”Something about something from an earlier time? Drat. She wasn’t sure, and a blown opportunity wasn’t likely to repeat itself for her benefit.
She’d answered her own question. She couldn’t leave. A chance like this would never come again. The key to surviving the experience would be to focus on her research. Determined to appear calm, she straightened her shoulders and assumed what she hoped was an intelligent expression.When she turned to face Deverell, he’d disappeared.
“Just look at all these lovely clothes,” Emma said, dancing around Josie’s bedroom with a pink tulle dress held against her new serviceable gray uniform. The maid had taken to the role-playing with enthusiasm.“It’s like when I used to dress-up in me Mum’s old party togs.”
Josie eyed the pile of clothes on the high four-poster bed with less appreciation. The trunk of Regency style clothes had been delivered to the same bedroom she’d occupied for the past three weeks. Determined to do whatever it took to proceed with her research, she’d allowed her already packed suitcases to be moved into storage, along with all of her equipment.
However, Josie had refused to give up her carryon bag that held essential twenty-first century products. Not even for the chance to interview a ghost was she willing to give up her toothbrush, deodorant, or Lancôme tinted moisturizer. After a quick bath in the old-fashioned claw-footed tub, she’d wrapped herself in a red silk dressing gown while Emma searched for an appropriate dinner outfit.
Pulling a paisley shawl from the trunk, Emma draped it over one shoulder. She wiggled, and the gold fringe danced in response. “Don’t you just love fringe,” she cooed.
Even though Josie’s personal taste ran to tailored suits and crisp cotton shirts, she didn’t want to dampen Emma’s excitement. “It’s lovely,” she said with a weak smile.
“I’ll get all this put away as soon as we get you dressed,” Emma said. She threw the shawl on top of the growing pile of fabric on the bed and stuck her head back into the large trunk. “There must be knickers or pantaloons of some sort in here.”
Kneeling on the floor, surrounded by pasteboard boxes over-flowing with tissue paper, gloves, hats and handkerchiefs, the bright-eyed maid looked like a child on Christmas morning.
“You’ll need these,” Emma said, tossing leather slippers to Josie one at a time.
Laughing, Josie caught a shoe in each hand.With reverent care, Emma unwrapped and laid out a pair of white stockings made of the sheerest silk.While Josie smoothed on the knee-high stockings and tied the red ribbon garters, Emma scrambled to answer the knock at the door.
“You two seem to be having a good time,” Amelia said as she breezed into the bedroom, looking regal in a bronze watered silk dress trimmed at the hem with a black Greek key design.The Empire style slimmed her hips, and the matching turban, adorned with a tall feather fastened over her forehead with a brooch, gave the flattering illusion of additional height.
“This is so much fun,” Emma said, making a place for Amelia by clearing assorted articles off the remaining chair and dumping them back into the trunk.
Amelia sat gingerly on the edge of the seat, arranging her new gown with loving pats and tugs. “Vivian complained the whole time about the extra work,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Then Emma should be your maid,” Josie said to Amelia.
“Can’t,” the maid interrupted.“Vivian has seniority. If I was to be put above her, that upset applecart would spill sour grapes for sure.” She picked up a blue dress with a satisfied grunt and turned, stopping sudde
nly. “Sorry, milady,” she said with a bob of her head and credible curtsey. “Didn’t mean to discuss downstairs politics in front of your guest.”
Amelia nodded. “Actually Josie needs to learn about this type of situation if she is going to...going to continue her research into the daily life of our ghost,” she finished blandly.
Emma hugged the dress to her breasts, her eyes wide.“Do you really think he’ll appear?”
“Hopefully not right now,”Amelia said.“Josie is hardly dressed to receive visitors.”
Emma seemed to catch the not so subtle hint. She returned to the bed and sorted through the mounds of material. Under Amelia’s direction, the maid selected a chemise and handed it to Josie.
Josie examined what had passed for underwear in a previous century, sort of a short nightgown with a drawstring neckline and tiny puffed sleeves. She stepped behind the dressing screen. The soft material of the chemise caressed her skin as she shimmied it on, but the matter of the ghost preyed upon her mind.
He’d mentioned his materialized state. Logically that meant he also had a dematerialized state. Could he be in this very room? Surely a gentleman wouldn’t peek at a woman’s bath, but it wouldn’t hurt to lay down a few ground rules the next time she saw him, such as, he should let her know if he was in the room, even if he didn’t materialize. He couldn’t object to that. Satisfied with her reasoning, Josie stepped back into the room and reached for the blue silk gown Emma held.
“No, no, no,” Amelia said.“First the corset, then the underdress, then the overdress.”
Josie crossed her arms.“You can’t expect me to wear a corset,” she said even though Emma was already scrambling to retrieve the named items.
“Every proper woman wore a corset, whether she needed it or not,” Amelia said with a nod toward Josie’s slim physique. “It won’t be so bad. Just don’t take any deep breaths.”
Emma approached, turning the corset over and around, the strings flipping and dangling every which way. “How does this contraption work? Does it lace up or down?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Josie said. “Besides, didn’t I read somewhere that Regency women had discarded the corset and even dampened their gowns to achieve the natural look.”
“That was a French custom. A few daring englishwomen tried it in London, but contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the custom at country estates,” Amelia explained. “Why anyone would believe an otherwise sane woman would wear a wet dress in a drafty old castle is beyond me.”
“Yet that same supposedly sane woman voluntarily wore a torture device,” Josie said.
“The corset was an accepted fact of life,” Amelia said.
“How do you know so much about these clothes?” Josie asked. “And the manners? I understand Deverell lived that life, but you’re, I mean, you’re not...”
“Not that old?” Amelia asked with a chuckle. “Well, not quite.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
Amelia patted Josie’s shoulder.“You haven’t, dear. In fact I taught history at University for so long, the rumor was that I recalled many of the events from personal experience.” She chuckled again. “I admit that knowing Deverell contributed to my fascination with the Regency period. He and Jane Austen. Have you seen the fashion displays at the Albert and Victoria Museum? Absolutely fabulous. The costume curator is a former student of mine.”
Josie nodded, shook her head, and nodded in turns, and as usual had difficulty keeping up with Amelia’s quick changes of topic.
“You could give it a try, and if it’s too uncomfortable, take it off,” Emma suggested, holding out the corset.
Unable to refute the maid’s simple logic, Josie capitulated. She stepped forward with her arms raised. While Emma tightened the laces, Josie looked down and observed with surprise the phenomenon of instant cleavage. She’d never had cleavage before.Was this why women had put up with corsets for so many centuries? Okay, it wasn’t unbearable if the laces were loosened a little.
After donning the blue silk gown, Josie looked in the cheval mirror. The low-cut bodice bared her shoulders and the tops of her breasts, now nicely rounded by the pressure of the corset. From the dark blue ribbon under her bust, the deep azure silk fell in smooth lines to where the sky blue undergown peeked out just above her ankles.Would Deverell find her attractive? Josie chased the thought out of her brain. These clothes were only the trappings necessary to continue her real research project, questioning the ghost. However, it didn’t hurt her self-confidence to confront him looking her best.
“You look like a princess,” Emma said, making a deep curtsey. “And here’s your crown.” She reverently presented a turban made of matching blue silk.
Josie stepped back. “I don’t wear hats.”
“But it goes with the outfit,” Emma sputtered.
“I can’t wear that...that thing,” Josie said, staring at the ornate concoction of silk, feathers, and ribbons. Hats made her claustrophobic, panicky. She didn’t want to explain that particular neurosis and its antecedents in the riding accident that had left her in a body cast and her head in traction for most of the year she was thirteen.“My head sweats,”she explained.
“Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow,” Amelia said, chastising Josie’s word selection.
“With that on my head, I’d glow like a neon sign in the rain.” The determined arbiter of Regency fashion didn’t relent. Josie tried another tack.“Hats give me a headache.”
“Well, unmarried women were not required to wear a cap indoors during the day. However in the evening, in order to be proper, you must wear something on your head.”Amelia took the turban, and yanked off the ribbons and the white egret feathers. She found a needle and thread in a side drawer of the dressing table, fashioned the bits and pieces into a hair ornament, and attached her creation to a comb.“We can sweep one side of your hair back and anchor it with this.”
After all Amelia’s work and the destruction of the original hat, Josie felt obligated to cooperate. When she again stood in front of the mirror, she had to agree with the other women.The hair ornament was just the touch her outfit needed. Josie moved her head from side to side.The fancy comb didn’t restrict her freedom and therefore didn’t cause any claustrophobic panic.
Emma helped Josie pull on long gloves that reached above her elbows and fastened the tiny pearl buttons at her wrists.Then the maid held up the fringed shawl. Josie eyed the large red and pink peonies in the pattern and shook her head.“I never wear those colors. Not with my hair.”
“Nonsense,” Amelia said. “This will perk up your complexion.” She nodded to Emma who then draped the shawl over Josie’s shoulders.
Josie turned to the mirror and, to her surprise, saw that the color did flatter her. She rubbed the luxurious fabric.
“Wool challis,”Amelia said.“Quite handy in a castle where drafts seem to come from nowhere.” Another nod to Emma produced a flat box. “And now for a touch of elegance.” She revealed a magnificent necklace of luminescent pearls accented by tiny diamonds.Also nestled in the back velvet lining were the matching bracelet and earrings. “We call this parure the Young Queen’s Pearls because they were a wedding gift from Victoria to my great-great-grandmother, who was one of her ladies-in-waiting.”
Josie stepped back. “I couldn’t...”
“Of course you can. I’m only lending them for the evening, not giving them to you.”
“But what if something happens to them?”
Amelia clucked her tongue. “Don’t be such a Nervous Nellie. Sometimes you just have to relax and enjoy the moment.” She fastened the necklace around Josie’s neck and stepped back to admire her handiwork.“Lovely.”
Emma added the bracelet and earrings and handed Josie a beaded reticule and a fan painted with violets.
“I do believe we’re ready.”
Josie jammed a small notebook and stub of a pencil next to the lacy handkerchief and tiny vial of smelling salts in the retic
ule dangling from her wrist. The assembly gong sounded, the signal to begin round two with the ghost.Deverell would be waiting for her—for them—at the bottom of the grand staircase.
Deverell paced the wide foyer, unseen and unheard by the servants in the dining room.As he’d predicted, Amelia’s fear of revolt was unfounded. The servants appeared invigorated by the change in routine, except for one whiner. He entertained the notion of a quick materialization to scare the drudge witless, but he dismissed it as unworthy. Bad enough that, in his concern for Amelia, he’d eavesdropped on servants. He suppressed a shudder.
The toll for his years of inattention to his duty was not pleasant, but then what else could he expect of a penance? Today he had taken the initial step to rectify the financial situation in a manner that would free him again to concentrate on his assigned task. Tonight would be the first test for Miss Drummond. Could she learn everything she would need to know in time? Would she honor her agreement when she learned the truth?
No, he refused to think about that just yet.
He tugged on the sleeve of his impeccably tailored evening coat. Although dematerialized, he retained a sense of himself, knowledge of his being. For the first time, he wondered why. He had always accepted his existence without questioning it. If he needed something, he concentrated his thoughts, and it appeared or happened or whatever.Over the years he had learned a few limitations and many shortcuts to conserve his energy.Yet he had never thought about why or how, until now. Until Josie and her insatiable curiosity.
Deverell shook his head. She would be disappointed. He had no answers to far-reaching metaphysical questions on the meaning of life. How soon would she realize that she had made a bad bargain? Surely he knew something she would find interesting. He could stretch out his small store of facts. Requiring Josie to ask specific questions would delay the inevitable, as would limiting their time together. Unexpectedly, the latter held little appeal.
Laurie Brown Page 3