Corset Diaries

by Katie MacAlister

  “Bloody hell, I’ve cut myself on my sword. I thought these things were props? I can’t wear this. I’ll probably end up decapitating someone before the evening is over.” Max wandered out of the drawing room, holding a napkin to his hand.

  Melody doubled over and vomited on the top step.

  A profound, pregnant silence fell over the hall. Mrs. Peters smiled at me.

  “No, no problems to speak of,” Teddy said slowly, giving me a long, thoughtful look. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Friday

  October 1

  8:39 P.M.

  Still at Max’s house, still in sitting room, on the

  brown-and-green striped comfy couch, stuffed full

  of dinner (take-out Chinese)

  Now, a lesser person might well have just sat down and cried at the point where everything went to hell in a hand basket, but I am made of sterner stuff.

  “Max, go wash your hand and try to find something to bandage it up,” I ordered as I hobbled toward the stairs. “Teddy, run and get Roger. Tell him something’s wrong with Mademoiselle, then get someone to scrape the barf off the stairs, Mrs. Peters, stop gloating; ghosts aren’t likely to have poisoned the governess. Do you know any first aid? Please try to bring Mademoiselle around. Melody, come with me to my room. I know you feel awful, but I’m sure Ellis will find something to make your stomach feel better. What was the last thing you and Mademoiselle ate?”

  Everyone stood frozen until I clomped my way over to the stairs. “What are you all waiting for? Let’s get cracking, people! We have a masquerade ball to put on!”

  Max made a detour to help me up the stairs, following behind as I escorted Melody to my room. Mademoiselle was up and about before Ellis could trot off to get some barley water for Melody. By the time Max and I determined that Melody’s and Mademoiselle’s illness was probably due to the two of them sharing a plate of lobster salad left over from three days ago, Teddy had the stairs cleaned up, Alice had stopped Palmer from killing Bret for knocking over half the display of crystal punch glasses, and Mademoiselle was dissuaded from the idea of calling the police to report Cook for attempted murder.

  Ellis tucked both Mademoiselle and Melody into bed, the latter of whom was in tears.

  “I want to see the party,” she sobbed. “I want to wear my costume.”

  She was dressed like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, straight out of Wonderland with her striped stockings and little white pinafore.

  “I know you do, sweetheart, but you feel a bit hot to me. It’s better if you stay in bed.” Max, stroking her hair off her damp brow, glanced over at me helplessly. The look wrung my heart.

  I patted her leg where it was tucked under the blankets next to me. “How about if we check on you later tonight and see if you’re up to making an appearance? The party is bound to go on all night. I’ll pop in later and see if you feel better. Until then, you get some sleep. OK?”

  Max looked like he wanted to protest my offer, but he kept his mouth shut when she murmured her agreement.

  “You won’t forget?” she asked as I hobbled out the door, Max behind me.

  I grinned at her. “Now, how could I possibly forget a little snot of a girl?”

  She grinned back.

  “Snot? You called my daughter a snot?” Max asked as he closed the door, his hackles starting to rise with outrage.

  I laughed and kissed his chin. “Calm down, Max. It’s a term of endearment, and she knows it.”

  “Snot is an endearment?” He slowed his long-legged walk to my short-strided limp. “What do you intend to call me, boogy?”

  “I was thinking more about love bunny, but if you prefer boogy instead . . .” I shrugged.

  “Tessa?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why are you wearing your nightgown?”

  I looked down at the frothy creation. With my chemise, corset, and drawers under it, it wasn’t the least bit revealing. “Um. Change of costume plans. I’m a ghost.”

  “I see. That would explain the ghoulish circles around your eyes.”

  “Wraithlike, not ghoulish. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there? Will you be explaining to me why you’re not dressed in the expensive costume the wardrobe department provided?”

  “Someday,” I said as we descended to the second floor (called, for some reason, the first floor in England). “But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it, if I were you.”

  “Eeeek!” Easter, the youngest of the housemaids, burst from a bedroom and raced by us, her eyes huge. “Ghosts! There’s something in there! It’s slimy and cold and it touched me! Eeeuggggggh!”

  I stopped Max as he was about to go into the room and investigate. “That’s Barbara’s room.”

  “Ah,” he said, then did an about-face. “It can wait.”

  I smiled after him as he went to wash off his hand, then slowly made my way downstairs.

  I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and peered around suspiciously. “Any signs of ectoplasm? Anyone else vomiting up lobster salad? Have the scullery girls taken hostages?” I asked Teddy, back on door duty.

  He rolled his eyes. “No, but you missed the excitement when Sam tripped over Honey as she was cleaning the stairs. He fell half a dozen steps. Almost dropped the camera. Gave Roger a bit of a fright.”

  “Is Sam all right?”

  Teddy nodded, then cocked an ear toward the door. “Sounds like the carriage Roger hired to bring people up the drive. Tabby! Carriage! You’d best be getting into the ballroom,” he said as Tabby bolted out of the small sitting room, Matthew right behind her.

  I hobbled off as quickly as I could to the ballroom, stopping in wonder at the center of the room. “Holy moly, this place is . . . wow!”

  Alice and Easter glanced in from where they were restacking the extra punch cups. The gold drawing room was fabulous enough—the smaller tables in it were decked out with gorgeous flowers of russets and reds and golds—but the ballroom positively took my breath away. Roger had decided on a Greek theme for the party, due primarily, I suspected, to the fact that there was a lot of Greek props lying around the U.K. Alive! studio, but regardless of the purpose, the staff had done a wonderful job creating an idyllic bower out of a late Georgian ballroom. False columns wrapped in ivy had been placed along the walls, huge man-sized urns erupting with greenery scattered among them, tall reproduction statues of Greek gods and goddesses at every corner of the room, a faux marble temple complete with scattered cushions, statue of Athena, and fallen columns resided at one end of the room, while at the other, next to where the members of the string quartet Roger hired were setting up, several low couches in green and silver had been placed. The flames from the gas jets flickered and danced in the heat of the evening, and above it all, in a massive chandelier that hung over the center of the room, candles gave off the faint odor of beeswax.

  “It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Alice asked from behind me.

  I turned to spread my hands wide in a gesture of disbelief. “I can’t believe you guys did this in just a few hours.”

  “Well . . .” she slid a glance toward Easter. “We didn’t, as a matter of fact. You were sleeping off your painkiller and Mrs. Peters was busy trying to whip her ghosts up into a frenzy, so I had to go to Max. He saw that there was no way we would get everything done in time, so he made Roger bring in a couple people to help decorate.”

  “Oh, geez, I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help,” I said miserably. “I feel horrible that you got stuck with everything.”

  “Don’t. It all turned out for the best. There’s only the buffet supper to be got through, then the cleaning up tonight, and it’ll all be over.”

  “How are things downstairs? Is there anything I should be doing there?”

  “No,” she said, biting her lip. “Although . . . everyone, the girls and Cook and Alec and Thorn, they’d like to pop up to see the guests in their finery.”

  “Tell them they’re welcome to come
and join the party.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Oh, we couldn’t do that. Roger would be livid if the servants mingled with the guests.”

  “Screw Roger,” I said blithely. “You guys have worked your respective butts off for a solid month. You all deserve a chance to enjoy the last bit of fun.”

  “But, Tessa—”

  “I’m still in charge of you,” I said with faux hauteur. “You have to do what I say until the ball’s over, and I say you tell the rest of the servants that they can join the party any time they want to.”

  “Perhaps later on, after Roger has the footage he needs of the nobs dancing and stuffing their faces.”

  I giggled, then sobered up when I realized how much of a friend she had been to me. “I can’t thank you enough for everything, Alice. All your support and help and . . . well, everything. It’s meant a lot to me to know you were on my side. I hope we can stay in touch after all this is over.”

  She gave me a knowing smile. “You’ll be staying in England?”

  “You’d better believe I am. It’s not every day a girl finds herself a real live descendant of a duke.”

  She laughed and gave my hand a squeeze before hurrying over to stand at the table holding the champagne and punch, taking her position next to a morosely dignified Palmer. I turned to greet the first of the guests as they came laughing and chattering into the ballroom.

  The next hour was spent greeting people, most of the time with Max at my side, mingling, keeping an eye on Bret and Michael as they moved through the room passing out glasses of champagne, answering questions about my pronounced limp, and other hostess-type duties.

  Cynthia showed up after an hour, wearing the most indescribably lovely fairy costume I’ve ever scene. It was made up of ultrathin layers of wispy silk that floated around her as she moved. Her hair was arranged in beautiful golden curls, over which she’d spritzed some glittery stuff so her hair sparkled in the light of the candles and gas jets. It was also a very low-cut, and not in the remotest sense Victorian, costume.

  “Max,” she positively cooed as she oozed over to him, her hips working overtime. She could have worn a sign that said WANTS TO JUMP HIS BONES and it would have been more subtle than the way she walked up to him.

  “Darling, you look positively scrummy. I could just”— she paused to lick her lips and send him a look that a blind man wouldn’t have mistaken—“eat you.”

  “Hello, Cynthia,” I said, limping my way forward, trying to stop my teeth from grinding. “Max is mine. We’re getting married. If there’s any eating to be done—and I have to tell you, he tastes delicious, all of him, every square inch—I’ll be the one doing it. Just thought you’d like to know that. Buh-bye.”

  She eyed Max carefully. He wrapped his arm around my waist and hauled me up next to him. “I see. Well, I hope you’ll both be happy.”

  I stared at her. “What? What? You hope we’ll be happy? You’re not going to throw a fit and claim him as your own and try to weasel your way into his good graces again? You’re not going to try to steal him from me, not that you could, but you’re not going to even try?”

  “Certainly not,” she said, a faint line forming between her brows. “I’m not so desperate for a man that I have to fight for one. Quite the reverse, I assure you.”

  I gave in and had a good goggle. “Would you tell me why, then, you’ve been wiggling your hips after Max? And why you switched your Scheherazade costume with mine? And why you’ve been plotting with Barbara to make me look bad in front of him?”

  Her eyebrows went up as she glanced at Max. He gave her an apologetic smile. “She’s a bit possessive. Oddly enough, I find I like it.”

  “Do you really? I can’t say I enjoyed being pushed into that filthy lake.”

  I elbowed Max in the belly. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. I’m not possessive. Well, maybe just a little. OK, a lot, but that still doesn’t explain why Sheba here was slinking around after you.”

  Cynthia made an expressive little movement of her head. “Barbara said that Max had wanted to renew our relationship. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, and as I had a little free time—and he’s a very good lover— I thought we might enjoy a long weekend together. But it became quite clear the day of the garden party that he was not interested in me, and that you were prone to regrettable acts of violence in staking your claim on him, so I left.”

  “But, the costume . . .” I said.

  “Yes, what about the costume?” Max asked, his voice rumbling deep with suspicion.

  “Barbara switched the costume the wardrobe ladies made for her with mine. Hers was . . . er . . . a bit snug.”

  Cynthia eyed me but said nothing about the obvious. “That you will not be able to lay at my doorstep. I had nothing to do with that. I’ve told you; it was quite clear to me that you and Max were together. I have no intention to steal him away from you.”

  “Gah!” I shouted. “I just hate it when someone I’m all ready to hate turns out to be nice and decent and almost likeable.”

  “Almost?” Cynthia asked, one of her blond eyebrows arching in a perfect curve.

  “There was that ‘very good lover’ comment. I had to take a few points off for that,” I explained.

  “Oh yes, of course,” she nodded, understanding completely, and after a couple more minutes of chitchat about her studio and an upcoming show she was participating in, she moved off to mingle. She was instantly swarmed with men, a fact that made me feel particularly smug since there was one man who wasn’t tempted by her dancing hips.

  I saw Barbara talking with her a short while later. Barbara didn’t look very happy, but although she shot me some glances that should have dropped me dead on the spot, she didn’t say anything to me. I hoped the matter was settled in her mind and that she’d just let me be. It was going to be difficult enough to start a life with Max; I didn’t need a sister-in-law who hated my guts.

  Despite the cameras and anachronistic language around me, it was quite easy to forget that we were in the twenty-first century. When the quartet sounded the opening notes of the waltz, my heart started beating wildly as people cleared the dance floor. Max walked across the floor, his eyes lit with something that looked very much like love and pride, something so soft it had me stepping out to meet him halfway.

  “Have I told you how lovely you look?” he asked, taking my outstretched hands in his.

  “No, and I think you’re going to have to be punished for that later on,” I answered, smiling up into his warm, deep, endlessly blue eyes. “I love you, Max.”

  He lifted my hands to his lips, kissing my fingers, then turning my hands to kiss my palms. “You are my life, duchess. Can you manage once around the room if we take it slow?”

  “I can do anything, now that I have you,” I vowed, and stepped into his arms.

  All right, I’m willing to admit that we won’t take any prizes for waltzing and that my movements were stilted and a bit jerky, but I will remember for the rest of my life the feeling of waltzing around that room, the flames dancing in air made turbulent by the movement of so many people, the heady scent of flowers mingling with the spicy essence of the man who smiled down at me. Faces familiar and unfamiliar flashed by us in a blur of color as we danced slowly in a circle, a spate of applause dying as others joined us in the elegant sway and dip of the waltz.

  “Shall we stop?” Max asked as others whipped by us.

  “No, not unless you mind dancing in the slow lane,” I laughed, my heart dancing a waltz of its own as I fought back tears of happiness. I was so happy, so utterly happy, in Max’s arms that I could have sworn nothing could ruin that.

  You know thinking thoughts like that is tempting the fates.

  A couple hours later, while most everyone was scarfing down the cold ham and turkey, cucumber salad, lobster patties, shrimp puffs, and copious other goodies—not to mention guzzling great quantities of champagne, punch, wine, and whisky (although hopefully not at
the same time)—I went upstairs to take some more ibuprofen and check on Melody.

  I peeked into her room and found her sitting up, reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  “How you feeling, squirt?”

  “A lot better. I haven’t thrown up again, and Ellis said my fever is gone. Can I see the party? Please?”

  I felt the back of her neck, then put my lips to her forehead.

  “You kissed me,” she said, her eyes big.

  “Naw, I was just checking to see if you have a fever. Didn’t your mom ever do that?”

  She shook her head. “Dad kisses me there, but he uses a thermometer to see if I have a fever.”

  “Sometimes the old-fashioned ways are better.”

  She eyed me suspiciously.

  “OK, maybe it was half a kiss and half a fever check. Is that better?”

  She shrugged and tried not to look pleased. “I don’t care.”

  “Come on, let’s get you into your Alice outfit. How’s Mademoiselle doing?”

  Melody climbed out of bed, frowning at the door that connected the governess’ room to hers. “She’s sleeping. She snores.”

  “So does your father.”

  She waited until I was buttoning up her costume before addressing that comment. “Dad is happy.”

  “I hope so. He makes me happy. Doesn’t he make you feel that way?”

  Her thin little shoulders rose and dropped. “Sometimes.”

  I tied the bow on her pinafore while she donned the Alice headband. “There you go—good enough to eat. And speaking of that, I want you to go easy on the snacks. Stick to the bland stuff, like the turkey. I know it’s no fun, but you don’t want to overload your stomach while it’s still touchy.”

  She wrinkled up her nose as we walked down the stairs.

  “And nothing but punch! Your father will have both our hides if he catches you drinking anything alcoholic. OK?”

  “OK,” she agreed, rolling her eyes in that time-honored preteen way.

  “Tessa?” she asked a minute later as we came down the last flight of stairs.