Laurie Brown (3 page)

Josie sighed in relief.

“In my day I was deemed an exceptional card player. A reputation founded less on luck than on my ability to read nuances of
behavior in my opponents and bet accordingly. Your thoughts are, at times, quite obvious.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a gambler.”

“Oh, but I think you are.You’re still here, aren’t you?”

Desperate to change the subject to anything other than herself, Josie dropped her gaze to the books in her hands,
The Honours of the Table
and
A
System of Etiquette
, both from 1804. She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “A little light reading before dinner?”

Deverell either missed her sarcasm or chose to ignore it.

“Those volumes will give you the basics. Because total immersion is the quickest method of learning, we will recreate as nearly
as possible the conditions of my mother’s house party.” He paused and then said,“You will live for the next week as if in
the year 1815.”

Josie found his habit of making statements as if they were royal pronouncements particularly annoying.

“What about the servants?”

Amelia’s voice startled Josie. She’d practically forgotten that the older woman was in the same room. Josie peeked guiltily
at the ghost and caught him glancing back in much the same manner.

“Won’t all this seem strange?” Amelia continued, stacking the used dishes onto a tray.“What am I supposed to tell them?”

Josie laughed at the shocked look on Deverell’s face. He’d obviously never considered it necessary to explain his actions
to servants. However, he quickly recovered his composure.

“You might tell them that your inn will have a Regency theme and that this is a practice run.”

He said
inn
with a derisive curl of his upper lip. He must have practiced that look in the mirror to scare off dogs and salesmen.What
about scaring off curious paranormal researchers? Josie shivered, hoping he’d never turn that sneer on her.

Deverell rose and assumed a position on the right side of the fireplace where he’d first appeared. He propped one elbow on
the mantle in a pose similar to that of his portrait. Had the artist chosen that particular stance because it was his usual
preference? Or had Deverell copied the portrait because it showed his physique to advantage?

Particularly tall for a man of his time, Josie figured him at just a shade under six feet. More than enough for her, at five
foot two, to have to stretch her head back to look him in the eye when they both were standing. Because she was seated, her
neck ached with the effort, and she dropped her gaze.A modern man would probably consider the high collar and lavish cravat
too feminine to be worn by a man. On Deverell, the froth of linen and lace served to highlight the masculinity of his slightly
aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and strong jaw. His cutaway coat accented his broad shoulders, an embroidered silk vest fit
snugly across his flat stomach, and his closely tailored breeches left little to her imagination. A warmth that started deep
within her threatened to erupt in a hot blush, and she forced herself to look at the fancy buckles at his knees.

“Or you can say Miss Drummond is tempting your ghost...to appear,” Deverell said with a wide smile that caused a deep dimple
to wink momentarily in one cheek.

He was talking about the explanation to the servants, wasn’t he? Josie sat up straighter. “I’d rather you didn’t put words
in my mouth,” she said to him.

Deverell tipped his head back and looked down his nose at her. “If you thought the ploy would work, would you use it?”

Josie had to admit she would.

“Then I am simply saving the time it would take to manipulate the conversation so you would make the suggestion yourself.”

“Your logic is lacking. I...I might not respond as you expect.” Josie’s argument sounded weak, even to herself.With disgust
she realized that her usually dependable brain went fuzzy when he smiled at her.When was the last time a man had made her
stutter over her words? But he wasn’t a man. He was a ghost. If she was getting this goggle-eyed over a bona fide specter,
handsome or not, she needed to get out more often.

“Manifestation uses energy,” he said, breaking into her self-chastisement.

She focused on his words and tried not to let his deep intoxicating voice distract her.

Two

“M
ANIFESTATION USES ENERGY AND
I
DO
not have an unlimited supply. By my calculations I can spend only a few hours a day in this form without depleting my reserves,”
he continued. “I see no point in wasting precious time pacifying servants or applying verbal balm to your outraged sensibilities.”

His insulting attack was a bucket of cold water to her senses, but the information he’d inadvertently disclosed caused her
to duck her head to hide a satisfied grin. Already her agreement to cooperate was yielding valuable material. A ghost had
a definable and limited amount of energy that he could choose how to expend.

“In that case, I agree with you,” Josie said. She made a mental note to start keeping a journal. She didn’t want to forget
any tidbit of information that could prove valuable later.

“Well, I don’t agree,” Amelia said. “Neither of you seems to understand how difficult it is to keep decent servants.” She
stood and straightened her sweater over the waist of her tweed skirt. “I’ll call a staff meeting and use both explanations,
the Regency theme for the inn, and Josie setting bait for the ghost.” She looked meaningfully at Deverell. “This scheme had
better work, because I’ll probably have to pay them extra.”

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 suddenly. “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.”