Maid to Match (14 page)
“Rub!”
Tillie hesitated only a moment before massaging first one foot and then the other. The smell from the girl’s feet filled the room. Mama’s had never held an odor, nor had she expected them to be rubbed. Tillie would have to throw open the windows during dinner to air everything out.
Miss DePriest sighed, her eyes drifting shut.
Finally, Tillie rose. “Would you like me to brush your hair now?”
“Uh-huh.” But she didn’t budge.
Tillie moved behind her, quietly slipped a handkerchief from her own pocket, wiped her hands, then removed the pins from Miss DePriest’s hair. Taking up a brush, she smoothed the hair over the back of the couch. It was long, silky, and the color of lemon chiffon pie.
Tillie smiled. It was going to be a pleasure to dress it. Tucking away the brush, she turned down the soft cotton bedding and fluffed two feather pillows against a caned headboard.
“Miss DePriest?” she whispered.
A soft snore.
She hesitated, then finally decided to wake the girl. “Come now, miss. Your bed is all cozy and waiting.”
Miss DePriest fluttered her eyes, their color like the blue forget-me-nots in the breakfast room flower arrangement downstairs. Tillie helped her up, guided her to the bed, and tucked her in.
Burrowing into her pillows, she mumbled something.
“Beg your pardon, miss?” Tillie leaned close.
“To dinner I’ll be wearing my brown Félix with the small check in the front and back.”
“Yes, miss.” Tiptoeing to the chair, she collected the discarded clothing and slipped into the hall.
As soon as she reached the servants’ passage, she cradled the garments and all but flew to the upstairs gown-room. She needed to unpack, find the Félix gown, undergarments, shoes, stockings, gloves and hat, then freshen them and lay them out in Miss DePriest’s dressing room. All within the next forty minutes.
Tillie burst into the Paris Gown-Room and stopped short. Lucy Lewers hooked an elaborate silk evening skirt onto a lower rod. The room of highly polished hardwood floors, ceilings, and walls were lined with nothing but tier upon tier of varnished poles – offering no place for dust to harbor.
A third of the tiers were filled with gowns. The rest were barren except for a smattering of padded skirt-supporters decorated with colorful ribbons.
“What are you doing in here?” Tillie asked.
Lucy brushed a speck of dirt from the skirt she’d hung. “I ran out of space in my gown-room, so I had to put the overflow in here.”
Tillie stiffened. “You can’t do that. Miss DePriest has six trunks.
Six
. I need every inch of space in here. You’ll have to move them.”
Lucy arched a brow. “You mean you haven’t even started unpacking? Why, I’m already finished. I’d assumed this room was extra, since nothing was hanging up.”
Tillie looked at the three trunks anchored in the middle of the room. “Well, it’s not. As you can see, it’s filled with trunks and there’s more in the hall. Now, move your clothing. And where are all my skirt-supporters? I put rods of them in here early this morning.”
“Did you?” She touched three fingertips to her lips. “And here I thought they were for anyone who needed them.”
Tillie widened her eyes. “You used my skirt-supporters? I went up and down four flights of stairs five different times stocking my poles.”
“Well, heavens. Why didn’t you use the elevator?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now, I suppose. Good luck with unpacking all this before dinner.”
“Lucy, you have to move your lady’s clothing and you need to replace the skirt-supporters you took. I need them. Right away.”
She waggled her fingers. “You better get busy and find some, then.”
In disbelief, Tillie stared at the now empty doorway before shaking herself. Balancing the clothing she carried, she tossed the items for laundry in the corner, draped the shirtwaist, petticoat, and corset over her arm, then hung the skirt on one of the few remaining supporters.
She’d deal with Lucy later. For now, she needed to find the Félix gown and its accessories. Opening a connecting door, she entered another wooden room with a modest fireplace flanked by closets, wardrobes, chests of drawers, and an abundance of airy space. Opening the glass-fronted chiffonier, she gasped. The shelves were empty.
Throughout the past two weeks she’d stuffed rose petals, lavender buds, and geraniums from the Biltmore gardens into sachet sacks, then lined the chiffonier shelves and drawers. Yet none of the sachets were inside. She opened the top drawer, then the next. And the next. And the next. Nothing.
Lucy
.
She arranged the shirtwaist, corset, and petticoat in the drawers, then hurried into the other room. There was nothing she could do for now. She needed to find the Félix gown.
Mack returned to the fourth floor to retrieve the empty trunks he’d carried up earlier and found Tillie headfirst inside one.
Heaps of white tissue paper blanketed the Paris Gown-Room floor like newly fallen snow. Trunks with raised lids were strewn about. Silky nightgowns, lace-trimmed geegaws, and beribboned articles spilled out of their bellies like jewels in a treasure box.
But it was Tillie’s delectable bottoms-up profile which captured his full attention. Muttering to herself, she leaned in farther, her skirts twitching at her precarious stance while offering him a glimpse of a well-turned ankle.
“Tillie?”
She banged her head on the side of the trunk, bit out a heartfelt expletive, then raised up like a groundhog checking for spring. A piece of white tissue tumbled off her shoulder.
“Stop doing that!” she snapped.
“Doing what?”
“Sneaking up on me.”
“Sneaking? I clomped down this entire hall, but you were muttering so loud, you didn’t hear me coming.” He looked about the room. “Is something wrong?”
“My mistress wants to wear a brown Félix with a small check in the front and back, but I have no idea what trunk it’s in. Lucy used up a third of my space in here, most of the lower rods and all of my skirt-supporters. My sachets have vanished. And once I find this blasted dress, I still have to beat it, dust her hat, brush her shoes, arrange her dressing room, lay out her toilet table, and bring her hot water. How in the world am I going to accomplish all that in the next twenty minutes?”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her she would also need to repair her appearance. Tendrils of hair escaped their pins and her hat sat askew. In the month he’d been here, he’d never seen her so mussed, and he had no defense against the panic in her voice.
“What can I do?” he asked.
Her lips parted. “Do you mean it? They aren’t screaming for you belowstairs?”
He shrugged. “They can do without me for twenty minutes.”
Her gaze darted about the room. “I’ll find her hat, gloves, and shoes; you start on the trunks in the hall. We’re looking for a brown-checked shirtwaist and skirt.”
Retreating to the hall, he unlatched the nearest trunk and raised its lid. Pale blue tapes crisscrossed white tissue, holding and protecting the cargo within. He flipped open his pocketknife and cut the tapes, then tossed the shielding tissue aside.
Something green. He lifted it, then reared back. The stuffed shirtwaist looked as if a headless horsewoman had lost her bottom half along with her head. Sleeves, waist, and bust had been filled with tissue, leaving every bow and geegaw intact.
Laying her on the floor, he tried not to look at her as he flung another layer of tissue to the side. More green. Yards and yards of it. He speedily lifted it.
Her bottom half, stuffed at the waist. He jammed the skirt beneath the shirtwaist. Better. At least all she was missing now was her head.
“Mack?”
He stopped and leaned around the doorway. In one hand Tillie held a brown hat heaped high with feminine fluff. In the other, a horse brush. Or at least, what looked like one.
“You find it?” he asked.
“No, but handle the contents of those trunks very gingerly. If you wrinkle anything, it’ll add hours and hours to my workday.”
He glanced at the green skirt crumpled on the floor. “Will do.”
He straightened the folds in the skirt like an attendant fussing with a bridal train, reaching underneath to smooth out the net lining.
“What the devil are you doing?” Earl asked, amazement tingeing his voice.
Mack snatched his hand back. His brother stood at the top of the stairs wearing indoor livery and a wide grin.
Heat rushed to Mack’s face. “Tillie’s lady didn’t arrive until the eleventh hour and has a particular dress she wants to wear. I was helping her look for it.”
Earl raised a brow, but before he could respond, Tillie waded to the doorway.
“Earl! I thought they had you in the carriage house.”
“Moved me back inside for the party. Who’s your bird?”
“DePriest.”
He frowned. “Never seen her here before. She giving you a hard time?”
“I’m just a bit behind, is all. Did they send you up here after Mack?”
He nodded. “Time to go, big brother.”
“Not until we find that dress.” He tossed Earl his pocket-knife. “You start on that end. We’re looking for a brown-checkered one.”
Earl caught the knife one-handed, then popped open the trunk closest to him.
Tillie bit her lip. “Thank you.”
“Go on,” Mack said, turning his attention back to his trunk. “We’ll find it.”
She scurried inside the room, the tissue on the floor rustling like autumn leaves.
Earl removed a stuffed, dark blue shirtwaist with big white swirls, gave a short bark of laughter, then looked over at Mack with a leer and squeezed the bodice’s plumpest part.
Mack chuckled. “Don’t wrinkle it or you’ll make more work for Tillie.”
The green shirtwaist and skirt, ballooned as it was, had taken up almost the entire trunk. He flung a final piece of tissue aside, releasing a burst of flower-garden smells. Rearing back, he let the aroma dissipate before peering inside. A layer of the fanciest undergarments he’d ever seen lined the bottom. Frilly corsets, silk stockings, lacy falderals, and silk drawers.
He glanced at Earl, then quickly covered the unmentionables back up. The image of all those trappings had seared his brain, though. Thank goodness he wasn’t a footman. He’d never be able to look Miss DePriest in the eye.
“Found it!” Earl raised a wood brown shirtwaist with a diagonal plaid.
Tillie exclaimed from deep inside the room, then scurried out holding dainty slippers of the same fabric. “Oh! You did it! That’s it! Thank you so much.”
Giving her a broad wink, he bowed. “At your service, miss.”
The smile she bestowed on him sucked the breath right out of Mack.
“You better hurry, though,” Earl said, straightening. “The hourglass is running short.”
“I know. Thanks again.”
Earl laid the garment back in the trunk and headed toward the stairwell. “You coming, Mack?”
“Right behind you.” But instead, he waited until Earl had disappeared, then turned to Tillie. “What all do you have left?”
“That’s it. I have everything gathered and brushed, so it’s just a matter of getting it down to her dressing room.”
He nodded. “Well, fix your hair. You’re a mess.”
She touched her head, found locks of hair straggling down her back, then shoved the shoes she held toward him. “Here.”
He caught them against his gut, then watched her pull the hat combs loose. Whipping off the snowy cap, she handed it to him, too, its long streamers floating down to rest against his trouser legs.
She yanked out half a dozen hairpins, stuck them in her mouth, lifted her face to the ceiling, and shook her head like some forest sprite, sending waves of black curls to her hips.
His heart slammed against his chest. Never had he seen a woman do such things before. The grace with which she moved, the silkiness of her hair, the lashes lying along her cheeks, the white teeth clamped around celluloid pins. All of it mesmerized him.
With quick, efficient movements, she gathered her hair into her hands, then wrung it like a mop and twisted it to her head, jamming pin after pin against her scalp.
Snatching her cap from between his fingers, she propped it on top of her head and tucked in the combs. “Thanks.”
He stood tongue-tied and off-balance as if he were a youth discovering life’s mysteries for the first time.
She rushed back inside and returned with hat, gloves, stockings, and who knew what all draped underneath a large ruffled petticoat.
“I guess I’ll have to come back for the dress. Thanks again, Mack.” Grabbing the shoes he’d forgotten he had, she rushed to the stairs, white streamers flapping behind her like wings.
It took him less than ten seconds to snatch up the brown-checkered shirtwaist and skirt, then follow her to the passageway which led to Miss DePriest’s room.
Miss DePriest drove her fingers into her hair and vigorously scratched her head, undoing the second coiffure Tillie had styled. “No, no, no. That was too low and the last one too high. Somewhere in the middle and be quick about it.”