“You’re quite lucky,” Fiona said. “I know a score of charwomen and scullery maids ready to trade their lot with yours this instant.”
Chloe rubbed her temples. There it was again, that flash of her and a tall, dark, and white-cravat-throated someone, this time in a ballroom under a candlelit chandelier.
The door swung open again. It was George.
“George!” Chloe called out. “We need to talk.”
“We will talk. We will, Miss Parker. And not to worry. We’ll edit out any naughty bits, for the American market at least. And soon as you’re ready I’ll explain all the rules. Cheers!” He slammed the door again behind him.
Chloe shot up. “Naughty bits? What naughty bits?!”
“I dunno, Miss Parker. Dunno.”
Muslin turned out to be a very thin fabric, nearly sheer, and Chloe knew better than to hope for petticoats, because those had gone out of fashion by 1812.
Just as Fiona held up an equally threadbare chemise to go under the gown, Chloe’s phone rang.
“See, Fiona, how modern technology interrupts our lives?”
It was Abigail. “Hi, Mom! Grandma told me not to tell you yet, but Dad took me out to lunch today.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. After the plethora of times he’d been on the road, missing Abigail’s school plays and hip-hop dance recitals, Chloe was out of town for the first time since the divorce, and he’d swooped in on day one.
“Dad’s engaged,” Abigail continued. “He’s going to be married in September and the good news is I get to be a flower girl! I get to wear a pretty dress and throw the petals and ride in a limo and . . .”
Chloe leaned against the cold whitewashed wall to support herself. She didn’t even know that Winthrop was dating. He hadn’t even talked to her as to how to approach this with Abigail. “Are you sure about this, Abigail?” The gown loomed in front of her. White. Floor-length. Gown. The last time she’d worn one of these was . . . her wedding.
“I’ll be right back, Mom. I need to look up satellites on the computer, I’m doing a mock-up for my science camp. Here’s Grandma.”
A cameraman stepped closer and Chloe lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mom, I don’t have time now—”
Her mother plowed ahead anyway. “I just thought you should know that Winthrop wants to reopen the custody arrangement now that he’s engaged. His promotion to senior VP means he won’t be traveling all the time.”
Chloe clutched the ruffle on her blouse and both cameramen closed in on her. Winthrop wouldn’t dare put them all through another custody trial, would he? She wanted to shout, but just bit her lip for the cameras.
Fiona’s shoulders slumped, she set the chemise down on the chaise, and stepped over to the fire.
Chloe’s mom sighed. “You really need to win that money over there, Chloe. Now that he’s promoted.”
Chloe turned her back to the cameras. “Everybody’s a senior vice president these days, Mom, that title doesn’t mean anything anymore.” The engagement and less travel would give him leverage, though.
Fiona stabbed the poker in the fire.
“I can’t talk long, Mom, but take good care of Abigail, and thanks—for everything.”
“Bye, dear. Here’s Abigail.”
“Mom, you’re really going to like Dad’s fiancée.”
Chloe doubted that. “Mmm-hmm. What’s her name?”
“Marcia.”
“Marcia what, angel?”
“Marcia Smith.”
No chance of Googling or finding a Smith on any social network site. She’d never felt the urge to cyberstalk someone until now.
“She’s a very successful businesswoman Daddy says.”
Chloe’s eyelid twitched.
“She was in a magazine. She showed me.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “What magazine?”
“It was a funny name for a magazine, like fortune cookie. Oh, yeah. Fortune magazine.”
Of course Marcia Smith was in Fortune.
“She has long blond hair and does Pilates every day and she’s very excited about being my other mom, she says.”
Chloe made a fist. She almost growled. She thought the smoke she was smelling was coming out of her ears, but then she remembered that Fiona had stirred the fire. Chloe had never even thought of sharing Abigail with a stepmother. “She sounds nice,” she said through clenched teeth. “Tell Daddy I said ‘congrats.’ I can’t wait to see your flower-girl dress.”
Wasn’t Marcia fortunate enough with her long blond hair and money and her Pilates body? She could have Winthrop, but did she have to take away her daughter, too?
“Still, I don’t want to call her ‘Mom,’” Abigail said.
Relieved, Chloe looked into the cameras again. As Abigail recounted the dessert Winthrop and Marcia had bought her, Chloe made her decision about this show. Her mom was right, she had to win the money now.
More determined than ever, she decided to toss her bonnet in the ring.
“Sweetheart, I have to go. I’ll call you soon, though, and you know I’m thinking about you every minute, right?”
“I know. You tell me every day, jeez!”
They both smooched into the phone and hung up. Chloe hurried across the room to Fiona, who was struggling with the fire. The cameramen followed her, and Chloe looked back at them, adjusting to the creepy feeling of being watched, followed, and filmed.
Fiona put another log on while Chloe took the antique red-andgold fireplace bellows and, as if she’d been doing this her whole life, fanned the fire.
Fiona eased the bellows out of Chloe’s hands. “Much obliged, but it’s not your place to tend the fire. Might we get you dressed now?”
“Of course.”
Chloe put her hands on her hips and spoke to the camera crew. “But only if you leave, okay?”
Not a one of them said a word.
Fiona ushered Chloe back behind the screen. “The crew cannot speak to us, only George can. They’ll stay on the other side of the screen and won’t film you until your chemise is on and I’m lacing up your stays, or corset, as you may know it. They’ll film from the back at that point. Agreed?”
Like she had a choice? She nodded in agreement.
Chloe undressed quickly so Fiona couldn’t do it for her. She relinquished her bra and green cotton panties.
“This is your chemise, also called a shift, and you wear it under all your gowns.” Fiona swooshed it over Chloe’s head.
It was sleeveless, grazed her kneecaps, and was so thin it almost wasn’t there.
Fiona slid Chloe’s arms into the stays, began to tighten the laces, and continued her narrative. “Regency women wore stays,” she said with a pause.
The cameras came in on cue, and Chloe got goose bumps just thinking about being filmed in, essentially, her 1812 underwear.
“Regency stays, unlike the Victorian corset, weren’t boned, and weren’t meant to cinch the waist, but were intended to push the bosom up and out like a shelf.”
“I’ll take whatever help I can get!” Chloe said into one of the cameras, but the cameraman didn’t crack a smile.
“You’ll have shorter stays, too, for your more athletic pursuits, but today, posture is everything and you’re wearing this longer one, with the busk.”
Chloe remembered reading about busks at some point, but never really understood what they were or how they worked.
Fiona wielded the busk, a smooth, flat piece of wood, kind of like a rounded ruler, and slid it into a sewn-in pocket down the front of Chloe’s stays, from the middle of her cleavage to her belly button.
“But how am I going to—”
“Bend at the waist? You won’t. You’ll have to bend at the hip.”
Chloe was thinking more about the logistics of, shall we say, bending to go to the bathroom with a ten-inch ruler down the middle of her chest.
Fiona continued the lacing, and Chloe grew impatient, thinking she’d have to go through this every morning and night. The numerous and tiny eyelet holes were just that: holes without reinforcements. What a pain! She looked longingly at her simple bra with the hooks, folded neatly and in a plastic storage bag on the chaise.