Corset Diaries Page 6
No, I did not fall down the stairs. How could you even imagine that I did? Sheesh! I walked very carefully and slowly down the stairs, trying to look serene and duchessy, while inside I felt like I was going to explode. Keep in mind that my torso from boobs to hips was compressed, squeezed, smooshed together, pushing everything that normally resided in that space either upward to where my boobs floated before my eyes or downwards to the depths of my pelvis.
I prayed that everything would return to normal once I took off the torture device, a thought that was soon driven from my mind as the camera lights suddenly came on and I realized they were filming me. I forced my lips into what I hoped was a pleasant, not in the least bit terrified, smile, and made it down the last couple of steps without tripping or stumbling.
“Ah, there you are, my dear,” Max said, and came forward from where he had been standing behind a man and a woman. He held his hand out for me. “We have been waiting for you. You look lovely, as usual.”
I stopped dead when I got a good look at him. In everyday clothes he was handsome, what with his black hair and light blue eyes and nice chin and stuff, but in Victorian clothes—black frock coat and pants, patterned waistcoat, snowy white shirt with high collar points, he was breathtakingly gorgeous. I couldn’t keep from staring at him; just the sight of him melted my innards, or what was left of them.
He took my hand and bent over it, his back to the camera, his lips brushing my knuckles as he hissed, “Your mouth is hanging open.”
“Gark,” I said, staring down at the glossy black waves of his hair, then managed to drag my eyes off him. “Good morning, um . . . uh . . .” My mind was a blank, a total and complete blank. What was his name? Why couldn’t I remember it? Come to think of it, what was my name?
“Max,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
“Max. And . . . uh . . . good morning to the rest of you. Here I am! A bit late, but you know us women, always late!”
I groaned beneath my breath and closed my eyes for a few seconds, horrified by the words that had been chosen by my oxygen-starved brain. My first moment on film and what do I do? I stereotype my own sex. Lovely. Women the country over would now hate me.
“Shall we begin? My dear, if you would just stand here. Melody—”
Max had a lovely voice, not loud by any means, but deep and rumbly, the kind of voice that reverberated around in my bones and set up a kind of thrumming in my groin. Then again, it might have been the corset causing the lower half of my torso to go numb; it was hard to tell what exactly was causing all the gurgly feelings in my nether parts, but I’d rather think it was Max than something so mundane as gas.
I followed when he tugged me over to one of the metal storks guarding the inglenook, and stood there with my head bowed while Max’s voice rumbled around the hall. The gurgly feeling increased until I had to admit that no matter how swoony I felt around Max, an attraction toward him couldn’t possibly be responsible for the sharp intestinal pains that were at that moment stabbing through my lower torso. I bitterly regretted the beans on toast I’d eaten for breakfast and sent up more than one prayer of my own that Max would hurry up and finish so I could find the nearest bathroom.
A horrendous pain spasmed through me as Max droned on and on and on. I know the prayer only took a couple of minutes, but it seemed like an eternity as I stood next to him, surrounded by strangers, hot lights blazing off the cameras, bound and trussed, waiting for the torment to end so I could seek relief.
“. . . May God so protect us. Amen.”
“Amen,” everyone said. There was a particularly loud rumble from my guts that I hopefully drowned out with my own amen.
Max turned to me and flashed a smile. “My dear, you would like to add something?”
I stared at him in horror, then realized he wanted me to add a prayer, probably something about the family and home. I switched my mind from the worry that I might make public the fact that I had gas to the panic that I was expected to trot out a prayer. Me, the agnostic. “Um. Why yes, Maximillian, I always do, as you know, ha ha. Uh . . . may the Lord bless all creatures great and small, and . . . uh . . . may we all live long and prosper.”
“Amen,” Max said, with an odd look on his face.
It was at that moment, as the last amens were whispering into nothing, that I wanted to die. A butterscotch-colored spaniel wandered forward from behind the man and woman I took to be Max’s sister and brother-in-law. The dog’s hindquarters were wagging in time with his tail as he snuffled my dress. For a nanosecond I forgot that I was wearing a corset, forgot that I had eaten beans that morning, forgot that my abdomen was cramping with the effort to contain the burbles of gas contained within, forgot that there were cameras trained upon me. I forgot everything as I bent over to pet the dog.
There issued forth from the pertinent part of my anatomy a noise that could not be mistaken for anything but what it was. I shot upright and turned five million shades of red as I looked wildly around. Utter, absolute silence filled the hall as everyone’s gaze shot to me. Max turned to look at me with pure astonishment on his face. I thought briefly about fainting dead away, but I’ve never fainted before and don’t know how to do it, and besides, there comes a time in everyone’s life when you are tested, a moment when you learn exactly what sort of person you are. Either you triumph over such moments by sheer bravado and a sense of humor, or you sink into mortification and allow them to taint the rest of your life.
Evidently, my test was farting in front of what represented millions of viewers.
“Who knew they had barking spiders in England?” I called out gaily to no one in particular, then burst into laughter.
Max stared at me for a moment, his face frozen in a mask of disbelief, then his lips twitched twice, and he tipped his head back and howled with laughter. As if that was a signal, everyone in the room joined us, laughing and snorting and tittering and giggling. Even the camera crew was laughing, Sam wiping his eyes, Tabby doubled over, slapping her knee. I hadn’t thought it was quite that funny, but I was just grateful to have survived the incident without actually dying of embarrassment.
“If you put that on the show, I’ll kill you slowly with a pair of cocktail forks, a wedge of lime, and two double-A batteries,” I swore to Roger through my own now lessening giggles. He grinned broadly and just shook his head.
“I’m so sorry,” I turned to apologize to Max, who was also wiping at his damp eyes. “It seems every time I meet you I have some sort of bodily catastrophe. I can assure you that I’m not normally like this. It’s the corset, you see. It’s pushed everything around and . . . Well, ‘nuff said, right? I mean, I don’t really need to go into the mechanics of it all.”
“Tessa,” Max said, still chuckling. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are here. You’ve made me feel a great deal better.”
“By having gas? You’re a strange man.”
“I was a bit worried about today,” he admitted. “I’m not used to all this, and . . . well, I was worried that it would be a month of solid tedium. I can see with you around that it won’t be.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, that’s me, Tessa the icebreaker.”
“Windbreaker would be more apropos,” Max said and leaned close to me, his lips twitching, which of course meant we both went off again in gales of laughter.
“You’re a very bad man,” I told him, pulling the lacy handkerchief from where I had tucked it up into my sleeve so I could mop up my nose and eyes. “Which is probably why I like you.”
He grinned, then glanced toward the cameras, waggling his eyebrows at them. I sniffed back the remnants of laughter, and was about to introduce myself to the others in the hall when Max suddenly grabbed me by both arms and swooped down to kiss me.
OK, now, let’s not get excited here. It was a short kiss, a brief kiss, a perfunctory kiss, if you will. It was also a kiss that scorched my stockings off, and left me speechless with amazement, but you don’t need to know that.
“Your mouth is hanging open again,” he whispered as he pulled out a chair for me at one end of a table.
I snapped my teeth together, then muttered, “It’s your fault. There ought to be some sort of a warning sign taped above your lips. They’re too potent for their own good.”
He chuckled a sexy chuckle that made my toes curl, then moved off to sit at the other end of the table.
There were four of us at breakfast: Max at the far end, a dark-haired woman who I assumed was Barbara, his sister, on my left, and a big guy with thinning brown hair and more than a little bit of a beer belly on my right. There were also three servants—Teddy the peacock, Bret, and an older man with a long lugubrious face and jutting jaw that I took to be the butler, Palmer. Behind Max’s chair, Sam and Wilma the soundperson stood filming us. I fought down the brief spurt of pure nerves, knowing it would only make my gas problem worse, and smiled brightly at everyone at the table.
Palmer limped over and with a dramatic air of one who has completed a mighty task set down a tall silver teapot to my left. He offered me a beautiful china cup seated on an equally beautiful saucer.
“Are you all right?” I whispered to him, taking the teacup.
“As well as can be expected, what with my unfortunate affliction,” he whispered back.
“You have an affliction?” I asked, surprised. I hadn’t expected that Roger would have hired someone with frail health for such an onerous job.
He pulled his shoulders back and gave me a glare down the long length of his nose. “I have many, Your Grace. Currently, it is my lumbago that is causing me distress.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Is there something I can do?”
He sighed heavily, offering me a silver cream pitcher. “Alas, there is nothing to be done for it. I must bear this cross silently, even while my body is wracked with debilitating pain that would bring down a lesser man.”
It was the grim satisfaction that was replete in his voice when he spoke that clued me in to his true nature. I knew a lot about hypochondriacs; I had been married to one . . . until he died of very real cancer.
Palmer turned from me and with one eye on the camera filming Max, quietly asked Barbara how she took her tea.
“Cream, no sugar. Mr. Slough prefers his with two lumps of sugar,” she answered, her eyes hard as she turned to look at me. I blinked back at her for a moment, then remembered that I was supposed to pour everyone’s tea.
By the time Sam swung the camera around to face me, I was pouring tea like I had been born to it. I even had enough wits about me to say, with much duchessness, “Thank you, Palmer, that will be all. I will ring if I need you.”
“As you like, Your Grace. I shall go attend to the many and varied duties which Your Graces have bestowed upon me.”
He made a little bow to Max, one to me, and just stopped himself in time from making one to Sam and the camera.
Max smiled at me in approval of the tea pouring, I hoped. Whatever the source of the smile, it sent my spirits soaring as we all helped ourselves to the breakfast laid out on the blond oak sideboard. Yes, true, I had a few missteps, but all in all, I thought it was going very well. Life was definitely looking up. There wasn’t much worse that could happen to me, right? “Oooh, this looks lovely. Peaches and cream, rice, um . . . fish? OK.”
“That is Spanish mackerel, Your Grace,” Palmer said as he left the room. “It is one of Cook’s specialties.”
“Num. Mackerel for breakfast, my favorite,” I said, momentarily thankful that the corset would keep me from eating anything but the skinniest food.
“It looks very nice,” Max said, one eye on the camera. He lifted a cover off a dish and blanched. I peeked over his shoulder, also very aware of Sam standing behind us with a camera waiting to capture every expression. Barbara and her husband (I couldn’t remember his name) were scooping up herbed eggs and fried potatoes with little coos of pleasure.
“What do you suppose this is?” Max asked in a whisper.
“I have no idea, but it looks like . . . it looks like . . .”
“A turd.”
“Exactly,” I whispered, giving whatever it was a wary look. “I think I’ll give it a miss.”
One corner of his mouth curled up as he gently set down the lid. “I believe that is a good idea. Might I help you to the eggs?”
“Thank you ever so much,” I said, parroting his plummy aristocratic tones, then had to beat down an unduchesslike giggle when Sam swung the camera around to me.
“Oh, look, Henry, rusks!” Barbara said as she lifted the lid to the poop pan. “It’s been forever since we’ve had a really well-made rusk. What a clever cook you have, Tessa.”
“Why, thank you, Barbara,” I said as I took my place back at the table. I guess there is a bit of ham in me after all, because I smiled brightly for the camera and added, “Cook is a find, isn’t she? Which is remarkable when you consider her history.”
Barbara obviously didn’t catch the wink I tossed her. She frowned at me over a forkful of Spanish mackerel. “Her history?”
I nodded as I nibbled at a piece of wheat toast. “Yes. Poor thing, she was raised by a pack of feral hedgehogs. When she was found by a kindly vicar, she was like a savage beast, naked and snarling at anyone who came within snapping distance. She never saw the inside of a house until she was twenty-four, which makes it all that much more amazing that she should have such a firm grasp on the proper way to form a busk—”
“Rusk,” Max said quickly, his eyes laughing at me. With me, he was laughing with me, not at me.
“Thank you. We in the United States of America sometimes call them busks, depending on the region, and, of course, what day of the week it is. Regardless of that, it is amazing that Cook has such a grasp on rusk making. I personally have never seen finer specimens of ruskness in all my born days. Max himself was just commenting on the rusks. What exactly was it you said they reminded you of, Max?”
He dabbed at his lips with a snowy white linen napkin, slid a quick glance over to where Sam had turned to catch his expression, and sent me a look that promised retribution in the very near future. “I believe I said the rusks resembled the biscuits my sweet old nanny used to bake.”
I smirked and sipped my tea, making a mental note to ask if I could have coffee instead. The tea they served was strong enough to strip paint off a barn. “Just so. Cook’s history is a tragic tale, albeit one with a happy ending, but still, we try not to mention it in her presence. She tends to have hedgehog flashbacks if we do, and as you can imagine, such a thing is not a pleasant sight. All those little grunting noises can quite turn one off one’s feed.”
Barbara stared at me in open-mouthed surprise for the count of three, then she took a deep breath and more or less ignored me for the rest of the meal.
Breakfast went pretty well, considering. I even forgot once or twice that we were being filmed, and due to the fact that I could fit no more than a teaspoon of food into my compressed stomach, I managed to breakfast without spilling on myself.
Afterward I followed Barbara to the morning room— trying not to wheeze and puff as I climbed the stairs, which wasn’t easy, let me tell you!—while Max and Henry went out to examine the stables. Sam and Wilma came with us.
“I thought you might like my assistance with the menus,” Barbara said smoothly, making sure she stood between me and the camera. She struck a dramatic pose and lifted her chin, enunciating her words clearly and with the languid drawl I had always connected with the British royals. “Since you are newly wed and have only arrived in England, I’m sure you will welcome a hand running the household.”
“Oh, well, I—”
“Aft
er all,” she said, stomping all over my words as if I hadn’t spoken, “as sister to the duke, I have been his hostess since his dear, beloved first wife died, and I am most happy to place my experience at your disposal.”
Now, call me catty, but there was just something in her voice that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Delivered of her declaration, she swanned into the room, waving her hand gracefully through the air as she chattered to the camera about all the (completely made up, unless Max lived well beyond the means of the average architect, and had a handy time-travel machine in his basement) parties and fetes and balls she’d hosted for him.
It was a bit disgusting the way she played up to the camera, and made me vow right then and there that I would not allow myself to do the same. I don’t mind playacting a duchess and making up a few harmless details, but I wouldn’t be a camera hog. That said, I had to live with this woman for an entire month, which meant I needed a little tact to handle her.
Unfortunately, tact has always been a bit of an elusive quality in me.
“And then, of course, there was the time the Prince of Wales and dear, dear Princess Alexandra—”
“Yes, fascinating, utterly and completely fascinating, so fascinating that I can quite honestly say that I’d rather have sharpened bamboo sticks shoved under my fingernails while red-hot pokers scorched the tender flesh of my inner arms than have you reach the end of such a marvelous tale, but alas, I must not be so selfish as to think only of my own pleasures.”
She spun around from where she was pontificating to the camera and focused a glare on me.
I smiled and said politely but firmly, “Thank you so much for the offer of your assistance, Barbara. You are generosity personified, as ever, but I feel the time has come for me to take hold of the reins of management for dear Max’s house.”
I batted my eyelashes coyly for the camera, then turned to take a quick glance around the morning room, traditionally used by the ladies as an informal sitting room. The walls were done in a soft, muted shade of green, and the usual arrangement of overstuffed sofa, chairs, and at least one hundred and fifty-seven occasional tables dotted the landscape. I made my way through them and headed straight for a lovely dark writing table that I knew from reading lots of historical romances was commonly called an escritoire. Laid out before the intriguing little drawers with teeny, tiny shiny brass handles were stationery, pens, extra metal nibs, and four different glass jars of ink (blue, black, red, and violet). At the sight of the lovely pens and inks, my fingers itched for my journal.