Read Online Brilliant Devices by Shelley Adina - Free Book Online

you don’t.” Davina took her wrist and pulled her in. For such a tiny thing, she had a grip like a bear trap. Something like this dad-blasted corset—Alice could swear her ribs were actually grinding against one another under its merciless compression, never mind her lungs.
    The Canton modiste was as delicate as a lily, but there was nothing delicate in the way she moved Alice in one direction then another, the measuring tape hissing this way and that upon her body. Good grief. Why did anyone need to know how big she was around the bum when it all got covered up with fifty yards of material anyway?
    “Heavens, Alice, the last vestige of the bustle went out last year,” Davina told her briskly. “Now one leads from the bosom, with slender hips and lots and lots of froufrou under the skirt from the knees down.”
    Alice was afraid to ask what froufrou was, exactly, in case it was something that hurt.
    Silks and organdies and velvets became a blur, and when she couldn’t answer or make a decision to save her life, Davina conferred with the modiste and made said decisions herself with the expertise of long practice.
    Who knew she spoke Cantonese, too?
    The only good part was when Alice’s measurements were duplicated on the expandable body of a gleaming bronze automaton, whose arms and legs ratcheted in and out depending on the customer’s stature. But even then, she was whisked away for a conference on bodices and forced to choose between puffed sleeves or cap, instead of examining the way they made the automaton duplicate her gait so the skirt would accommodate her stride.
    At this very moment her father could be on a train for goodness knows where, and she was required to make a decision about sleeves?
    Again she fought the desire to weep.
     

Chapter 7
     
    The dresses were delivered the next evening, two hours before they were to depart for the governor’s mansion. The Mopsies both came to Davina’s stateroom to watch the three of them dress.
    “’is poor lordship,” Maggie remarked. “Booted out of ’is own room?”
    “His lordship has a dressing room of his own and many fewer yards of material to manage,” Davina told them. “Make yourselves useful, girls, and help Claire and Alice with those skirts. No, Alice dear, it must go on over your head. Try not to disturb your hair, for we do not have time to put it up again.”
    “Ain’t nothing disturbing this hair,” could be heard from the depths of the aquamarine silk. “There’s enough pins in my head to melt down for a pistol.”
    To Claire’s relief, Maggie played ladies’ maid for her while the countess and Lizzie saw to Alice, snapping snaps and tying tapes and fluffing organdy. This was nothing like the blue gown that Ned Mose had taken from her in Resolution. Her new gown was a deep emerald green that brought out F/sp/ps noththe red lights in her auburn hair. A cluster of yellow velvet roses pulled up a flutter of pale gold organdy on each shoulder—and not much else. Claire had never exposed so much of her arms and bosom before, nor been laced in the new style of corset which actually gave her a bosom, not to mention a very tiny waist. The skirts belled out below, embroidered with yellow roses in a border a foot above the hem.
    “Ent you pretty,” Maggie said, standing back so Claire could admire the train behind her in the mirror. “You look like a daffodil, Lady.”
    Claire bent over and kissed her. “And you are kind to say so. Will you wind the pearls about my neck? At least they’ll cover some of me.”
    It was the first time she had had the use of a full-length mirror since the riots in Wilton Crescent, and she almost didn’t recognize herself. With her grandmother’s ring and the St. Ives pearls, and a yellow velvet rose pinned next to her chignon, Claire had to admit that for the first time in her life, she was almost satisfied with what she saw in the glass.
    What a pity Alice could not say the same.
    Alice regarded herself