Laurie Brown Read Online Free PDF Page A

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