Laurie Brown Read Online Free PDF

won’t be so bad. Just don’t take any deep breaths.”
    Emma approached, turning the corset over and around, the strings flipping and dangling every which way. “How does this contraption
     work? Does it lace up or down?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Josie said. “Besides, didn’t I read somewhere that Regency women had discarded the corset and even dampened
     their gowns to achieve the natural look.”
    “That was a French custom. A few daring englishwomen tried it in London, but contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the custom
     at country estates,” Amelia explained. “Why anyone would believe an otherwise sane woman would wear a wet dress in a drafty
     old castle is beyond me.”
    “Yet that same supposedly sane woman voluntarily wore a torture device,” Josie said.
    “The corset was an accepted fact of life,” Amelia said.
    “How do you know so much about these clothes?” Josie asked. “And the manners? I understand Deverell lived that life, but you’re,
     I mean, you’re not...”
    “Not that old?” Amelia asked with a chuckle. “Well, not quite.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
    Amelia patted Josie’s shoulder.“You haven’t, dear. In fact I taught history at University for so long, the rumor was that
     I recalled many of the events from personal experience.” She chuckled again. “I admit that knowing Deverell contributed to
     my fascination with the Regency period. He and Jane Austen. Have you seen the fashion displays at the Albert and Victoria
     Museum? Absolutely fabulous. The costume curator is a former student of mine.”
    Josie nodded, shook her head, and nodded in turns, and as usual had difficulty keeping up with Amelia’s quick changes of topic.
    “You could give it a try, and if it’s too uncomfortable, take it off,” Emma suggested, holding out the corset.
    Unable to refute the maid’s simple logic, Josie capitulated. She stepped forward with her arms raised. While Emma tightened
     the laces, Josie looked down and observed with surprise the phenomenon of instant cleavage. She’d never had cleavage before.Was
     this why women had put up with corsets for so many centuries? Okay, it wasn’t unbearable if the laces were loosened a little.
    After donning the blue silk gown, Josie looked in the cheval mirror. The low-cut bodice bared her shoulders and the tops of
     her breasts, now nicely rounded by the pressure of the corset. From the dark blue ribbon under her bust, the deep azure silk
     fell in smooth lines to where the sky blue undergown peeked out just above her ankles.Would Deverell find her attractive?
     Josie chased the thought out of her brain. These clothes were only the trappings necessary to continue her real research project,
     questioning the ghost. However, it didn’t hurt her self-confidence to confront him looking her best.
    “You look like a princess,” Emma said, making a deep curtsey. “And here’s your crown.” She reverently presented a turban made
     of matching blue silk.
    Josie stepped back. “I don’t wear hats.”
    “But it goes with the outfit,” Emma sputtered.
    “I can’t wear that...that thing,” Josie said, staring at the ornate concoction of silk, feathers, and ribbons. Hats made her
     claustrophobic, panicky. She didn’t want to explain that particular neurosis and its antecedents in the riding accident that
     had left her in a body cast and her head in traction for most of the year she was thirteen.“My head sweats,”she explained.
    “Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow,” Amelia said, chastising Josie’s word selection.
    “With that on my head, I’d glow like a neon sign in the rain.” The determined arbiter of Regency fashion didn’t relent. Josie
     tried another tack.“Hats give me a headache.”
    “Well, unmarried women were not required to wear a cap indoors during the day. However in the evening, in order to be proper,
     you must wear something on your head.”Amelia took the turban, and