Silken Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

two by now! She was more than capable of making her own decision as to what was right or wrong, proper or improper. And if she made mistakes—fine. At least they would be her mistakes.
    Making a face at her reflection, Lettie turned away from the mocking gleam of lights in Madison proper, absorbing the creak and shudder of the house and the low moan of the wind as it banged against the house and threatened to rip it from its very foundations. Once again, her hands tightened into balls of frustration. The evening’s atmosphere was perfect for Poe: gloomy and grim. Lettie could almost imagine the spectators huddling in their seats as the actor recited “The Tell-Tale Heart” or “The Raven.”
    Whirling in a flash of petticoats and black cotton stockings, Lettie lifted her calico skirts and crept dramatically through the parlor toward the lamp she’d left on the side table. Lowering her voice to an eerie murmur, she slowly repeated, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary/Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore…”
    Although her mother had sought to protect her from the effects of Poe, Celeste Grey had never realized that Lettie had not only read his “sensational” literature, she’d memorized most of it as well. Her voracious appetite for poetry and literature caused her to borrow whatever books might find their way into the boardinghouse, and whenever possible, she tried to commit the shorter poems to memory or at least copy them down.
    Lettie reached out to grasp the lamp and hold it aloft like a heroine in a lurid dime novel, then continued her macabre recitation, carrying the lamp back into the kitchen.
    “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,/As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.”
    As if on cue, the wind banged against the loose shutter at one of the upstairs bedroom windows. Lettie nodded in satisfaction, then snorted when a fine sifting of straw and grit drifted down from her hair. Realizing the wind had coated more than the laundry, she placed the lamp on the table and crossed to retrieve the kettle of warm water that was always left on the stove for the boarders.
    Still quoting from “The Raven,” she splashed a bit of water into a china basin and carried it to the vanity by the back door. Outside, the wind howled. The loose shutter banged like a madman trying to break free. Lettie shivered in delight.
    “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,/Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;/But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,/And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ‘Lenore!’ ”
    That was Lettie’s favorite part, and she made a low, evil laugh deep in her throat to add to the dramatic tone of her recitation. Quickly unbuttoning her bodice and folding it neatly over the back of a chair, Lettie took a cloth from the rack beneath the mirror and splashed water on her face, scrubbing her skin of the faint layer of grit left by her dash outside. Then, with her torso clad only in her corset and camisole, she sponged the rest of her limbs clean.
    The hot water dripped through her fingers and down the fullness of her chest, easing tense muscles and stilling the nervous fluttering in her stomach. Sighing, Lettie dropped the cloth into the basin, closed her eyes, and reached for the thick honey-brown braid that hung down her back. Inch by inch, she began to free her hair from the intricate plait, her movements slow, poetic. If only the Highwayman could see her now.
    The back door slammed open and Lettie screamed, clutching the bath sheet to her chest and whirling to face her assailant. A gust of wind extinguished the lamp, plunging the kitchen into darkness.
    With her heart pounding in her throat, Lettie crept through the dark kitchen, keeping her eyes carefully trained on the black shape of the doorway. No one was there, she