Chapter Nine
The Duke ofCroydon had an endless wardrobe, all useless to him as it was all from his younger, slimmer days.
“He has a new wardrobe three doors down,” John advised them, “but he refuses to get rid of any of this.”
“Good thing for our guest,” Miss Whimsey…Charlotte mused as he stepped around a wooden screen with an olive-green bundle of clothes dangling over his arm. John trotted along behind him.
“We’ll see about that,” Michael muttered and pulled his t-shirt over his head and arms.
He decided not to look at her over the screen. It was safer that way. She mesmerized him. Cast a spell on him that compelled him to consider her more than his boss’ daughter. She made him forget. She made him feel heady, as though he’d been drinking. And she made him laugh.
He shook his head as he bent to untie his boots. John bent and tried to help, but Michael refused his offer, not wanting the older man to hurt himself.
He wouldn’t let her in. There were too many ghosts inhabiting his heart. There was no place for a vibrant woman.
He grunted and pulled off one boot, and then the other. Why was he trying on eighteenth century clothes? Was he surrendering to this fate so easily? How had this happened? Didn’t he want to find out?
Yes, but he couldn’t do it walking around like a twenty-first century man. He pulled down his pants and John gave his boxer-briefs a strange look.
“What do you use for underwear around here?”
“Breeches mostly, and something like this.” John held up something that looked like a diaper. “I’ll keep these on for one more day.”
Okay, what did he have to put on first? Some kind of ruffle-edged, thin, linen gown that fell to his waist, green, woolen breeches that stopped at the knee. When he saw the white hose, which were more like socks, and square-toed shoes, he almost decided against the clothes and sticking to what he had. But his jeans would get him into trouble.
Did they burn witches in this century?
“The hose don’t fit,” he grumbled, trying to pull them over his feet and calves.
“Just pull!” John advised, patting out the wrinkles in the embroidered jacket.
Three pairs of hose later, Michael learned how to put them on without tearing them to shreds.
“I don’t think these clothes fit me,” he said, looking over the screen.” I seem to be bigger than the duke was.”
Charlotte smiled at him from her chair by the window. “We can have them altered.”
“Great.”
He put on his jacket while John tied the strings above his stockings. He looked ridiculous. He tucked in his chemise and put on his justaucorps next. The coat fell to his knees in folds of deep green and golden embroidery along the edges.
He slipped his foot into a black square-toed shoe. The shoe was just small enough to squash his toes.
“Bend please,” John instructed, “so I can brush your hair and pull it back.”
“Are we going somewhere? Why do I have to look all fancy?”
Someone was actually brushing his hair! Just when he thought he couldn’t take another moment, John tied his hair into a ponytail with a black ribbon at his nape and then stepped back to survey his work.
“Very good, Sir,” the old man said, then moved in closer to whisper into his ear. “Now you look like one of us.”
One of them. It made Michael feel like an alien, an outsider. It reminded him that this wasn’t right. It wasn’t his time. He might be sent back at any moment.
John stepped out from behind the screen and then waited for Michael to do the same. When he did, his hostess’ eyes on him seemed to darken, from sable to obsidian. Her pupils were dilated. She sat up in her chair, her gaze taking him in from head to toe. “Oh.”
He shifted under her scrutiny. “I don’t look ridiculous?”
“Not at all,” she breathed. “Nice calves.”
