Regency Rumours. Louise Allen

of course it is,” Fleurette purred.

      “In this case,” Lolly continued, “the gentleman is willing to donate his heart to finance a schoolhouse. Apparently he doesn’t care one way or the other whether he’s smitten or not.”

      Fleurette tipped her head to one side like a curious robin. “We’ll have to wait and see about that, now won’t we?”

      Carrie’s hand drifted down from her mouth. “It won’t matter, ladies. The colonel has given his word on the matter. He will marry whichever one of us wins the competition. Oh, I do hope it will be me!”

      “Why, my dear, Ah’d say you are enamored of the gentleman.”

      “Actually,” Carrie said. “I don’t really know him very well. I’m just one of dozens of females in town who adore him and simply swoon when he smiles. But he treats us all exactly the same.”

      A calculating look came into Fleurette’s eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about this man, do you? Except that you swoon when he smiles.”

      “Why, no,” Carrie said. “If I did, I’d surely tell you both. We’re all in this together, are we not?”

      “Precisely,” Fleurette said, her voice light.

      Lolly didn’t like her tone, pleasant as Fleurette had tried to make it. Again, the back of her neck tingled.

      The scent of the young woman’s perfume, something cloyingly sweet and heavy, like gardenias, made Lolly’s head swim. She turned away to draw an untainted breath and spied young Hank Morehouse lounging in the dining room doorway, sending hand signals in her direction. Satchel. Upstairs. Room 3.

      Lolly nodded. No sooner had the boy disappeared than a blur of royal blue sateen announced the presence of Dora Mae Landsfelter.

      “Ah, here you are,” she trumpeted. “I have an announcement.” Dora Mae clasped her hand over her still-heaving bosom. “This evening, at eight o’clock…” She panted.

      The three candidates froze, fingers curled around their lemonade glasses.

      “The Helpful Ladies will host a reception in the hotel ballroom. And at that time…” She paused dramatically. “You will meet Colonel Macready. She slanted a look at Fleurette. “Dress will be ladies’ evening attire.”

      Fleurette gasped. “My trunks! Have they arrived?”

      “They have. Mrs. Petrov had all three moved up to your room at her boardinghouse.”

      Lolly sat stricken, unable to move. Trunk? Her trunk had been on the train; in her agitation about disembarking she’d completely forgotten about it. Now she realized all her possessions, except for what she obviously carried in her travel satchel—clean undergarments and a shawl and her toiletries and her Bible—were still on the train and headed for Portland.

      How could she have been so scatterbrained? All she had to wear this evening was the black faille traveling suit, which at this moment felt heavier—and hotter—than ever before. She desperately needed something light and airy. Something summery and man-catching, with flounces and ruffles and…

      What in heaven’s name could she do? Borrow something?

      Don’t be a goose. Both Carrie and Fleurette had slim, girlish proportions, while she… Well, she was as rounded as a model in a Rubens painting, her hips and bosom blooming generously above and below her tightly laced-in waist. Besides, the smug expression on Fleurette’s perfect pink-and-cream face was enough to squash any such idea.

      Carrie leaned toward her. “You look white as a huck towel,” she whispered.

      “I am trying to think,” Lolly whispered back.

      Carrie patted her hand. “You didn’t bring trunks full of gowns like Fleurette, did you?”

      Lolly shook her head. She’d die before she confessed to being so addlepated at the train station. She finished off her lemonade to shore up her spirits. Between now and eight o’clock she had to come up with a fairy godmother, or else something she could turn into a—

      “Of course!” she said aloud.

      “You’ve thought of something?” Relief edged Carrie’s tone.

      Would it be too daring?

      “What is it? Oh, do tell me!”

      It would be daring, Lolly decided. Outrageous, in fact. But, with her trunk rolling toward Portland, she had no choice.

      She squeezed Carrie’s small hand. “I will wear…black. That’s all I can tell you at the moment.”

      Lolly unpacked the contents of her satchel, stripped down to her camisole and drawers, and began to experiment. Her two-piece travel dress hung on hangers at the window, the plain gored skirt rippling in the breeze and the separate buttoned jacket turning this way and that as if undecided which direction to face. Already the creases were disappearing from the tight-woven fabric.

      She sponged off her sticky body, then stretched out on the blue bed quilt to assess the situation.

      The room was spartan but tidy. The mirror over the matching bureau reflected the white china ewer and basin she’d used for her sponge bath; her Bible lay next to the fluted glass lamp.

      The tall cherry armoire opposite the bed confronted her accusingly, waiting to be filled. But she had nothing to put in it but her nightgown and one clean petticoat.

      How, how? could she start a new life with one black dress and a Bible? The Heavenly Father had done it in six days, but He was God. She was a mere mortal, and female at that.

      And more frightened than she had ever been in her life. No one could possibly know how the turmoil in her brain or the twitters in her stomach made her lightheaded and nauseous. Setting columns of type, even under a tight deadline, was easy compared to dressing up, especially when one had nothing to dress up in. Even protecting her printing press with her father’s revolver when her abolitionist editorials riled up the townspeople paled in comparison to the terror she felt at meeting Colonel Macready and the rest of the Maple Falls citizenry in nothing but her plain black dress, a bit of imagination and a lot of daring.

      She donned her long black skirt, then lifted the black Spanish lace shawl from its tissue-paper nest in her satchel and approached the mirror. Tucking one edge of the delicate lace into the top of her camisole, she wound the long ends around her body, leaving her shoulders exposed. At her cleavage, she formed a soft knot and let the shawl fringe dangle.

      There. It looked…exotic. Risqué.

      Elegant. Sinful.

      Dear Lord in heaven, what if they arrested her?

      Chapter Three

      Kellen Macready’s hand shook so violently he had to laugh. This evening’s ordeal would be worse than Chickamauga.

      He stepped to the door in his paneled mahogany bedroom and yanked it open. “Madge!”

      A faint voice floated from the floor below. “What is it, Colonel? I’m rollin’ out some biscuits.”

      Kellen groaned. Mrs. Squires’s biscuits came out of the oven hard as minié balls. “I can’t tie this damned neckpiece.”

      Footsteps clumped up the staircase. “Mercy me, you’re worse than a bairn.” Her rounded form appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips.

      “Bairns don’t wear neckpieces,” he retorted. “Or shirts starched so stiff they crackle.” He liked teasing Mrs. Squires. She wasn’t afraid to talk back to him.

      “I starch ’em the same way every week.” She fussed at his neck, her knobbed fingers still dexterous in spite of her arthritis. “Why the devil are ye wearin’ this fancied-up thingamabob tonight?”

      “Because,” Kellen gritted out, “I gave my word to