At the same time that I began to hear Milly and the Texan, I felt the oddest little pulling from the blonde woman, who was staring at me. I felt that this woman was asking me to help her. She seemed to be telling me that she needed me.
And there was something else. It took me a while to figure out the emotion I was feeling, but she was afraid of something—or someone.
Not this, I thought. Not someone needing help and being afraid. The combination is something I can’t resist. For all that I try to keep my image of being strong and crusty, I am a sucker for the underdog. How many new, frightened authors have I taken under my wing, then gently kicked their behinds until they were asking for more money and more publicity from their publishing houses? (Daria got extremely annoyed with me once when I did this to one of her authors, so now I only do it to authors from other houses—much to the delight of my dear publisher, William Warren.)
Anyway, I could feel that this woman needed me, so I sort of allowed myself to drift toward her. After all, wouldn’t it be great for my books for me to see what was inside the head of a real, live Edwardian woman?
I drifted and she pulled and I felt Milly’s voice growing weaker.
And then it happened!
As best I can describe it, my mind merged with hers, and for those first seconds, it was heavenly. I wonder if this is how Nora feels, I thought as I looked into the woman’s mind and felt all the rules and more rules that she had floating about in there. She had rules governing dress and deportment, names of rank and people, lots of information that means nothing to us today. Everything that was in the woman’s head was very proper, which made me smile rather smugly.
But then I again sensed that fear. The woman was afraid of something but I had no idea what.
I had every intention of leaving her mind. Honest, I did. But one second I was myself even though—if this can be imagined—I was inside the head of another woman, and the next second the woman had retreated. She was still there, I could feel her, but now I was in the forefront. It was as though the captain of the ship had stepped aside and allowed the first mate to pilot the boat.
“No!” I managed to say, the word coming out of the woman’s mouth, then I closed “her” eyes as I did my best to will myself out of her mind. I called to Milly with my mind, but she wasn’t there. I had no more idea how to get out than I did about how I got in in the first place.
All I knew for sure was that I was in trouble.
When I opened my eyes I was standing in front of a mirror wearing a peach-colored dress so cov
ered with froufrou it looked as though it had lost a duel between drunken cake decorators.
And instantly, I knew what had killed Lady de Grey. There was such a pain in my midsection that I could not breathe. With my eyes rolling back into my head, I grabbed my stomach and felt my knees give way under me.
“My lady!” I heard someone gasp just before everything went black before my eyes.
They woke me by putting under my nose a tiny bottle of some acrid stuff that could only be smelling salts. Now, I thought, if I were a true heroine I’d leap up and give everyone a lecture on the advances in modern medicine. But then, just what would a Harvard-educated 1994 doctor do to revive a lady who had just fainted from a too-tight corset? Biopsy something?
Anyway, I woke up, but due to the middle of me being squeezed until I had a waist that an ant would envy, I didn’t leap up and disclaim anyone. In fact, well, it was rather nice having the two women and the avuncular gray-haired man hovering over me. Living alone as I do, when I’m ill all the TLC I get is from the delivery boy at the local grocery when he brings me a bag filled with oranges and tissues. So this solicitude was rather nice.
“There now,” the man said in a tone that only a doctor could get away with. There are some things that even a century can’t change. “I think you’ll be all right now. You ladies do like to tighten your stays.” He turned to the maid. “Next time see that you leave room for her to breathe.”
The maid murmured a “Yes, sir,” but I could see it was only to pacify him. And to think that men think there was a time when women did actually obey them.
“Are you all right?” the young girl on my other side asked as she leaned over me, holding my hand and looking at me as though concerned I might die.
“A little disoriented,” I managed to say, then tried to sit up from where I was lounging on a brocade-covered fainting couch—and it seemed the piece was appropriately named.
“I think you’ll be fine,” the doctor said while he patted my hand as though I were a four-year-old. “Perhaps there’s another reason for this fainting,” he said, his eyes twinkling knowingly.
I didn’t think he meant time travel so I just gave him what I hoped was a ladylike smile. The last thing I wanted to find out about Edwardian times was how a gynecological exam was carried out.
My smile must have satisfied him because he stood up, began rummaging in his monogrammed doctor’s bag, then gave me the obligatory advice about rest and careful diet before leaving the room. Just like my doctor, I thought, except I would have to go to his office and he’d charge more.
Through all of this the maid was trying to look busy, fussing with clothes in a wardrobe, restraightening silver-backed brushes on a dressing table, but I could see she was dying to find out why I had fainted. At least this told me Lady de Grey didn’t faint often. Which to me meant that she was tough enough to have learned how to breathe while locked into an iron maiden.
Again, I tried to sit up, but it wasn’t easy for this thing that was on under my clothes encased me from just below my breasts to my hips, and it was about as flexible as one of those old diving suits from a Jules Verne book.
“Leave us,” the girl said to the maid, and there was authority in her voice.
Instantly, I was alone in the room with the girl, who was looking at me intently. Okay, Hayden, I thought, Now what?
“What has happened?” the girl asked. “You are different.”
“Am I?” I asked, lying back and closing my eyes so the girl couldn’t see into them. I needed time alone to orient myself. Surreptitiously, I was trying to look about the sumptuous room. Perfectly polished silver ornaments winked from every surface in the room. Jeweled Fabergé trinkets filled a tall corner cabinet and I could see the little green jade monkey pictured in the book.