Page 5

He nods. Gratitude makes his smile more genuine. “Yes. Someone helped me.”

I can’t help staring at him. It doesn’t matter, right? This is my dream. He’s got a strong square jaw, thick but not unruly brows, and classic good looks. I hadn’t really appreciated how hot he was from the pictures I remember in the news reports a couple years ago. This hallucination really is perfect.

I drop back onto the sofa, running my fingers absently over the soft upholstery. It feels like new and meticulously kept. What a detail for dream me to notice.

“And how are you going to get me different clothes?” I ask. There’s no point in denying this is happening, whether it’s in my head or somehow real. It hasn’t changed anything so far, and I’m beginning to wonder if Ben has the right idea with his cheerfulness and silver-linings attitude. Besides, I can’t think of anything more fun than a frolic through 1901 with movie-star-quality handsome Ben Mitchell. Maybe there will be balls and tea parties. I’ve read enough about this kind of thing that my brain can probably come up with some good stuff for this dream.

And it feels so real. Except for one of those immersive historical experiences, it doesn’t get more real without a lot of money.

Ben sits in a chair situated kitty-corner from the sofa. He leans back and crosses one ankle over his knee. “For now? Borrow some. Tomorrow I’ll see about getting you a passable wardrobe. Hopefully you won’t need much.”

“You’re rich, then? I mean, of course you’re rich. This is some kind of crazy fantasy I’ve come up with, so you’re probably the historical romance version of a billionaire, right? Gosh, this is the best of all worlds.”

He lets out a burst of laughter. “I am rich. I don’t know about inflation rates and all of that, but sure, the billionaire version, I guess.” He shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. “I needed a lot of money to try and figure that thing out. Not that it’s done much good.” His brooding expression returns momentarily, and I’m struck silent for a moment admiring how sexy it is. Then, just as quickly, he wipes it away, his smile returning. Which, okay, it’s pretty hot too, so I won’t complain. “Don’t worry, Clara. Everything will be fine. You’ve got me.”

He stands again to push a button on the wall, the turn-of-the-century equivalent of ringing for a servant. Someone comes quickly, tapping quietly at the door. Ben doesn’t open it all the way, probably so he doesn’t reveal my scandalous attire, but he asks whoever’s at the door to arrange a room for his “ward” who just arrived after an unfortunate delay—“robbed by highwaymen,” I hear him explain in a dramatic undertone—and then he asks them to give a message to someone named Mrs. Halloway.

“Highwaymen?” I ask dryly when he shuts the door. My imagination is reaching new peaks.

He shrugs. “You have a better story?”

“Only something mundane like my luggage was lost.”

Ten minutes later, a maid delivers a mound of clothing—all of it, Ben whispers to me, for dinner this evening.

“Please express my deepest gratitude to Mrs. Halloway for her help,” Ben tells the maid as she lays it all out on the sofa. The maid hasn’t outright stared at what must look like a ridiculous getup to her. (Or does it? She’s a figment of my imagination, so my modern clothes probably aren’t out of the ordinary because anything goes here.) But anyway, she has cast a few glances my direction. The clothes? Possibly. My mind creating a good story? Most likely. This does feel a lot like a book I read a couple weeks ago—all this ward business and having to bring a girl up to snuff for the season.

The maid ventures the longest look yet at me, her expression full of sympathy. “Mrs. Halloway said it was the least she could do to help after something so awful had happened.” She bobs a curtsy and then disappears through the door with one more glance back as she worries her bottom lip. I should get used to weird looks. Dream or not, the people that populate this existence are going to find me out of the ordinary.

Ben gathers all the clothing up in his arms with much less care than the maid used and beckons me to follow him through a door and into a bedroom, identical to my sleeping area of the condo, except for the gilded dresser and matching vanity. My mind spins with ideas for incorporating pieces like this into my condo, maybe in a fun color and distressed a little? I file it away, hoping I remember when I wake up.

“You can change in here,” he says. I widen my eyes at the pile he’s left on the bed, and he chuckles. “I’ll talk you through it. Martha, Rebecca’s maid, probably could have helped you, or one of the others from the hotel, but I thought it might be better if they didn’t see your, well, too-modern unmentionables.”

I nod slowly. “O-kay,” I agree, drawing the word out into two long syllables. I rack my brain for memories of scenes where ladies get dressed. I think I know the basic order, but there are just a lot of clothes on that bed.

Ben casts me a reassuring smile before he closes the door.

“How do you know how to dress a lady?” I call, wondering if the dream version of Ben Mitchell has suddenly turned into a rake. I bite back a laugh. Maybe I’m not mad about that? Those are always the fun guys in historical novels. They flirt, they banter, they kiss the best…

“I wrote my master’s thesis on how Gilded Age fashions represented the physical and emotional restrictions of women of the time,” he answers.

I’m not even sure what to say to that. My obsession with period dramas and books sounds kind of silly up against that. “That’s … really cool,” I finally say as I sort through the items, laying out each piece separately so I can make a guess at what it all is. Most of it looks familiar. I did a post on my blog a year or so ago about historical underwear, so I try to recall all the stuff I researched for it, but nothing comes.

Isn’t that how it always happens in dreams?

“Very cool when having researched that era so thoroughly helped me to amass a fortune in stocks when I knew how certain events would turn out.”

“Ahhhhh,” I respond. That makes sense. Like maybe a little too much sense for a dream. Shouldn’t he be telling me that he made all his money because of a weird corset innovation or a funky ice cream flavor? A pinch of fear lodges in my chest that this might not be a dream or a hallucination or me in a coma.

But that’s crazy.

He talks me through finding the slip and putting on the stockings and garter. As he describes each new item and explains how to put it on, the excitement edges out that new little fear. I’m going to be wearing a pretty dress and going to dinner with fancy people. The instructions bring back to mind one particular thing I did for research a few months ago—there was a Victorian clothing exhibition in San Francisco, and I talked Morgan into going with me. There was a demonstration on how to put on a full outfit for dinner, and pieces of that demonstration come to mind. That reassures me a little. I’m always my smartest, remembering everything I’ve ever learned, in my dreams. Sometimes I’m even fluent in the French I took for a couple years in college.

I get the corset on myself, hooking it up in the front and awkwardly tightening the lacings in the back. Then there are no less than six petticoats that I count. When I bend to pull the first one up, the S-curve of my corset, which restricts my ability to move, sends me toppling to the floor.

“Clara?” Ben says from the other side of the door. It sounds like he’s come closer. I imagine his hand might even be on the door handle, ready to burst in to my rescue. “Everything okay?”

“Stupid corset,” I say, trying to stifle giggles. It’s hard to giggle in a corset, in case you wondered.