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My dear diary, if I play this right, my spinster years will be over soon. At Smith, they taught us to think and to question, but I’ve discovered that men only want women who’ll obey and agree. However, last week I met Walter Alden, another son of friends of Mum and Daddy’s coming to Lake George to stay with us. Funny how many of these unmarried dullards seem to show up. I was dreading his arrival as usual. But what a surprise! Halfway through the main course at dinner I realized the problem with my theory. Yes, boys want submissive women. But men don’t. Before Walter, I’d only been meeting boys. By the time dessert was served that first night, I knew I wanted him. All that was left was convincing him he simply must marry me.
I started by getting him alone as much as possible (of course Mum and Daddy were delighted), then I’d act as if I couldn’t care less whether he lived or died. That didn’t work. So I tried subtle flirting instead. He responded just fine, but remained polite and respectful. I didn’t want polite and respectful. I wanted to know if the kisses of a man would bore me as much as the kisses of a boy.
I suspected not.
Desperate times... Last night I sneaked out to the cottage with a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses. “What’s this for?” he said. “Does it have to be for anything?” I answered. We drank a good deal of the bottle, having a really nice talk, then calm as you please, practically in the middle of his sentence, I stood up and took off my dress. Under it, I was wearing only silk and my sheerest stockings. I sat back down as if nothing had happened and picked up my champagne again.
I’ll never forget his face as long as I live.
Yes, the kisses of a man are different.
Allie blinked up from the entry. Go, Josephine! Maybe this was more than Jonas and Erik wanted to know about Great-Grandma. Allie wished she could have seen her in action. Had the sexy silk she was wearing survived? Was it here in one of the trunks or somewhere else?
Staring down at the page—the number twenty-four, circled—something clicked. She scrambled to her feet and pawed through the lingerie, looking at tags. Twenty-four. The pink tap pants and camisole combination. Silk.
Coincidence?
Turning sharply to the other side of the trunk, she rummaged through the rack of hanging clothes and extracted the sheer nightgown Jonas had seen pretty much all of her in. Hands trembling, she smoothed out the label. Thirty-five.
Back to the diary. She leafed through quickly—twenty-eight, thirty-four...
“Hellooo?” Sandra’s voice, coming up the stairs. “Anyone home?”
Shoot!
“I’m here.” Allie shoved the books back in the drawer and closed it, instinctively wanting to keep her discovery secret for at least a while longer. Certainly Jonas or Erik should hear about the diaries before Sandra did. “Come on up.”
“On my way.” Her head poked up over the floor level, then the rest of her followed, flushed from sunbathing, hair wet from a recent shower. She was disgustingly poised and gorgeous, one of those people who made Allie feel her dowdy Brooklyn roots were showing. No wonder Jonas—
Nope. She wasn’t going to think about that.
“Wow, it’s amazing up here.” Sandra wrinkled her nose. “And hot. But not as bad as I expected.”
“No, it’s not bad with the fan going. Worth it, anyway. Look at this stuff.” Allie steered her to Grandma Bridget’s trunk, not only protecting Josephine’s diaries, but also because those clothes might fit Sandra where they’d flopped forlornly on Allie’s body. Inversely, Josephine’s flapper dresses suited Allie perfectly, but wouldn’t be able to handle Sandra’s height or curves.
“Oh my sweet heaven, would you look at these clothes!” She took out a royal-blue satin gown and held it up. “Why can’t we dress this way anymore?”
“I know. Except clothes of this quality would be prohibitively expensive now.”
“Hey, let someone else pay. Then point me to Goodwill and let me at ’em.” Holding the dress high to keep the hem off the dusty floor, she walked over to the mirror and posed this way and that.
“Try it on.”
“Can I?”
“Sure, Erik said I could have the clothes, so it’s up to me.”
“Oooh, too fabulous, thank you.” She dropped her shorts and hauled off her shirt in about ten seconds. Under it she wore a purple lace bra-and-panty set—the kind of thing Josephine would be collecting by the crate if she were alive today. Allie cringed at the thought of her mismatched plain underwear. Clearly she’d missed one of the joys of the classy, sensual woman. “I came up to talk to you.”
