Trapped in Time Read online

  But Mrs. E. B. Duffey wasn’t done.

  “The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual encounters monthly—and as time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency. Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among her best friends in this matter.”

  “This is the stupidest thing I ever read!” This time Caroline did throw the book across the room in complete disgust.

  If the other Caroline had actually been following this manual of marital bliss, no wonder she and Richard hadn’t gotten along! Of course, it sounded like that was the other mother’s plan from day one. She didn’t want her daughter married to a Kindred and she was willing to do anything to break up or end the marriage.

  “Of all the meddling, insufferable, manipulative—-” she began but just then the door creaked open and Mary Ann appeared, carrying a heavy silver tray.

  Chapter Eight

  “Miss Caroline, are you quite all right?” the lady’s maid asked, frowning as she entered the room. “It sounded like you were shouting in here. And did I hear a thump? Did you drop something?”

  “I, um…” At once Caroline was on shaky ground. She still hadn’t decided if her lady’s maid was a friend or foe—someone she could trust or someone who might be looking to get her thrown into the closest mad house. “I dropped my book,” she said at last, not sure what else to say.

  “This book?” Mary Ann put down the tray, which held a teapot, a cup and saucer, and a plate with some plain-looking crackers on it and went across the room to pick up Mrs. E. B. Duffey’s Guide.

  “Um, yes. That book. Thank you,” Caroline said, as Mary Ann returned it to her. “I was just looking it over.”

  “I see.” Mary Ann returned it to her without another word, for which Caroline was very grateful. Instead she poured Caroline a steaming cup of tea and passed it and the plate full of plain brown crackers to her.

  “Thank you.” Caroline took a sip of the sweet, hot tea with real pleasure. She had always found a hot cup of tea immensely soothing during stressful situations and she was presently in one of the most stressful situations she’d ever experienced in her entire life.

  The crackers didn’t appear too promising, but maybe they tasted better than they looked. Experimentally, Caroline picked one up and dunked it in the tea before taking a bite. She chewed and then had to work hard not to spit it out—it was like eating wet cardboard!

  “These are awful!” she exclaimed, putting the offending cracker back on the plate with only a single bite gone. “What are they? They’re so bland they don’t taste like anything at all—it’s like eating paste.”

  “Well, they’re meant to be bland, aren’t they, Miss Caroline?” Mary Ann looked surprised. “They’re graham crackers and they’re made especially plain on purpose.”

  “What purpose?” Caroline looked at the plain brown cracker again, which bore no resemblance to the graham crackers she’d grown up eating as a child. Those were sweet and spiced with cinnamon and delicious. These, on the other hand, really were like eating sawdust.

  “Why, the purpose of keeping young ladies pure of course!” Mary Ann looked scandalized that she even had to tell Caroline this. “Everyone knows that spicy, hot, exciting foods like mustard and pepper and the like rile a body up and make them more…amorous than they should be.” She cleared her throat, her cheeks going pink. “Bland foods, on the other hand, calm a person down and help her remain chaste.”

  This was the stupidest thing Caroline had ever heard but of course she couldn’t say so.

  “Well, I don’t like them,” she said, pushing the plate away. “Couldn’t I have something like a muffin or a crumpet or something like that?” she asked, trying to think of the kinds of things the heroines were always dining on in period dramas.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much time for eating just now, Miss Caroline,” Mary Ann said, clearing away the plate of crackers. “And you won’t want a full belly when I put on your corset anyway. Your Ma-ma has ordered me to tight-lace you tonight. You won’t be able to breathe if you eat first.”

  “I won’t?” This sounded ominous to Caroline.

  Mary Ann shook her head. “In fact, if I were you, I’d stop drinking tea now too—not another sip. You know how difficult it is to use the necessary once you’re all dressed in your best.”

  “It is? I mean, of course it is,” Caroline said quickly. She put down the half-drunk cup of tea and got out of the bed. “All right—I guess we’d better get started. Are you going to help me into my dress?” She certainly hoped so—she had no idea how to get into the wide-skirted dresses everyone wore here and she had an idea that getting in and out of such elaborate outfits was a two person job.

  But Mary Ann only laughed.

  “Gracious no, Miss Caroline! Not until we do something with your hair and face first! Now just you have a seat at the dressing table there and let me put the straightening tongs in the fire so we can get started.”

  Rather unwillingly, Caroline went and sat on the narrow, padded wooden bench her lady’s maid had indicated, which was in front of a small, daintily carved dressing table with an oval mirror attached. Scattered across the top of the table were various pots and brushes and some cut-glass bottles with crystal stoppers that must be perfume.

  She really did need to do something, Caroline had to admit to herself. Her hair was a mess from being soaked in the rain and had dried into a curly nest around her head. Her cheeks looked pale except for the smattering of freckles which dotted them and the bridge of her nose and her eyes looked big and uncertain.

  If she were back home and wanted to look nice, she would have used some powder and blush and maybe a touch of lip-gloss—she wasn’t one for heavy make-up. But eyeing the many pots and brushes on the dressing table, she was beginning to think her doppelganger might have different views.

  I thought they wore hardly any makeup in the Victorian era, she thought, eyeing the dressing table uncertainly. Didn’t they think it made them look like “fallen women” to have an obviously made up face?

  But then she reminded herself that she wasn’t really in her version of the Victorian era. She was in a whole different universe which, while it clearly mirrored her own in some respects, also had plenty of differences. In this universe’s version of Victorian times, everyone might wear enough makeup to make a whore blush, as her mother would have said. Her real mother, that was.

  “Well now—the tongs are heating so let us see about those freckles,” Mary Ann said, coming over to her. She had a little china cup half filled with liquid in one hand and a small brush in the other. Without asking, she dipped the brush in the pot and began dabbing it all over Caroline’s cheeks and nose.

  “Hey…” Caroline sniffed suspiciously at the liquid. “Is that…lemon juice?”

  “Of course, Miss—it’s the best way to fade freckles, as everyone knows. Well, other than going out on a sunny day and allowing your face to get nice and red so that when the skin peels, the freckles come right off with it. But we don’t have time for that!” She gave a little laugh.

  Caroline stared at her, uncomprehending. Did people really give themselves severe sunburns in this universe just to get rid of their freckles? Apparently so because Mary Ann didn’t appear to be joking. Caroline told herself she was getting off lightly just having lemon juice painted on her face, no matter how bizarre it might seem.

  “Well now, that’s the best I can do for now.” The lady’s maid put down the lemon juice and brush and frowned critically at Caroline’s face. “I have been working on those for ages and ages and they were nearly gone this morning. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how they all came back so strong!”

  Caroline had never much minded her freckles herself—they went with her strawberry-blonde hair and there weren’t too many of them. Her mother—her real mother—had always assured her they were cute.

  Well, not in this universe, apparently.

  “You…don’t think they’r