A Charmed Place (63 page)

"I feel like Cinderella's evil stepsister," she growled, jamming her foot into the narrow shoe. Which wasn't a shoe anyway—it was an instrument of torture, tight and stiff and with an outrageous tip that surged a good three inches past her big toe.

She threw up her hands in frustration a
n
d collapsed back on her white slipcovered tub chair. "I can't do this."

Eileen was standing over her like a maid-in-waiting who wasn't quite sure of her job description. "Maybe you'll get used to them. Try standing up."

"It's this
stupid
corset!" Olivia said suddenly, grabbing at the stiff, steel-boned vise that was responsible for her current Barbie-doll look. "What was I
thinking?"

"What did you expect? It's French."

"Well, screw the French! I'm not wearing it!" She began tearing at the half-dozen front hooks with a viciousness that she normally reserved for pickle jars.

"Hold it right there,
mademoiselle. You're
the one
w
ho talked all the guides into wearing period getups."

Olivia sighed and tucked one of the wandering bust enhancers back into place. Her wool drawers itched. Her chemise was too tight. The petticoats were heavy. But Eileen was right—dressing for the period had been her idea.

"Bustle, please," she said grimly.

Eileen let out a little sigh of sympathy.

After some fumbling, they belted the elaborate wire framework onto Olivia's behind. Feeling like a bronco saddled for the first time, she resisted the urge to try to kick the thing off and said through gritted teeth, "Okay—the gown."

Eileen's response was a radiant smile. "This will make it all worthwhile." She fished the padded hanger out of the taffeta gown and slipped the dress over Olivia's upraised arms. Olivia disappeared in a swishy cloud of scarlet iridescence, then emerged from a low-cut bodice that was unquestionably more European than American.

The color scheme was as bold as the plunge of the neckline: a swath of bright scarlet draped up toward the outlandish bustle to reveal a purple skirt beneath, with silver-gray passementerie looped around the cuffs, the bodice, and the hem. The heavily beaded braid caught and refracted the light from the recessed spotlight above, rimming Olivia in glittering highlights.

Eileen stepped back with a startled look. "My goodness, that's daring."

"Oh, I don't know. The only thing daring about this outfit is the crotchless drawers," Olivia said, squirming in annoyance. "It's December, for pity's sake. These damn things give a whole new meaning to the expression 'freezing your buns off.' "

Laughing, Eileen said, "Well, think about it. How on earth would anyone go potty, once she was rigged in that getup?"

"Trust me, I don't intend to find out. Start buttoning; I've got to be there in half an hour. Thank God women from that era didn't go in for makeup. I'd be pummeling herbal extracts into a pot of rouge about now."

"All right, here we go. Suck it in, Miss Bennett."

Several painful moments later, Olivia was tightly skinned in scarlet. She had achieved the desired hourglass shape at last. The curves she exhibited, though not her own, were definitely spectacular.

She said in a breathless gasp, "I think I'm going to pass out."

"The things we do for !ove," Eileen said, amused. "Honestly, I wish we'd featured you like that on the flyers we posted around town. The Keepsake Preservation Society would be rolling in dough after this fund-raiser."

"Shoes! What do I do about shoes? Even assuming I could take more pain, I'd fall and break my neck if I went wearing these in the snow." Olivia kicked them off, furious for ever agreeing to be part of the Candlelight Tour. It would have been better to write out a check. She had inventory to stock, she had orders to place—what was she doing pointing out crown moldings and fruitwood etageres to the hoi polloi?

Volunteering seemed like
such
a better idea at the time.

Swishing over to her closet, she yanked open a white louvred door and pointed to the shoerack on the floor. "Take out the black Reeboks for me, would you?"

Eileen was scandalized, but she did as she was commanded, even tying the laces for her immobilized sister-in- law.

"All right, let's see what it all looks like," said Olivia, striding over to the full-length mirror.

"Smaller steps! Smaller steps! Your sneakers show."

They stood together in front of the mirror, these two best friends turned relatives: Eileen,
tall and thin and blond and oh
-so-Connecticut; and Olivia, shorter, darker, and somehow, despite the elegance of her wardrobe, just a little bit gypsy. Olivia was very conscious of the contrast. She wasn't especially bothered by it—she looked vaguely like her mother, whom she had always considered truly beautiful—but she was definitely aware that she did not have "the look."

She shrugged and said, "I guess I'll do."

"Do? You look fabulous," Eileen insisted. "That creamy skin, those natural curls, those bedroom eyes—what man could resist you?"

"Apparently they make the effort," Olivia said dryly.

"It's your fault. Why do you go everywhere with Eric on your arm?"

"Eric is very presentable."

"Eric is gay!"

"My mother likes Eric."

"What mother wouldn't? But it's keeping you from meeting the man of your dreams."

"I don't dream about men, I dream about fabric." Olivia frowned in the mirror, then grabbed a tube of lipstick from her dresser and ran it lightly across her lips.

"Okay, I'm ready," she declared. "Point me to the drawing room."

Buy
Ke
e
psake
or turn the page for Chapter
4
.

Hastings House was built in high Victorian style for a man who, quite simply, loved wood. In 1882, Mr. Latimer Hastings bought a lumberyard just to have first crack at the boards, then spent the next two years in close company with an architect and a construction crew, milling, shaping, and carving those boards for his house on upper
Main
. The house became an obsession, and more: It became his reason to exist. It wrecked his marriage, it alienated the neighbors, and ultimately it became a bone of contention between his heirs.

It was a nightmare to maintain, with its curved piazza and its multi
-
gabled roofline, but it was something, really something, to see. Keepsake was nearly as proud of Hastings House as it was of the Bennett estate, higher up the hill. Most people knew they'd never get the chance to poke their noses in the Bennetts' dining room; but this year they could get a fairly good idea, for a mere four dollars, of how the Bennetts' dinner guests lived.

So they paid and they poked. Despite the biting cold and windy weather, the Candlelight Tour was enjoying an excellent turnout. Keepsake was a historic town with an active Historical Society backed by a mayor who understood the dollar value of tourism. Besides, the cause was worthy: The proceeds of the Candlelight Tour were split between St. Swithin's soup kitchen and free art courses for Keepsake's children.

Olivia felt at home in the heavily carved, overly ornate drawing room of Hastings House; when she was growing up she'd been a guest there
several
times. Standing straight as a board (she had no choice) near a crackling fire, she greeted each new visitor on the tour as graciously as Mrs. Hastings herself might have done before
ultimately
dumping her husband for another man with a simpler house.

It was fun. Olivia hadn't expected to enjoy playing the part of a Victorian socialite, and yet here she was, flirting and having a great time.
Playing
at flirting, anyway. The pain of being laced into a state of dizziness had ebbed, replaced by the novelty of being the object of men's gapes and women's furtive looks. It was definitely a first for her.

"Either I've just discovered my true calling as an actress, or there's something to this corset business," she said, laughing, after two women she knew well expressed open amazement at the difference in her demeanor.

The women wandered out and another group wandered in: Eric and several of his pals, all of them history and architecture buffs. Olivia knew that one of them was an actor, so she poured it on, hamming it up outrageously until the men moved on, still laughing, to the next room.

And then there was a lull.

****

Quinn had heard voices in the room ahead of him—several men and a woman—who sounded as if they were having a damn good time. He was jealous; it had been a while since he'd laughed out loud. But by the time he escaped the clutches of the Victorian gentleman whose job it was to explain the Victorian library, the group had left the drawing room, taking their raucous laughter with them.

They left behind them a woman.

Her back was to Quinn, whose first impression was of a mountain of scarlet material bunched on top of a purple skirt. He saw that she wasn't tall, and yet her posture somehow made her seem so. She had dark hair, tied in a knot at the nape of her neck—without much success, Quinn could
see; ringlets seemed to be escaping even as he stood unnoticed behind her.

She was standing in front of the fire with her hands extended to catch its warmth. He couldn't blame her for feeling cold: Her back and shoulders were as bare as any red-blooded man could hope for. The sight of her had sent his genitals lurching beneath his corduroys, and almost immediately he realized why.

She had the most impossibly beautiful figure he'd ever seen. He had no idea that in an age of protein and aerobics, women could still look like that: beautiful back and shoulders, tiny,
tiny
waist, flared and intriguing hips. It was an old-fashioned fantasy, a heart-wrecking dream—and it was as erotic as all hell. He might have stood gazing at that hourglass shape forever if she hadn't turned around with a start.

"Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't hear anyone come—Quinn?"

He blinked. He knew the voice, knew the eyes, he definitely knew the voice... He blinked again in disbelief. In a moment of complete, humiliating weakness his let his gaze drop down to her cleavage. Was it possible?

"Liv?"

"Who else?" she said, with a wary smile. "You look the same."

"You don't," he said, stunned.

A couple walked in just then with questions poised: Was the price firm? Would the owner take financing? Had he had any offers? Olivia explained with dazzling grace that she was not the realtor—
Good Lord
, did she
look
like a realtor?—and then the couple left.

Olivia turned her dark-eyed gaze back to Quinn. "I heard you were back. Somehow I didn't expect to run into you here, though."

He took it possibly the wrong way. "Yeah, well, you know how it is when you throw an open house. Riffraff's bound to get in."

"Oh no! Is
he
here?" she said, rolling her eyes.

He chuckled. "Okay, I suppose I deserved that."

She shook her head. "You
haven't
changed, have you? I'm
... I'm sorry about your father," she added. "I know how close you were."

Sympathy from a Bennett? No thanks; it felt too much like pity. "We did all right," he said, "once we got out of Keepsake. We had a good life."

"Yours isn't over."

"His is."

"Yes, but you said
...
.
Well, I'm glad it worked out. It was an awkward time."

"Awkward?"

"That's the wrong word," she said quickly. "It was
... horrible, I guess I mean. For everyone."

"So people keep telling me. A girl is killed, my father is blamed, our lives are upended, and what do I hear? I'm the Grinch Who Stole Homecoming."

"Well, in all honesty, we haven't come even
close
to a championship since," she said with a bland look.

He snorted. He remembered that about her now—her irreverent sense of humor. She was much less straightlaced than the rest of her clan, and that always had made her an interesting opponent. He jammed his hands in his parka pockets and rocked back on his heels. "So. Which of the Ivy League schools ended up rolling out the thickest red carpet?"

Smiling at the compliment, she said, "I decided to go with Harvard."

He waved a hand airily at her getup. "And this would be—what? A part-time job to pay off your student loans?" he quipped, fighting hard not to resent her.
Harvard.

He watched her flinch and then recover. "As it turns out, my dad was able to scrape together the tuition. But I did borrow money to get my MBA. Is that any comfort?"

"Not much," he said through a tight smile. "So what
do
you do to pay the mortgage?"