Page 12 of Borrowed Time

“Fits perfectly,” Devynn said, relief obvious in her voice.

And it did. While Seth had to admit that the silhouette of the period looked outlandish to his eyes, used as he was to the narrow dresses from his own time, he couldn’t deny that the close-fitting bodice hugged her curves perfectly, showcasing a small waist made even tinier by the corset she wore underneath and the ostentatious fall of the skirts as they draped over the bustle.

“My mother told me she had all her gowns made with buttons up the front so she could put them on herself,” Devynn continued, now going over to the mirror so she could start fussing with her hair.

“What about the corset?” Seth asked. It definitely didn’t seem like the sort of contraption anyone could have managed to lace up on their own.

Devynn shrugged and didn’t answer right away, since she held a couple of hairpins in her mouth so she would have both hands free to pull her hair up and away from her face. Once she’dremoved them and lodged them somewhere in those chestnut masses, she said, “I guess the person she got the corset from laced it up in a way that it had a couple of loops free in the center. That way, you could tighten it from the middle on your own.” She paused for a second, as if to assess her hair and determine whether it would pass muster, then added, “But the one Jeremiah had sent over from the general store wasn’t laced that way. That was why I needed your help.”

The explanation made some sense, so Seth thought it was probably better to let it go. This Devynn, with the overly stylized gown and half her hair lying loose on her shoulders, somehow felt very different from the one he’d met in Jerome. Most likely, it was the clothing and nothing more, and yet he couldn’t help wondering if the change in her demeanor also had something to do with their location.

Here, he was far more the outsider than she, even if she was separated from her true time by a hundred and fifty years or more.

He also wasn’t sure whether the hairstyle she now wore was truly period-correct — didn’t women in the Victorian era always have their hair up in buns or something like that? — but he decided he probably shouldn’t comment. It was entirely possible that Devynn couldn’t reach all the way up and back to style her hair that way, not with that tight bodice and those tight sleeves.

Besides, she’d always had her hair up when she was in Jerome, and he liked seeing it loose this way. It was lustrous and full, with a pronounced wave, and he found himself wondering what it would feel like to run his hands through it.

Probably not what he should be thinking, not when he still wasn’t sure how he should feel about her at all, but, as he’d already noted once before this morning, his body seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to Devynn Rowe.

“Would you like to go downstairs for breakfast?” he asked. The day before, Jeremiah had given him a wallet filled with paper money and coins of the period, certainly enough to cover any meals they wanted to eat in the hotel’s restaurant and any other incidentals they might encounter. Their rooms, he knew, were being handled by some kind of mysterious credit system, but it seemed as though the Wilcox warlock wanted to make sure his unexpected guests had at least a little autonomy. Seth couldn’t help wondering if theprimusexpected something in return for his help, but so far, he’d only been helpful in a neutral sort of way.

Although Jeremiah had said he would be in contact sometime today, he hadn’t been very specific about the hour. A lot had depended on how Devynn was doing, but as far as Seth was able to tell, she’d made a full recovery.

Recovered enough to attempt to get them out of here? He had to admit that, before he’d had his conversation with her the night before, he’d hoped they’d be able to get to the bottom of whatever mysterious force had sent them into the past and somehow reverse the sequence of events that had stranded them in 1884.

Now, though, he knew it must have been their powers tangling together and creating a kind of enchantment that had been utterly unwanted and unforeseen, and now he wasn’t sure whether they dared risk any experiments. Not, at least, without a lot of insight and advice from Jeremiah Wilcox. Seth still didn’t know for sure whether he could trust the man, but he couldn’t deny that theprimuswas the strongest warlock he’d ever met.

If he couldn’t help them find their way out of this conundrum, Seth wasn’t sure anyone could.

It seemed his suggestion had been the correct one, because Devynn’s face lit up at the mention of breakfast.

“That sounds perfect,” she said. “I’m starving.” But then she paused and gave a rueful glance down at her corseted torso before adding, “Assuming I’ll be able to fit anything in here.”

Seth couldn’t quite keep himself from smiling. Yes, it was much more difficult for women in the past than it was for men…in more ways than one. His own borrowed clothes fit well enough, and honestly weren’t much different from what he’d worn in his own time. No, he didn’t go around in a vest and a frock coat, but still, he had a good three-piece suit that he trotted out for family weddings or other important occasions, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t have any experience with wearing something more than just a shirt and pants.

“Oh, you might surprise yourself,” he said. “And it’s good that you’re hungry. It means you’re healing.”

Yes, her entire body was probably working overtime, doing its best to replenish the blood she’d lost from that bullet wound. Working at an advanced rate, thanks to the healing spells Emma had used to bring Devynn back from the brink, but still, it probably needed all the help it could get.

He added, “So let’s get some breakfast, and then we can decide what to do next once we have some food in us.”

4

SPILLING THE TEA

No one seemedto pay much attention to us as Seth and I were guided to a table by the man working the front desk, who seemed to be doing double duty as both the clerk and the restaurant’s host. Maybe a glance here and there as people looked up from their meals to see who the newcomers were, but nothing more than that, nothing that would have signaled they had an unhealthy interest in either of us.

Which I supposed made sense. My father had stayed in this hotel, true, and I had to assume his abrupt disappearance had been the subject of some gossip for a while before people found something else to occupy their attention, but he’d only been another traveler in a town that sounded as if it had plenty of people coming through on their way to the West Coast, and most likely no one who should have roused any particular interest.

And my mother had spent her entire time in Flagstaff staying at a boarding house run by Mrs. Wilson, and probably hadn’t visited the Hotel San Francisco at all. As Seth politely pulled out a chair for me and waited until I’d wrestled my bustle into submission — my mother had explained that she’d sort of collapsed it under her skirts so it would be flat enough to siton, but in practice, that wasn’t as easy as she’d made it sound — I reflected that I was very glad Jeremiah had seen fit to have both Seth and me stay here rather than hustling me off to the boarding house. Although it sounded as if the place had been clean and well run, my mother had made a few comments that let me know she’d also been fairly closely watched while she was there, behavior that sounded as though it was kind of standard for the time.

Whereas I had Seth with me, posing as my brother. People would see him as the only chaperone I needed, and that should give us much more leeway to go around town without anyone paying too much attention to our activities.

Of course, he wasn’t my brother or my chaperone, and I certainly didn’t need him to protect my virtue…not when I knew I wanted him to shred that so-called virtue to pieces in the privacy of my hotel room.

I kind of doubted that would happen, though. While it seemed as if he wasn’t quite as angry with me as he had every right to be, I had no idea when we’d be able to reclaim the closeness we’d felt during that picnic up on Mingus Mountain, when he’d kissed me for the first time.

And even if he got to the point where he was ready to pick up where we’d left off, it would have looked extremely bad for me to be cavorting with my “brother” in my room. Too many people — guests, chambermaids, porters — came and went in the hotel’s hallways for me to believe risking such a thing would be very smart.

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