Free Tempest in the White City by Deeanne Gist Page B

Midway Plaisance. Its entertainments included exotic dancing, questionable artwork, and beer by the cartload.
    “We were hoping to see the tablecloth President Lincoln used at his wedding supper,” one of the ladies said, her voice boomeranging through the atrium.
    “Don’t forget the silk dress,” her companion added. “We heard you have the gown Mrs. Lincoln wore to Ford’s Theatre the night her husband was assassinated.”
    The navy-suited volunteer folded her hands. “Both of those items, along with many more Lincoln artifacts, are in the Illinois Building. Here, however, we have the inaugural gown worn by President Benjamin Harrison’s first lady, a court dress owned by a Russian Empress, and a boudoir once belonging to the wives of an ancient feudal lord. All their articles of toilet have been especially prepared for viewing.”
    The women looked at each other with rapt expressions. “Do tell.”
    “Certainly.” Too genteel to point, the guide nodded first in one direction and then in the other. “Our stairs are in the corridors at either end, just beyond the Primitive Woman and the Modern Woman .”
    Hunter glanced at a mural at one end of the hall high above the gallery. Women in white togas balanced large water vessels on their heads. In a more colorful mural at the other end, modern women cavorted about in gardens, playing instruments and gathering fruit.
    The touring ladies hurried toward the Primitive Woman fresco while peeking into the apartments that lined the first floor.
    Heading in the other direction, he nodded to Mrs. Duke, then slowed as an unsettling sensation in his stomach made it cramp up. Not again, he thought. As he’d done for the past two weeks, he held his breath until it passed. But each day his discomfort had grown exponentially.
    Continuing along an open arcade, he scanned the various parlors, exhibition rooms, and assembly chambers along this floor. The needlework, dressmakers’ exhibits, and doll costumes were in no imminent danger that he could see.
    “Look, George.” A young woman led her gentleman companion into an apartment. “An entire room displaying the inventions and patents of women.”
    Inventions and patents. He’d bet there wasn’t a one of them worth a barrel of shucks.
    After circling the ground floor, he made his way up a flight of steps. Another cramp seized him. He grabbed the stair railing, the contraction so strong it made his head spin.
    A couple descending the stairs smiled at him.
    Nodding, he pretended to examine a curtain fluttering against the wall. His vision blurred the embroidered battling dragons to the point where he couldn’t tell where one dragon ended and the other began.
    Finally, the couple passed, and the tension in his abdomen eased, but not by much. He refused to succumb to it, though. He had a reputation for being the toughest man west of anyplace east. He wasn’t about to let some puny ol’ stomachache get the best of him.
    Still, he took his time patrolling the second floor. The ladies who’d asked about Lincoln came out of the Japanese Room talking nineteen to the dozen. He peeked inside.
    A small table barely six inches off the floor held jars of paints and creams, mirrors and combs. In front of it was a square mat. Strewn across a sawhorse-like thing were embroidered dresses of shiny fabric.
    An Oriental woman in one such dress balanced on high clogs and gave him a bow. She’d piled stacks of midnight-black hair on top of her head and stuck a bunch of chopstick-looking things through it.
    He tugged on his cap. “Everything all right in here, ma’am?”
    The woman bowed again but didn’t respond. Either she didn’t speak English or she didn’t fraternize with men. Either way, all looked well.
    Another cramp began to make inroads. With a tight smile, he stepped back into the passageway and forced himself to continue to the next room, giving the spasm no quarter.
    Inside the room, a Syrian woman with dark hair and big eyes