Free Carousel by Barbara Baldwin Page A

all of which are points recognized as combining for a good figure. But it wouldn't hurt to enhance it with a good corset."
    Jaci looked down at her body, what she could see of it. Exactly what did the woman mean--large hips?
    "And besides, a postilion skirt just will not hang right without one." She shook her head. "Post--what?"
    "A bustle," Molly replied, secretively pointing to the hump which stuck out from Mrs. Sullivan's backside.
    Jaci's eyes popped open and her mouth dropped. That was part of the dress? Here she thought poor Mrs. Sullivan had a gross deformity. Surely women didn't wear something like that on purpose.
    "I haven't seen anyone with something that weird, er, a bustle, around here."
    "Of course not. Servants have no need of formal clothes. Have you not been to the city at all?"
    "Well, actually, no," she replied, but hurried on. "It doesn't make any difference. I'm a servant and I don't need a posti...a bustle any more than they do."
    "But Mister Westbrooke said you should be dressed in style."
    Jaci gritted her teeth to keep from telling these women what a chauvinistic pig she thought their employer. "Mrs. Sullivan, do you recall recent news items regarding the Women's Temperance League, and the new labor laws for women and children?" At the woman's nod, she continued, pointing a finger at her as though preaching from the highest pulpit. "In the not too distant future, you are going to see more changes in this society. Women will become doctors and lawyers and politicians; and they will vote in the elections. And best of all, they will not let some man decide what they are to wear!"
    All the ladies in the room gasped at her remarks, and Jaci couldn't tell whether it was because of her unladylike outburst, or because of the information she had imparted. She didn't care; she wasn't going to torture herself with bindings.
    "Nonsense," Mrs. Sullivan finally replied. Shaking out a piece of trim, she went about her work as though Jaci hadn't spoken at all.
    She hoped she had gotten her point across, but to prevent any misunderstanding, she looked the seamstress right in the eye and said, "No corset; no bustle."
    Apparently willing to allow her this small victory, Mrs. Sullivan was still out to win the war. She gathered up a variety of ribbons, feathers, flowers and sequins and turned to her. "Since you spend most of your time here in the country, I will concede the other, but you must allow me the trim. A good Sunday dress has at least fifty yards of trim."
    It was too much; Jaci hung her head in defeat.
    Another two hours passed before Mrs. Sullivan felt vindicated enough to let Jaci dress. Her wardrobe now hosted several bright colored dresses, altered to fit. The rest, Mrs. Sullivan assured her, would arrive within a fortnight.
    Jaci didn't even ask what that meant.
     
    * * *
     
    Nicholas strolled past the study door where Jaci and Amanda were in lessons. They laughed together over some silly thing Amanda said, and Nicholas felt jealous, left out in a way he had never felt before.
    After their argument over her wardrobe, in which she insisted he take the cost out of her earnings and he insisted she accept the clothes with good grace, he had thought things would settle down. However, it appeared the two of them were only temporarily involved in an uneasy truce.
    Jaci tried to stay out of his way. When they met by chance, she always had Amanda in tow and refused to converse with him. Nicholas longed for a way to convince her he meant no harm. He hadn't wanted to create such a scene over a thing as simple as clothes, for he was only doing his duty as a man by taking responsibility for her.
    She proved as stubborn as he, and several days passed when he didn't see her at all. Days which proved entirely too long, and far too lonely, he thought, as he dined by himself at his very formal table.
    In the past this never bothered him, for he usually had ledgers, stud books and lineage papers scattered about him on the