Free Victorian Dream by Gini Rifkin Page A

fashioned, even childish. Just because he took his responsibilities seriously didn’t mean he was interested in her personally.
    She gained her feet and fussed with the bouquet of flowers on the side table. He probably had a woman waiting for him back in America. What a disturbing thought, why hadn’t it occurred to her before? She broke out in a sweat, and it wasn’t from her physical labors. What if he were married? They really knew very little about his private life.
    As Aunt Abigail breezed into the room, her disturbing contemplations took flight. Her Aunt was an endless well of energy, and a stickler for keeping up the traditions she had known as a child.
    “How are we coming with the to-do list?” she asked, peering over her shoulder.
    “Thank goodness Cook is familiar with the routine,” Trelayne admitted. “She’s made hundreds of scones, pies, and pastries for the morning group of revelers.
    “Using plenty of blackberries, I hope.”
    “Bushels of them,” she grinned, “all in keeping with the legend.”
    Apparently, when Satan was banished from Heaven on Michaelmas, he fell into a blackberry bush and cursed and spat upon the brambles, therefore none of the fruit could be picked after tomorrow. Why the plants were deemed usable again the following summer she didn’t know.
    “Has she prepared a St. Michael’s bannock?” Aunt Abigail pressed.
    “Indeed. Three cakes in all, as last year we nearly ran out. And she doubled the amount of charwardon and ginger caramels as well. So,” Trelayne added with satisfaction, “come the dawning, all that remains is to pick the Michaelmas daisies and prepare the stubble-goose in onion sauce.”
    Her Aunt gave her a hug. “Fabulous darling. Oh, Millie,” she called, to one of the maids. “Adjust that bough of flowers over the window more to the right. That’s the ticket. The room looks very grandiloquent. Now hurry along,” she encouraged, shepherding the servants out the door, “we must begin on the decorations for the ballroom.”
    The local tenants would arrive before noon on the morrow, and be escorted with pomp and circumstance into the great banqueting hall. There they would be bidden to help themselves to a resplendent array of food and drink. In turn, the guests would bring a token tithing of their harvest. Wheat or bread, fruits or vegetables, perhaps a precious length of tatted linen. Whatever they could afford without hardship.
    More foodstuffs would be prepared than could possibly be eaten, the excess finding its way into pockets or hidden containers brought along by those attending. It was all according to Hoyle when it came to Michaelmas. While this gaiety ran its course, chaos would be in full swing in the kitchen where comestibles would be prepared for the second party to be held later in the evening. The neighboring gentry would attend this soirée, and along with delectable food, there would be music and dancing.
    A haunting refrain from a Strauss waltz danced through her mind, wrapping itself around a vision of Captain Garrison. If he were to attend tomorrow, the evening would be complete.
    When she thought of him, a river of emotion swept her along, and like a rudderless vessel, she was at the mercy of the current, a waterfall dead ahead, danger and excitement pounding in her chest as she anticipated dropping over the edge. What made one person so heart-stopping attractive, while another mightn’t turn her head? The books Penelope supplied failed dismally in explaining the phenomenon—the cause was generally attributed to celestial convergence, or the whim of Cupid, or some such nonsense. There seemed no answer for the intangible question of the ages. Whatever the reason, for her, Captain Garrison had the magic. She felt it whenever he was near.
    His presence spurred her to impetuous behavior, such as her outburst upon leaving the phrenologist. The prediction about falling in love with a handsome foreign stranger had popped out of her