Page 64 of The Perils of Paulie
“No, I don’t mind it at all. Are you kidding? It means we don’t have to keep sneaking into each other’s rooms at night and worrying that people will notice us. I am concerned about you.”
“Don’t be—I’m fine,” he reassured me, and, heeding a call from Graham, hurried out to get a fast lesson in driving the Thomas Flyer.
“Did you ever think you’d be dressing for your Edwardian wedding in Kazakhstan?” Melody asked almost an hour later when she helped me into what I thought of as the hard-core corset, the one that lifted my boobs almost up to my chin and that was needed to wear my best gown, one that was a lovely silver gauze and lace over a periwinkle velvet undergown. The skirt part of the dress fell away in gentle ripples and a two-foot train bedecked with tiny little silver embroidered knots. The bodice was ruched, presenting the girls in a way that was extremely flattering. My shoulders were bare, but there was a pair of long white gloves that went to my biceps, with about a million buttons each.
“No,” I answered, working on the buttons on one of the gloves. “But then, I never thought I’d be in Kazakhstan in the first place. Did you get the top hooked up?”
“Yes.” Melody patted my back and stood with her head tipped to consider my reflection in the hotel mirror. “I swear the wardrobe people love you. That dress is gorgeous. You look every inch the bride of 1908.”
“Whereas I feel like an aggravated woman of the twenty-first century. I just know the Esses had something to do with the loss of Dixon’s car.”
She adjusted the pleated collar that prettily framed her head and brushed a hand down her best dress, which was a dark navy with faint green stripes, decorated with a beaded black braid. “I don’t see how they could do that, to be honest.”
“Me either, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.” I glanced at the clock. “I guess we’d better get going. No, leave the plaid dress out. I’ll want that to drive in, since this corset will kill me if I have to wear it for more than an hour or two.”
She smirked. “I’m telling you—you should have been the bluestocking. This rational corset has improved my posture to no end.”
“No one likes a smug suffragette,” I told her, pointing a gloved finger at her. “Let’s go, maid of honor, and get this wedding over so we can be on our way and leave the others in our dust.”
She laughed, and we walked arm in arm to the small conference room that Roger was able to convince the hotel to let us use for filming.
I was feeling strangely elated even though the wedding was wholly pretend. There’s just something about being dressed to the nines and going to meet a handsome, sexy man to make a girl feel pretty damned special.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
30 July
7:15 p.m.
Astana, Kazakhstan
Writing this quickly while Paulie is having a bath. Today was one of the longest days of my life, even though the hours conform to normality. It started on the plane, where we flew over the polar cap and down over Eurasia to Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“I’m looking forward to the real racing starting,” I told Paulie when we were about to land in Kazakhstan. “Although I do regret the loss of Rupert.”
“Of course you do, and I totally agree.” Paulie made a face, then gave me a considering look. “You do know, of course, that we won’t be able to continue our previous nights’ activities?”
I was surprised by that statement for a moment until I understood what it was she was saying, and felt a little teasing was in order. “We will if you and Melody are able to keep up with the De Dion.”
“Ha ha—oh, how I laugh at your misguided notion,” she said with a snort, and pinched my hand. “The Thomas Flyer is, after all, the car that won the original race. There’s no way your little French car can keep up with us once we let the Flyer have his head.”
“His? Most cars are traditionally thought of as being female,” I pointed out.
“Ours is male. He’s a pain in the ass to drive and is constantly needing attention in the form of replaced tires,”she answered, giving me a roguish smile. “And he’s fast. Very fast. And speaking of fast males, I suppose we could try for a quickie before we start the race, because that’s likely to be the last bit of action we get until you catch up with us in Paris.”
“Bold words, but not at all realistic,” I said with a complacence that I knew she would find objectionable. “Time will show which team is full of bravado, and which has the power to back up its claims.”
She spoke a rude word then, and for the first time in a very long time, I felt a deep well of emotion blossom in what I thought of as the cold remains of my heart. Paulie seemed to light up all the dark corners of my life with a gentle glow of wit, intelligence, and long, long legs.
In short, she was just about the most perfect woman I’d ever met.
That’s one reason why I didn’t kick up a fuss when, after Roger discovered that our car was mysteriously missing, he suggested I join the suffragette team by the act of a pretend marriage to Paulie.
“You understand that I’m doing this only because I’m already pretending to be something I’m not, and adding a fake marriage is nothing more than an extension of the Edwardian gentleman persona you have created for me,” I told Roger later, when he supervised my dressing in what he called my formal wear.
“That’s the spirit,” he said cheerfully, although I couldn’t help but notice lines of strain radiating out from his eyes. “It’s better than having to send your team back home, isn’t it?”
“Yes, although I’m not sure how happy Anton is about going to the Essex team.” I pulled on the pearl gray Edwardian version of a morning coat and spurned the matching gloves that Roger held out. “You are, I sincerely hope, talking to them about the accidents?”
