Lost Lady by Jude Deveraux Read Free Book Online Page A

As the candle sputtered and the room grew dark, she began to glance at the door, wondering when Travis was going to return. Sometime deep in the night, she left the chair and climbed into the big, cold bed, placing the pillows so that she could snuggle against them. They weren’t as good as a large, warm body, but at least they helped.
    In the morning, her head ached, and she was in a foul mood. That the American would leave her alone all night, unprotected, and at the mercy of anyone who could get the key to her room made her furious. One moment he made speeches about how much he was going to care for her, and the next he abandoned her to the mercies of any outside element.
    Her sulks were interrupted when the door was given a quick tap and then unlocked. Folding her arms across her chest, she tilted her chin up, preparing to let Travis know she was unaffected by his abandonment of her. But instead of Travis’s deep voice came the light laughter of women. Turning, Regan gasped in astonishment at the sight of three women who entered her room carrying great books and several baskets.
    â€œYou are Mademoiselle Regan?” asked a pretty little dark woman. “I am Madame Rosa, and these are my assistants. We have come to begin your wardrobe for your journey to America.”
    It took Regan several minutes to piece the story together, but it seemed Travis had engaged Madame Rosa, a French emigree and former dressmaker to one of Queen Marie Antoinette’s ladies, to create an entire wardrobe for his captive. Too angry at his presumption to speak at first, Regan just sat in the bed and gave a vacant stare to the women. But as she saw the puzzled looks on their faces she knew she could not let them be on the receiving end of her anger. Her quarrel was with Travis Stanford and not these women who were merely doing their jobs.
    â€œPerhaps I will look at your wares,” she said tiredly, thinking of all the other times she’d been allowed to choose clothes. Her uncle had allowed her to wear pink or blue or white, and the only trim was what she and her maids embroidered.
    Smiling delightedly, the designer and her assistants began to spread fabric samples out on the bed. There seemed to be an endless array of colors and textures, most of which Regan had never seen before. There were a dozen colors of velvet, more of satin, linen, at least six types of silk, and dozens of colors in each type. Wools took up one corner of the bed, and Regan marveled at the variety: cashmere, tartans, a long-haired softness she was told was mohair. And the muslins! There seemed to be hundreds of colors, stripes, painted, printed, embroidered, pleated.
    Eyes wide in wonder, Regan looked up from the beauty of the fabrics to Madame Rosa.
    â€œOf course, there are the trims,” the woman said, signaling for those samples to be brought.
    Feathers joined the fabrics, then satin and velvet ribbons, topped by hand-drawn laces mixed with strings of tiny seed pearls, silver cord, jet beads, silk flowers, gold net, and intricately knotted frog fastenings.
    Bewildered, Regan didn’t move but just looked at the glorious colors.
    â€œPerhaps it is too early for Mademoiselle,” Madame Rosa said gently. “Monsieur Travis said we were to get everything done in one day so the clothes can be cut before you are to sail. He has hired a woman to sail with you to do the sewing so everything will be ready when you reach America.”
    As her head began to clear, Regan wondered if Travis knew what he was getting himself into; she doubted if a Colonial had any idea of the cost of women’s clothes. Uncle Jonathan had certainly made Regan aware of the exorbitant fees dressmakers charged. “Did Travis ask after the cost of the clothes?”
    â€œNo, miss,” the dressmaker said, surprised. “He came to my house late last night, saying he’d heard I was the best in Liverpool and he wanted a complete wardrobe for a young