"Mercedes Lackey - EM 3 - The Serpents Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

is it that attractive shoes are a torture to wear?
Hanging her coat on its peg in the hall, she passed the door to her
examining room and surgery (formerly the parlor and smoking room) and
climbed the stairs to the next floor. Here were the bedrooms, all
alike, and the bathroom fitted up with the most modern of
appointments. Her room was at the back of the house, away from street
noise. The second bedroom, connected to hers, served as her parlor
and sitting room.
Gupta had the third bedroom, and his son Gopal and his son's wife
Sumi the fourth. Gopal and Sumi's four children shared the nursery on
the floor above, where the servants' quarters had once been. Gupta
had been her father's friend as well as his servant- but more
importantly, he had been Surya's devoted guardian. There had been no
question of whether or not the family would emigrate when Maya fled
to England; she would have had to lock them all in prison to prevent
them from coming with her.
Gupta had seen a great deal in his fifty-odd years, and she rather
thought he was unshockable, which was just as well, considering what
she was planning. She needed the help of a male to carry it out, and
Gupta was the ideal man for the job.
The door to her bedroom stood invitingly open, and she hurried
through it. With a sigh of relief, she sank down into a chair and
unlaced her shoes. Exchanging them for soft leather slippers, she
hesitated a moment, then shrugged.
Ridiculous. There is no reason to go out, and unlikely that anyone
but a friend will call. I am getting out of this rig!
The rooms of this house were so tiny, compared with those in the
bungalow in India. She had enough room to pass between the pieces of
furniture, chair, bed, trunk, wardrobe, and table, but no more.
Never, ever would she have needed the featherbed at home! Here, it,
and the down-filled duvet and woolen blankets were absolute
necessities, for not even the hot-water pipes could prevent the house
from cooling at night.
In a trice, she slipped off the coat and skirt of her suit and hung
them up on the outside of the mahogany wardrobe to be brushed later.
The shirtwaist followed, then the corset cover, which she laid on the
lace coverlet of the bed, and at last she could unhook the front busk
of the corset and rid herself of the unwelcome constriction. At last
she could move! She never laced her corsets anywhere near as tight as
fashion dictated; she flattered herself to think that she didn't need
to. Nevertheless, the garment restricted movement, if only because it
was designed around what a lady would consider appropriate movement.
Maya had chafed against those restrictions as a girl, and her
feelings hadn't changed in the least now that she was an adult.
Fashion be hanged.
The corset joined the rest of her undergarments on the bed. Donning a
far more comfortable flannel wrapper dress of a chocolate brown over
her uncorseted petticoat, she went back out into the hall, then
descended the stair at her end of the upstairs hall, passing the
kitchen on her way to the conservatory. Gopal was in the throes of