The Time Baroness (The Time Mistress Series) Read Free Page A

the use of fossil fuels. Now, at this moment, Cassandra was stunned by the inefficiency of fire. Her first order of business tomorrow would be to purchase heavier woolen undergarments and order sturdier gowns. Though Jake had warned her about the cold, he was a man who had the privilege of wearing pants and jackets and couldn’t guess how much colder she would be.
    The room was probably quite luxurious for an inn of the time, she decided. She took in each item. The curtains were heavy red velvet, faded with time and dusty at the top. The four poster bed, the principal piece of furniture in the room, had a thick headboard of dark wood, nicked in places, and was canopied with the same velvet curtains as the windows. At the foot was a large chest on which Charlie had placed her suitcase. There was a spindly writing desk and chair in a corner, an armoire against one wall with a crack running down one of the doors, a painted dresser against another with an oval mirror above it, and near the dresser, a pitcher of water, a glass and a basin on a small round table, covered with a yellowed lace doily. She looked down at a red print area rug at her feet that was worn, but clean. Something scuttled along the edge of the wall and caught her eye. A cockroach. She shuddered, and ran to her suitcase, extracting a tiny folded packet from a small cloth pouch containing many similar packets. She unfolded it and blew on the fine powder contained inside. It dispersed into the air, becoming invisible almost at once. The microfine insecticide went to work and in seconds the cockroach stopped dead. Cassandra breathed a sigh of relief knowing that all crawling creatures abiding in the room would now die as well (though the formula was totally harmless to humans), and none others would intrude for several days.
    She lifted her cosmetics case onto the dresser and stopped for a moment to look in the mirror. How did she appear to these people, she wondered? Now that the trip was a reality, this question loomed larger than she ever thought it would. She’d been nervous about seeming out of place, but standing in front of the ancient mirror, that possibility took on a whole other level of importance.
    Her image was soft in the lamplight. For one thing, she knew that no one would ever guess that she was anywhere close to her age. She could easily pass for thirty. In comparison, Betsy, who Cassandra imagined to actually be around thirty years old, was already missing teeth, her cheeks were hollow and her skin was lined. Cassandra smiled at herself. Her teeth were perfect, more perfect than those of ninety-nine percent of the people of any class that she would encounter during her stay—and white, too white. Well, she hadn’t been willing to stain them; she’d have to make up some story about the miracle tooth powder in America if anyone commented. And her hair, even in the low light, shined. It had no gray, thanks to the years of taking herbal supplements, which allowed one’s hair to continually grow any color one wanted, depending on the formula. Her blue/gray eyes had been treated by laser surgery to install UV blockers and shade adjusters, which, like the sunglasses of decades ago, grew darker to shade the retina when exposed to the sun.
    She turned her head from one side to the other and examined her face. Her skin was almost without wrinkles, sags or jowls, just a few laugh lines around the eyes (for good measure). She had collagen rebirth treatments to thank for that, as well as creams and pills that blocked sun damage and rebuilt cells. When she got really old, she figured, she could always rely on cosmetic adjustments to reverse the signs of aging. Of course, good health on the inside was a factor too.
    She opened the cosmetics case. Inside were powdered concentrates of the various herbs and vitamins she relied on to maintain her health and youthfulness. They were all packaged to look like products of the day (things you could only buy in