“Why would I do that?”
“Blackmail,” said Portia coldly.
“I have my standards. Now, I hardly think you want me to announce your real name. What shall I call you?”
Portia sighed and gave the first one that came to mind. “Hippolyta.”
“The queen of the Amazons? I wouldn’t have thought you had the size for it, dear. Ariel would suit you better. I have some pretty fairy costumes. Would you not care to use one?”
Portia decided she needed the strength of a warrior name. “No, thank you.”
“As you wish.”
Mirabelle left and a few minutes later a maid came in carrying a gown and some other items. The servant was wearing a striped calico dress, an apron, and a cap. She looked surprisingly proper. She even curtsied. Portia decided she would feel better about all this if she were in a foul stew, surrounded by leering misshapen individuals.
She had stripped down to her shift. Now she saw the shift should go too, for the gown—if such it could be called—was an almost transparent wisp of creamy silk. In view of what she faced, this shouldn’t have mattered, and yet it did. She dismissed the maid, and was surprised when she went.
Portia contemplated the silk tunic and then, in a spurt of defiance, put it on over her shift. If Mirabelle wanted more than that, she would at least have to insist on it.
In fact, Portia decided, it didn’t look too bad. Her cotton shift was plain white and sleeveless, and came down to her knees. The tunic was a fraction longer. Without the shift it would have been transparent, which was doubtless the intent, but over the shift it was not indecent. Portia had never gone about without stays, and with her legs and arms so exposed, but it could have been much worse.
There was a gilded belt to secure her garments at her waist, and a pair of delicate gold sandals. There was even jewelry of sorts—two cheap, gilt arm bands to go around her upper arms. A bow and quiver completed the costume, though neither were real.
She regarded herself in the mirror. Really, she thought wryly, if she were going to a masqued ball she might be quite proud of her costume. If, that is, she ever dared wear such an outfit in polite company.
She told herself that she’d seen outfits as daring at private balls.
This was not to be a private ball.
This was to be a public auction.
She almost panicked then, but forced herself to be practical. A little bit of skin. That’s all it was.
She looked in the mirror again and decided it was as well that Cuthbertson had agreed to take whatever she raised. She couldn’t imagine that she would bring a high price. Men liked a generous bosom and her endowments hardly broke the flow of the cloth over her chest. They liked lush curves and her hips were slim. Normally her stays and hoops gave some illusion of shapeliness, but this outfit disguised nothing.
But with the long dark wig, the narrow gold mask, the bold face paint, and the unlikely costume, she did doubt that anyone would know her. Which meant that she could perhaps return home and pick up her life.
It seemed impossible. Was she to go back to Dresden Street and act as if nothing had happened? Go tomorrow to dine with Cousin Nerissa? Return to Dorset and say nothing to anyone?
She started trembling but paced the room angrily, praying that she would stop. Fear and trembling would do no good at all.
Mirabelle returned. She raised her brows slightly at the sight of the shift. “How charmingly modest. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
Mirabelle’s heavy eyebrows shot up. “If Cuthbertson had known that…! But you look well enough for all your age.” Her cold eyes took in every detail. “I would have put you at about nineteen, but with the plumpers and your figure we can go even lower.” She walked slowly around Portia. “A nice boyish rump, too. Fourteen. We’ll claim you’re fourteen.”
“Fourteen? That’s absurd!”
“No. Put in the plumpers and look at yourself with a stranger’s eyes.”
Portia turned to look in the mirror again and popped in the plumpers. With Mirabelle standing behind her, and having almost as much height as Bryght, and with the rounded cheeks and full lips, she did look like a pretty child It was quite eerie, as if she were not herself at all.
“But why fourteen? It’s ridiculously young.”
“That will raise your price. Some men like young girls.”
Cuthbertson had said as much, and now Portia remembered Bryght Malloren saying something about the dangers in London for pretty sixteen-year-olds.
