A Girl Called Samson (105)

“What is this?” Anne Holmes asked me, frowning with distaste. She picked up the band I’d fashioned to wear around my breasts. It was fraying and soiled on the edges and almost unrecognizable in its current condition.

“It is a corset,” I said. I was in a tub filled with all manner of salts and scents, every inch of me scrubbed and pink and naked. Once Mrs. Holmes had decided she was on board, she’d set her jaw and thrown herself into my transformation with a vigor that rivaled my own.

“Half of one?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She had demanded that I talk, and talk I had, sputtering as water was poured over my head and blushing from head to toe as she examined the scars on my leg and the long, puckered line on my arm. She’d allowed nothing to go unexamined, and I endured it all. John had been sent to ready himself, and he could not save me.

The trunk had arrived from the dressmaker as well, and Anne had investigated every last piece, muttering to herself.

“These will have to be redesigned. They do not suit at all. Perhaps if we remove the ruffles and bows and remake the sleeves,” she mused. “You are angular and your features are bold. You need solid color and simple lines. Nothing that will compete. You do not need to be dressed up or disguised. You need to be . . .” She wrinkled her brow, looking for the word. “You need to be . . . displayed. But this will do nicely.”

The dress she held up was a brilliant colonial blue, not unlike the blue of my uniform. It even had gold buttons marching in parallel rows down the front, all the way to the ground.

“You will have to wear an underskirt. It is not long enough, but with white fichus at the neck and in the opening of the sleeves, it will work.”

I had nothing to add and simply rose from the water, toweled myself dry, and let the preparations begin. Anne summoned two maids, and I was bundled and pinched and tortured and teased from head to toe for what felt like hours.

“You are thin but so beautifully shaped, and so magnificently tall. We will make you even taller still. They are powdering their faces in France, but I find the look revolting. You have beautiful skin and astonishing eyes. We will rouge your cheeks and your lips, just a touch, and dress your hair high.”

I didn’t argue and she did not ask permission, but when she declared me ready, dismissed her servants, and led me in front of the looking glass, I was stunned at the result.

“I cannot breathe,” I said.

“Nor can I. You are breathtaking.”

“No. I cannot breathe. This corset is too tight.”

“You’re not supposed to breathe. You’re supposed to sip.”

“Sip?”

“Yes, dear. Sip at the air. Don’t you remember? You have worn a tourniquet around your lungs for a year and a half. This should be easy in comparison.”

“I might be a better soldier than I am a woman,” I said, striving to do as she advised.

“A woman is not a corset or a gown or a pile of curls. You’ve always been a woman. And a remarkable one, it seems.”

Her pronouncement stunned me, given our rocky introduction. She met my gaze in the mirror and gave me a small smile.

“My brother does not do anything without considerable forethought. He thinks things through and around and over and back. And then he decides, and that is that. But he does not resolve to do anything that he has not settled in his mind. If he does not doubt you, I cannot doubt you either.”

“He is extraordinary,” I whispered. “And I don’t know why he wants me. But he does.” I shook my head. “So here I am.”

She laughed and turned me around.

“So here you are. And here we go.”

“I cannot make her blend in, brother. She is too tall,” Anne declared as we descended the stairs. John awaited us at the bottom, his dress uniform brushed, his epaulets gleaming.

He gaped at me, his lips parted and his head cocked, and I would have wilted if I’d had a choice in the matter. My posture was dictated by the cinch at my waist and the twin rods up my back.

“She is a beauty,” Anne said. “She just needed a wee bit of grooming.”

“‘Beauty’ is too tame a word,” John breathed. “I don’t know where to put my gaze.”

“What if we are seen?” I worried. “What if someone recognizes me?”

Anne laughed and John shook his head.

“Tonight you will be by my side as Deborah Samson. That is how I will introduce you. That is who you are.”

“And why would you be with the likes of Deborah Samson? What business have I here?”

“You are an old family friend. Close to my late wife. A descendant of one of our founding fathers. And in an hour’s time, you will be my wife. That is your business here.”

“But . . . what if someone recognizes me?” I insisted again.

“Recognizes you?”

“As your aide. As Robert Shurtliff!”

Anne spoke up, reassuring me. “They won’t. To be a beautiful woman and disguise oneself as a sixteen-year-old boy, that is the difficult part. This will be easy.”

“This is not a disguise.” John touched my cheek and pulled away again, very aware that his sister was observing us. “This is real. No one will look at you and see anything but Deborah Samson.”