“Oh, he will,” Anne said firmly. “And when you least expect.”
“I find I’m rather tired of waiting.” Callie laughed halfheartedly. “Which is probably why I’ve turned my attentions to such a dark knight.”
Anne cupped Callie’s cheek in her hand with a smile. “I think I’d rather see you ticking off items on your ridiculous list than keeping company with Ralston. I should steer clear of him if I were you.”
“Easier said than done,” Callie said. There was something so very compelling about the man—it didn’t seem to matter that he infuriated her. To the contrary, his arrogance only served to make him more attractive. She sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I should steer clear of Ralston and focus on my list again.” She lifted the list from the dressing table, where she’d set it earlier that evening. “Of course, it appears I’m rather out of simple tasks.”
Anne gave a little grunt of disbelief before saying dryly, “Of course, because drinking at a tavern makes for a perfectly simple outing. What’s left?”
“Fencing, attending a duel, firing a pistol, gambling at a gentlemen’s club, and riding astride,” she said, leaving off the rest of the items—the items that she was embarrassed to share with even her closest confidant.
“Hmm. That is a challenge.”
“Indeed,” Callie said distractedly, biting her bottom lip and considering the paper.
“One thing is for sure, however,” Anne said.
“What’s that?”
“No matter which of those things you tackle next, no one will call you a coward for doing them.”
Callie met Anne’s eyes at the words, and, after a beat of surprised silence, the two women laughed.
“Oof!” Callie grasped the bedpost firmly as Anne tugged on the length of linen that she was wrapping around Callie’s torso. “I think you could be slightly more gentle, Anne.”
“Likely so,” the maid said, passing the fabric under Callie’s arms and arranging it flat against her breasts, “but I am not feeling very gentle at the moment.”
Callie looked down at her fast-reducing bosom and smiled through the discomfort. “Yes, well, I appreciate your putting those feelings aside to assist me.”
Anne responded with a grunt of displeasure and a harsh yank on the linen. She shook her head as she worked. “Binding your breasts and dressing like a man…I think you’ve gone mad.”
“Nonsense. I’m simply trying something new.”
“Something that would give your mother the vapors if she knew.”
Callie turned her head sharply toward the maid. “Which she won’t.”
“You cannot be thinking I would tell her,” Anne said, outraged, “I’d lose my position before the words were out!”
“Not if she had a fit of the vapors beforehand,” Callie teased.
It was late in the afternoon, and Callie and Anne had sequestered themselves in Callie’s bedchamber to prepare her to tackle the next item on her list—fencing.
Callie had worked out an elaborate plan to gain entrance to Benedick’s fencing club, disguised as a young dandy, just out of university, and looking for a new sporting ground. She had practiced deepening her voice and developed a background story for her character—Sir Marcus Breton, a baronet from the Lake District. She’d had Anne pilfer some old clothes from Benedick’s wardrobe, including a fencing suit that would not be missed, and the two women had spent a week altering the clothes to fit Callie.
She was already wearing a newly tailored pair of men’s breeches, which, she had to admit, were surprisingly comfortable despite her feeling thoroughly indecent wearing them. Underneath, she wore thick stockings and a pair of boots that they had bribed from a stable boy.
As her stomach tumbled with nerves and Anne swaddled her in linen, Callie refused to consider the absolute humiliation that would come of her being discovered dressed as a man in one of London’s most male of establishments. She had come too far to quit now.
Taking a deep breath as Anne tucked the tail of the fabric under her arm, Callie lifted her list from the bed and inserted it between the linen bindings and her skin, unwilling to leave the house on this particular mission without the talisman. She then took up a billowing linen shirt and slipped it over her head, tucking it into the waistband of her breeches. Turning to Anne, she asked, “Well? Can you tell I’m a lady?”
Anne raised a solitary brow at the question, at which point Callie added, “Fine. Can you tell I am female?”