weakness. “I didn’t mean that I wanted to die, you dolt. I merely meant I thought of the repercussions of surrender. Don’t pretend solicitude. False sympathy disgusts me. Don’t touch me again.”
With one hand reaching out in a conciliatory gesture, he watched her with a concentration that was unnerving. After several moments he shrugged his massive shoulders, dropped his hand to his side and looked away. “All right.”
Tension grew in the silence that followed. Nothing broke it but the ceaseless rain pattering against the window. Finally, Neil moved, and she sighed, realizing she’d been holding her breath.
His eyes avoided hers and he began with a forced lightness, “Well then, we’d best see to your disguise. Terry’s things should be a near fit since he is—was…” Neil swallowed hard. The false cheerfulness had disintegrated and he finished through clenched teeth. “He was small. Only a bit taller than you.” The heavy silence returned, uncomfortable and laden with grief.
Elizabeth moved close enough to touch his arm, and he whirled to glare at her, daring her to complete the move. “If his…if the clothes don’t fit, can you sew?”
“Of course I can sew,” she said with a touch of indignation. He must think her totally lacking in women’s skills. Well, socially acceptable skills, anyway.
She looked on as he plundered Terry’s things, tossing unmentionables, a folded shirt and stockings from the bureau to the bed. His sangfroid apparently restored, he turned to the wardrobe and thumbed through the hanging suits. With a satisfied nod, he plucked out a somber gray wool and tossed it down beside the linens.
His face reddened and he bit his bottom lip, releasing it with a little sucking sound. “You ought to, well, use something to, ah, diminish your upper proportions, I suppose.”
“Bind my breasts, you mean?” Elizabeth restated with a lift of her brows. She loved to watch him blush. That he could even do so took her completely by surprise. He was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. She couldn’t resist testing the extent of his capillary functions. “What of the, ah, lower proportions, my lord? Perhaps a nice sausage?” She laughed and shook her head. He was positively scarlet, even his neck.
“Deal with it as you see fit,” he said with a strained gruff-ness. Then, under his breath he added, “You truly are shameless.”
“Didn’t want to disappoint you,” she quipped, her good humor resurrected by his embarrassment. “Go find me some boots white I change.”
As soon as Neil disappeared, she hurried out of her clothes. The male apparel held a certain fascination. How wonderful to leave off all the cumbersome petticoats and the blasted corset. She wrapped a length of smooth linen toweling around her chest and pinned it securely. Not much to worry about, she thought, for once blessing her lack of abundance there.
When she buttoned the trouser flap, though, she looked into the full-length mirror and frowned. No, this would never do. Her earlier joke to make the doctor blush turned serious.
Searching the bureau drawers, she selected a stocking, rolled it up and stuffed it down past her waistband. Definitely not, she decided. Casting around the room, she spied Neil’s medical bag by the door. A moment’s plunder turned up a roll of cotton bandages, which she shaped appropriately—she hoped—and replaced the rolled-up stocking. Now then! Much better. She wriggled her hips, turned sideways and back and grinned. Yes, that looked right.
Wetting her hair from the pitcher on the nightstand and plying the hairbrush from her reticule, Elizabeth smoothed her short curls straight forward toward her face. She thought the overall effect looked rather convincing.
“Ready!” Deepening her voice a good octave, she called out to Neil, who had not yet returned from the dressing room.
When he appeared in the doorway, he dropped the boots.
“Well?” She assumed a pose, one hand resting on a slender hip as she’d seen Terry do a hundred times. Cocking her head, she raised her chin and regarded him through narrowed eyes.
If his shocked expression was any indication, the disguise was successful beyond hope. Of course it was. All she had to do was think how Terry would act, copy his mannerisms, his expressions, his voice. Elizabeth nodded. Yes, this was definitely going to work.
Neil swallowed heavily and shook his head. No, this was definitely not going to work.
Oh, she’d somehow gotten her chest flat enough beneath the starched shirt. But his eyes traveled the length of her legs, encased as they were in the fitted gray wool of Terry’s trousers. Shapely, feminine legs, topped by sweetly rounded hips that were all too evident below a belt-cinched waist.
And below the waist…? “What in God’s name have you got in your breeches?”
“What a naughty question, milord! You’ll never know. How’s my hair?”
He jerked his eyes away from her lower body and noticed her head, topped by a soft, wavy cap of red-gold minus its tousled ringlets. The style reminded him of Terry’s Brutus, a cut affected years earlier by Lord Byron, casually brushed forward to frame the face. A bit out-of-date, perhaps, but it neatly disguised her lack of side-whiskers.
“We should darken it,” he muttered, wanting nothing more than to slide his fingers through the shiny stuff and feel the shape of her head against his palms. “Your color’s too distinctive. I’ll see to some dye stuff.”
Grudgingly, he stepped forward and picked up the jacket he’d laid out. “Here, put this on. And these,” he ordered, picking up the boots and handing them over.
He nodded when she had finished dressing. The loose coat hid the worst—or best—of her curves and the straight sides of the boots covered the shape of her calves. Her face still looked like an angel’s, though. A very feminine angel’s. He fumbled around in his pocket and withdrew his spectacles, the ones he wore for close work when his eyes were tired. “Here, try these.”
She hooked the wire frames around her ears and assumed a frowning, purse-mouthed stare. Neil thought she looked charming, like a child playing dress-up and fooling no one but herself.
“I guess you’ll do.” He sighed. “Let’s see you walk.”
Elizabeth strutted around the room, hands swinging in a parody of Terry’s loose-limbed gait, and then rested in a negligent, purely masculine pose. He had to admit her movements matched those of a young dandy. “Perhaps you missed your calling, Elizabeth. Quite the little actress, aren’t you?”
She grinned, her face lighting at what she took for praise. “I may never go back to skirts!”
Neil cleared his throat to cover a chuckle. The scamp was clearly enjoying this despite the reasons for it. Why that should surprise him, he didn’t know. Her adventurous nature was the talk of the town.
He let his gaze wander over her, looking for things to improve. What the devil did she have in her trousers? Whatever it was, it would have been vastly flattering on a man twice her size. “Maybe you ought to reduce your…endowments just a bit, Elizabeth.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Certainly not! And don’t call me Elizabeth.”
He laughed at her indignation and shook his head. “It’s too large, my dear. Much too large. People will stare, believe me.”
