August1829
Montcliffe Abbey
“Mina—. Please. Please don’t do this.” Lucy walked across their shared bedchamber and shook her friend hard by the shoulders. “Think of what could happen if someone catches you at the boxing match and realizes you’re a girl…” She finally ended her pleading and fixed an accusatory stare on her wayward friend.
Lucy’s silences were harder to bear than her warnings. So Mina explained again how nothing terrible could possibly happen at The Angel Inn in Grantham. “I’m going dressed in Peter the groom’s old clothes, so I’ll just fade into the stables at the inn and make myself useful. They’ll be so glad of extra help with the crowds of travelers that will flood into Grantham for the fight, that no one will pay me the slightest attention.”
“But you’re a girl.”
Lucy could be damnably stubborn, so Mina tried again to reassure her friend. “I have my disguise.” She swept her hands around the costume she’d cobbled together. She’d subdued and hidden her bright curls beneath a well-worn slouch cap she’d retrieved from the pile of servants’ used clothing they gave to the poor of the parish each winter.
“But what about the other?”
“What other?”
“You know.” Lucy’s cheeks turned an intense pink.
“Oh…” Mina stared down at the evidence of her budding breasts beneath the boy’s muslin shirt soiled so many times mucking out stalls that the cloth, although clean, was permanently a dark shade of brown. She’d forgotten about the inconvenient appearance late the year before of proof of her inability to do the things her brothers and Julian enjoyed. The muslin shirt, nearly transparent from so many launderings, did little to hide the annoying small bumps her traitorous body had produced. Life was so unfair. “They’re not overly large. Maybe no one will notice.”
Lucy shrieked. “Think about what you’re saying.”
Mina hung her head for a moment and then suddenly raised her face close to Lucy’s. She snapped her fingers in the unladylike display for which she’d been chastised on numerous occasions by Lucy’s aunt Mrs. Phippen, who was also their governess. “We can steal some cheese-cloth from Cook.”
At Lucy’s puzzled expression, she explained. “You can wrap them for me so they won’t show.”
Bridget breezed through the door just then with a pile of fresh linens for their beds and skidded to a stop.Whatare you girls doing?
When Mina opened her mouth to reply, Bridget interrupted. “Do not even think to make up some wild lies about what you’re doing. I can see for myself. You’re dressed like a boy, and poor Lucy is helping you bind your breasts.” She dumped the linens on Lucy’s bed and then crossed herself.
On second thought, I don’t want to know what you’re doing, so that I can truthfully say I don’t know when your father asks me after you’ve gotten yourself into some new pother of trouble.
11
Julian leaned back onto the squabs of the Tindall family coach and crossed his arms. He’d had high hopes for his old friends over the months he’d tried to civilize them, but the stench of ale inside the coach told a different story. George and Wills apparently still clung to their wayward habits.
And then he realized with a start this trip to a boxing match out in a field near The Angel Inn in Grantham was probably not the best way to convince his old friends of the folly of perpetual drunkenness.
But then, he loved watching a good mill himself, and besides, what did he have to lose by joining them on a weekend jaunt? He’d even brought along a few bottles of wine from Amelie’s vineyards for his own pleasure. And then there was the huge hamper on which he now rested his boots. He’d ordered enough victuals from Fortnam’s to last them to Scotland if necessary.
He was having second thoughts, however, about the length of the trip out to Grantham for the matches. He understood the reason for the events being held so far out of London. Although massively popular, they were still actually illegal. Most of his colleagues in Lords, however, would admit the main reason they opposed the matches was not the rampant gambling. The problem was the gathering of such large crowds, usually in the thousands, during times already fraught with public unrest.
He’d nearly fallen asleep when suddenly George spoke. “You were right about the carousing. We’ve wasted years out of Eton trying to drink ourselves into oblivion.”
George’s younger brother, Wills, sprawled slack-jawed and drooling across from Julian. When George leaned close across the center of the carriage interior, he motioned for Julian to do the same. He lowered his voice to a loud whisper. “I’m trying to get Wills off the drink, but the going is slow.”
“Maybe you should get him interested in whatever he’s to do with the rest of his life?”
“Lord knows I’ve tried.”
“What are his ambitions?”
“To stay on father’s dole till he dies.”
“What about the church?”
“Does he look like a future vicar?”
Julian shook his head ruefully and tried again. “Why not the military?” He quickly rejected that option before George had a chance to reply. “No, never mind, and besides, England’s not even at war. Damned difficult to ascend through the ranks.
