She grinned and lowered her hands. Gray-brown whiskers burst from her cheeks in untamed glory.
Philippa snorted with laughter. “You look as though you’ve not seen your valet in decades.”
“Then it’s perfect.”
“Should you look so particular?” Philippa peered at the whiskers in fascination. “Won’t a pair of squirrels growing out of your face make you memorable?”
“Unforgettable,” Tommy agreed. “Which is often the best disguise. If witnesses are asked to describe me, they’ll all say exactly the same thing: they saw an old man with an abundance of whiskers. They won’t have the least idea of any detail that might actually identify me.”
It was quite clever, and an embarrassing observation about human nature.
Tommy put down her mirror. “How do I look?”
“Incongruous,” Philippa admitted. “You’ve a young man’s hair, an old man’s whiskers, and a mostly Tommy face.”
“Ah,” said Tommy. “Then it’s time for the next step.”
Powdering her short hair gray with patches of white at the temple took no time at all. “I’ll have my hat on the entire time,” Tommy explained. “But even if someone notices my hair is powdered, they’ll think nothing of it…at my age.”
Philippa stared in wonder as Tommy carefully added wrinkles all over her face. Deep grooves in her forehead and a dimpled bit of skin between her eyebrows, just above the bridge of her nose. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. Grooves from the sides of her nostrils down past the corners of her mouth. Smudges of sallow purple-gray, creating the illusion of drooping bags beneath her eyes.
“You look ancient,” Philippa said. “And exhausted.”
“I’ll wait to do my hands until last.” Tommy added tufts of hair to her eyebrows, then waggled them at Philippa. “How do you do, young lady? Come sit on my lap before I fall asleep.”
Philippa burst out laughing. “Does that ever work?”
“There’s always a first time.” Tommy preened. “You’re saying I won’t cut the same swath Baron Vanderbean did?”
“Oh, you’ll make an impression, all right.”
“Excellent.” Tommy wiped her fingers on a cloth and stood up. “Your turn.”
Philippa’s heart skipped. “What? I could never pass as a gentleman.”
Tommy pulled her to her feet. “I know.”
Her face was inches from Philippa’s. Even with the springy eyebrows and the deep wrinkles and the frightening side whiskers, she was still magnificently Tommy. Philippa had to turn her face away, lest she be tempted to climb into Great-Uncle Wynchester’s lap after all.
“Over here.” Tommy led her to an armchair. “This spot has better light from the window.”
Hesitant, Philippa started to sit down in the chair.
“Wait,” Tommy said. “You’ll want to take off your overdress.”
Philippa raised her brows skeptically.
“When applying cosmetics,” Tommy explained, “never wear anything you don’t want covered in them.”
Breath shaky, Philippa turned around to let Tommy loosen the ties of her lace overdress.
She had been undressed before, by her lady’s maid. That was done swiftly, the task over in a blink, the gown neatly folded and back in the wardrobe or set aside to be washed and ironed. It was ordinary work for the maid and unremarkable for Philippa.
But this.This.Tommy changed in and out of costumes at a moment’s notice, yet her competent fingers took their time with Philippa’s overdress. The boring little bow at the back was untied lovingly. The basic white ribbon eased free, inch by inch, widening the gap between the lace panels.
Philippa felt more exposed by the second.
The jittery pounding of her heart was ridiculous. It was not only an overdress, but alaceoverdress, and by definition already transparent. Tommy wasn’t glimpsing any more of Philippa’s body by removing its outermost shell.
