“What did you dress as?”
“A Vestal Virgin.”
Hebe blinked.
“Hmm, I carried it off rather well, even if I do say so myself.” Aunt pursed her lips. “If you wish, dear, we could cobble together a similar outfit for you? There’s not much to it.”
Hebe sniggered. “I think I’d prefer to be the highwayman. Flapping my cloak and twirling my pistols.”
In fact, all the male costumes were so much more sensational: kings, pirates, warriors and tyrants – scourges of both the highways and seaways.
Yet the ladies were demoted to milkmaids and flower girls.
And when had one last seen a London flower girl togged in pink watered silk with red velvet ribbons garnishing her elaborate chignon?
Aunt sighed pleasurably as the maid commenced shaking an oily tonic into her palms, the scent of lavender wafting.
“I adore these natural countryside preparations,” she said to the plasterwork. “Do you have one for the complexion, Lettie?”
“I do, madam. I’ll prepare it later today, if thee like.” And she commenced rubbing the concoction into Aunt’s scalp and curls.
“Delightful. Yes, if you could. What else does this one contain in addition to lavender? I can smell many a fine-scented herb?”
“Aye. There also be two ounce of hog’s lard and an ounce of trotter’s oil – all fresh like. Pigs were slaughtered yesterweek.”
Aunt sucked in a breath.
“If thee want it,” Lettie continued, oblivious to the pained expressions of city folk, “Mary in the kitchens knows how to make thee hair blond with cow piss and stove ashes as her father were a tanner. Right gallows clever, she be.”
Hebe watched Aunt’s lips part, then close, and smothered a giggle. “I think Mrs Cassell suits her colour.”
“She’s got henna as well to tinge thee hair red as old Queen Bess. Now, there,” she said, righting Aunt Beatrice and wrapping her head in a length of muslin. “Leave that on for a good hour and it’ll be smooth as a dead mole.”
With a nod of a job well done, Lettie capped the bottle and wandered to the turret window to collect the towels that lay upon the padded seat, but gazing out, the maid bit her lip and sighed.
“Something amiss, Lettie? We do appreciate all you have done for us.”
“’Tis my pleasure, Mrs Locke. I enjoy my work tremendously, I do.” Her eyes widened and head tilted, so Hebe wandered over to see what had the maid so enamoured.
Oh.
Striding through the gardens were Lord Ernest and Redmond O’Conner, both clad in merely shirt, breeches and boots, huge hairy sheep in their arms. Once they reached the entrance to the stable courtyard, they each shoved their belligerent animals through the doors and slammed them, before shaking hands and thumping shoulders in a manly show of…manliness. Their sleeves were yanked to the elbow, all tanned forearms and bared throats.
“Lawks,” rasped Aunt Beatrice who’d crept up behind.
Lawks indeed, for at that moment Lord Ernest approached the water trough. He plucked off his glasses, bent and dipped his entire head, then emerged, shaking like a golden lion at a jungle pool, all bared teeth and sodden mane.
The stable master, with a touch more decorum, scooped the water up in cupped palms and ran it over his hair, rivulets streaking his shirt and detailing the wiry muscle beneath.
Aunt might have whimpered.
“Those Cotswold Lions are magnificent, so they be,” the maid whispered, nose now flattened to the glass, breath misting it.
“Lord Ernest, you mean?”
“No, the local sheep, madam. The Cotswold Lion, they be named.” A blinking Lettie drew back, yanking her uniform straight. “I’ll start preparing the skin potion for thee. It’ll take some time as the kitchen lad has to gather snails from the pond.” And she departed the bedchamber in both a maidenly and maidly bustle.
Aunt winced and Hebe smirked, but both their gazes returned in haste to the handsome males as they strode through the gardens towards the Tower.
