No Proper Lady by Isabel Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

the mark was on her inner arm and less obvious.
    Rose returned carrying a brown dress and leading a slim, dark-haired woman with a large bag. “Mrs. Simmons, miss.”
    Did she bow? Shake hands? Joan settled for smiling. “Good morning.”
    “Miss MacArthur,” said Mrs. Simmons. She took a quick look around the room and then at Joan. She sniffed once. I got here just in time , that sniff said. “Please move to the center of the room, miss, and we can get started.”
    Joan spent the next hour both bored and nervous. Mrs. Simmons and Rose moved around her, taking measurements and altering the brown dress. She stared at the wall and tried not to flinch at having two strangers in such close proximity. She tried not to think that there were two of them, that they were healthier than anyone she knew back home, and that she was unarmed and wearing only thin cloth.
    She did fairly well, Joan thought. Her hands didn’t shake at all.
    It helped that Rose was silent and that Mrs. Simmons didn’t speak except to note measurements and to ask Joan to move. For most of the fitting, the seamstress didn’t seem to see Joan as anything other than a figure to measure and a form to fit. When Joan raised her arms the first time, though, Mrs. Simmons’s eyes fell on the scar there, the one from when a fell beast had grabbed Joan. Mrs. Simmons stopped, tape measure dangling from one hand.
    Joan had prepared her explanation of a fall when she was young onto a piece of broken glass. She braced herself for the question.
    It never came. Instead, Mrs. Simmons looked past Joan and met Rose’s eyes. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
    The scar didn’t say glass to them or tentacle . It said whip or maybe rope . A sudden, knowing sympathy crossed both women’s faces for just a second before they bent back to the task at hand. This world had its cruelties as well.
    Then the dress went down over Joan’s head. It felt like a tent and weighed a ton, but she relaxed a little. At least her marks were well hidden now. “Did Mr. Grenville give any, um, specific instructions?” she asked.
    “Yes, miss.” Mrs. Simmons kept measuring while she talked, moving with the swift purpose some men had when they fought. “Blouses and skirts mostly, he said, plus the other, er, essentials. The corset’ll take some time, but I should have the rest within a few days.”
    They’d told Joan about corsets before they sent her. She fought back a wince and told herself that it couldn’t be worse than a broken rib. “Thank you.”
    “Yes, miss. Will this do?”
    Mrs. Simmons gestured toward the mirror, and Joan stepped forward. The skirt swung against her legs, heavy enough that she knew her reaction time would suffer. She felt like she was walking through water. Also, if she had to kick anything in this costume, she was screwed.
    On the other hand, at least she’d have plenty of places to stash knives. And, for what it was worth, the dress didn’t look half bad. Hell, it made her look better than she had at home most of the time, though being clean and rested went a long way too. Plus, it was warm, whole, and softer than either canvas or leather.
    “Good,” she said, stepping back. “Thank you.”
    Mrs. Simmons bobbed a curtsy. “I’ll send a girl when the other things are ready, miss,” she said, and headed out.
    “If you don’t mind, miss,” Rose said, “Mr. Grenville’s expecting you in the library. Shall I get you ready?”
    “Sure,” Joan said, not sure how much more ready she could get.

Chapter 7
    The dress was hardly flattering. Simon was no judge of female fashion, but even he could see that it had been taken in and that dark brown wool and severe lines did nothing to disguise the wire-over-bone look of Joan’s body.
    Normal clothing made her less strange, though. Before, she’d been so far outside Simon’s experience that he couldn’t even have thought of her as pretty or plain. The flash of beauty he’d seen on the walk from the