“My husband says that the woman who paints puts up a sign, like a tavern, that she is open to visitors. ‘Jezebel-finery for strumpets and followers of false prophets,’” she said, mimicking her husband’s glum tone.

“Indeed? It will excite him all the more then. No smiling until you wash it off tonight.”

“I am not allowed to smile.”

I painted egg white onto her naked skin and into it drew blue veins. As it dried to a perfectly smooth sheen, I darkened her eyelashes and brows and reddened her lips, cheeks and nails. Finally, from the linen sack I had brought with me, I took out a ruff dyed with my own patent starch recipe. You would have thought it was a severed head, so repulsed was her expression. I wondered if she had been in the crowd when her father-in-law was executed. Many of her relatives had gone to the block. It made my fingers fly to think that I was in the presence of people talked about in taverns.

“Yellow? That is too bold. Only drabs wear yellow,” Frances said.

“Drabs and Irish peasants,” I agreed, tying the ruff round her neck. “They use urine but, if you can afford it, saffron gives a deeper color without the stink. It is somewhat outrageous but that can prove arousing.” She looked unconvinced but allowed me to pin it in place.

I pushed up her skirt to roll on stockings. She had the slim, taut legs of a girl. Her feet, young enough that the bones did not show, were as pretty as ducklings. I felt, for an uncomfortable moment, as if I were arming a child. Still, her husband had no qualms in attacking her, so I must have none in fortifying her.

The bells of Westminster chimed midday. I rolled on the stockings, elaborately embroidered at the ankle, and tied the laces of green silk shoes with high heels. From strong boxes came bracelets, rings, necklaces and earrings with which I finished her armature, tying the most valuable to her body with black thread to keep them safe. I helped her to stand by pulling on her lower arms so as not to smudge her painted hands. She towered a good two feet above me.

As she stared at herself in the long glass, I was suddenly nervous. The dreary little mushroom was magicked into a goddess, barely human although wrought of human artifice, a statue brought to life by enchantment, highly sexual yet not approachable. Could she carry so brave a façade?

She turned to me. Although her face was stiff under the ceruse, her eyes shone with delight.

“You may call me Frankie, but not in public,” she said, swaying to the door. “Ready?”

“For what?”

“To join me.”

“I am not dressed!”

“No matter. We are only going to see the King’s worms.”

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