A Transgender Regency Romance - Constantine has been raised as a boy, can she adapt to her new status?

Jewelery and slippers provided, Constantine glared at his image in the mirror. It was as if he had been decapitated and his head placed on some girl’s body.

“Whoever cut your hair should be flogged,” Genevieve remarked and Constantine smiled. He’d gotten that done while still in London Town before coming back to Debenham. “Does no one in the house have a suitable blond wig?” his stepmother complained.

“I have a wig,” said Miss Vivian. “Of course, it is brown.”

“And I have two black ones,” said Genevieve, “but they will never do.”

Constantine smirked, a minor victory in obstructing his emasculation but he’d take it.

“Uh,” said Alex. “I have a wig Mother left behind. It’s ginger blond instead of the honey color Connie and I have.”

“It will do, if it is presentable after twelve years,” Genevieve decided. “Fetch it, girl.”

Constantine glared at Alex’s back as his sister dashed next door to retrieve the wig from her trove of treasures their mother had left when she fled.

Genevieve smiled. “Such a pretty pout, Constance,” she observed. “Perhaps you should stamp one of your little feet to show us how displeased you are, hmm?”

Miss Vivian snorted in a failed attempt to suppress a laugh. Constantine’s mouth flew open but he said nothing, shifting his glare to his stepmother once his sister had disappeared.

Genevieve mocked him with a false moue of suffering and a lifted eyebrow. “I realize you think we are doing this to torment you, but it’s not true, sweetheart. You’re a girl and the sooner you get adjusted to that truth, the sooner you can go back to enjoying yourself.”

Constantine sighed. “I can’t imagine I’ll be allowed to do as I wish,” he said. “Are you going to let me ride my horse?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Genevieve. “Alex rides. We’ll have to have one of her old riding habits altered for you.”

He gestured with one hand. “I ride astride,” he said. A riding habit had a skirt.

“No, you don’t, not anymore. Women ride sidesaddle,” said Genevieve firmly. “You could do yourself an injury straddling a horse.” She and Miss Vivian exchanged quick glances. “It’s a wonder you hadn’t already.”

It was a firm belief among all classes that a girl riding astride risked breaking her hymen, thus removing evidence of her virginity. But Dr. Pillbody had assured the family, with the assistance of nurse, that Connie was still intact.

Constantine had no idea what they meant. Horseback riding had not been something he had ever gotten enough of. But women did not ride astride. Which meant that, riding sidesaddle, there were things they could not do, like take horses across rough country that would mean jumping over obstacles. He felt his heart sink.

Gallant, the gelding jumper he had been riding when at home for the last two years, already missed him, he was sure, for he had not been allowed to ride since his damn courses had started a month ago. And now…? Would Gallant even tolerate a sidesaddle? They were much harder on horses than conventional saddles.

Saddles made for men.

Constantine set his jaw. He would ride again, without skirts, without a sidesaddle.

*

Down in his office, the Marquess of Malvoir regarded his steward, Mr. Paul Atterbury, with some distaste. “I don’t give the devil’s arse-wind what you tell them,” he snapped.

“It’s only that they will ask, have asked, will continue to ask,” said the man. “They must be told something or they will make up their own stories. Lady Constance should not be the subject of rumor and gossip—but she will be. I have some influence over the narrative that is carried around, and through me, so do you. Sir.”

Malvoir winced. He surrounded himself with capable and competent servants and employees, many of them more intelligent than himself. Atterbury might well be the brightest of them all. Well, except for Genevieve whose intellect sometimes frightened him.

Mr. Atterbury continued. “We need to decide what we want them to know and what we want them to believe. You need to decide.”

“The truth?” Malvoir suggested.

“If the truth will serve our purposes, it were better to use it. But what is the truth and from whose viewpoint?” Atterbury shook his head. “Eventually, and perhaps sooner or later while she is still young enough to be made allowances for, she has to meet other members of the Quality. Because, in the future, she will need a husband.”

Malvoir blinked, admitting to himself that he had not been looking that far ahead. “What—what sort of man would want her? With her history?”

Atterbury looked at his employer sadly. “Not to be unkind, sir, but she is the daughter of a Marquess, one of the wealthier men in the country, too. She will have suitors. The task will be to find one who will treat with her well.”

Malvoir tapped his chin, thinking. “If she even wants a husband…” he mused.

*

Alex returned with the wig left behind by her vanished mother. It wasn’t so much a wig as a hairpiece that looked like a high, tight bun, and it had been made from Caroline’s own hair, which was a redder shade of blonde than either of her two daughters.

Still, when it was held in place with pins, it added volume to Constance’s short locks, and the different color was not immediately obvious. The effect was entirely pleasing, especially to Alexandra who secretly delighted to see the pretty pout looking into a mirror produced on her erstwhile brother’s face.

“You’re so lovely, sis,” she cooed, rubbing it in.

Connie glared, and when she thought no one else could see, she stuck her tongue out at Alex who uttered a delighted peal of laughter.

But Genevieve had seen the interchange. She said nothing, though. The sisters would have to work out a way to tolerate one another. And she had an idea of how to hurry that along. “Alexandra,” she said, “while Miss Vivian and I see to Constance’s clothing and instructions, I have another task for you.”

“Yes, Mamá?” said the older girl eagerly.

Neither of her stepchildren regularly called Genevieve, Mamá, and never called her Mother. They both preferred her Christian name., usually. Alex appeared to be signaling her willingness to “suck up”, Genevieve reflected.

“You and your sister will be sharing the Rose Suite from now until your coming out in the spring, at least. You’ll also share a ladies’ maid. The three of us,” she indicated herself, Alexandra and Miss V, “will consider who will be advanced to the position. With two daughters in the house, I’m not going to share my maid any longer.”

Alex beamed, and Constance tried to deepen her pout into a scowl. Genevieve looked away from her youngest stepdaughter to avoid showing her amusement. The girl had no idea what such a dark expression did to her angelic features. Instead of angry, she looked heartbroken. In the future, men would find her countenance devastatingly appealing, and would probably break limbs trying to make her smile.

Continuing, Genevieve expanded on her plan. “I’ll have instructions for the maids, and for the carpenter; you’ll want two dressing rooms, perhaps two boudoirs, but you can share the big bedroom as my sister and I did when we were your ages.”

Connie’s mouth fell open and Alex snapped hers shut. The girls looked at each other, not quite glaring.

This will work, thought their stepmother. They’ll become each other’s dearest friend—if I have to bind them together hand and foot.

*

“It hain’t true,” Fleece insisted. He shook his wide head and its wooly curls.

Tother nodded his own head. “I’ve asked two masters and the chaplain and when I was home, my own father. The story is all over Town and probably the whole of Society. It is true.” He looked as if sharing this news made him tired.

The boys had recently started the new term at Harrow, after their August holiday with their families. They ought to have been rested but the tale of Constantine had snowballed in the six months since their sprig brother had been sent down.

Edge spoke up. “Yes, it’s true. That Connie is a girl, always was a girl? I had seen him, her before he, she was rusticated.” Rusticated meant to be sent home from school midterm.

Tother looked appalled. “You saw her?” Fleece scowled in confusion.

“Through the dean’s window,” Edge explained. “When the Physician examined her, back in February.” Edge was well-known for lurking and finding out things he shouldn’t have been able to know. Even an upper floor window was not secure from his eyes.

Not sure what to think about such eyewitness testimony, Tother protested, “And you said nothing to anyone at the time?”

Edge’s look turned stubborn. “It wasn’t anyone’s business until it became everyone’s. I put it under our brothers’ pact.” Meaning a sort of Official Secrets Act among sprig brothers: members secrets were to be shared only on a need to know basis. After a moment’s thought, Edge added, “Even if Connie is really our sister, she counts as a brother. We took an oath.”

Tother nodded his acceptance of that logic. “We said brothers forever when we took our blood oaths. And we ain’t liars.” When they were all eight, they had cut their fingers and smeared the blood on a chip of wood that had then been tossed into the little stream that ran through Harrow, and so down to the Thames and to the eternal sea.

“Connie is a lassie?” Fleece asked, having finally worked through the logic and testimony to tentative acceptance. He didn’t like it but as his old Gamfer would have said, “Ne’er try to out stubborn a stane bigger’n yer head.”

The other two nodded.

“Nae one will t’marry her, syne she were a lad,” the northern boy pronounced after consideration. He could speak like anyone else in school, though with a slight burr and more viable ‘r’s; it had been beaten into him with other lessons. But with his brothers, he preferred to speak in his home dialect. Not that he didn’t get accused by the others of making some of it up.

The three looked at each other.

“One of us will have to do it,” Tother decided. “Marry Connie, I mean.” He was the one who made decisions when there was no obvious consensus.

Edge examined his finger tips then looked up. “Do we draw straws or let her decide?”

*

Constantine looked in the mirror and saw a boy dressed in girl’s clothes looking back at him. A faux girl who moved when he did, who resembled his sister and his mother, but who he knew must be himself in a poor disguise. He sighed. It still seemed unreal.

He wore the white gown that had been decided on. It had a neckline low enough to hint at a bosom being in there somewhere, supported by invisible stays. Puff sleeves helped conceal the muscles in his upper arms from playing sport. Lucky perhaps that he had attended Harrow and not one of the schools where he might have been on crew and developed his forearms to an unsightly degree.

Not that cricket, football, horse riding, boxing, squash and fencing had left him weak anywhere. He had been proud of his development and accomplishments. He’d been one of the bigger, stronger boys in his year all through his career at Harrow and he had delighted in being so.

Now, that muscle would be a liability for the girl everyone wanted him to be. He put his hands behind his back to conceal his wrists and forearms, then observed the effect in the mirror. While the clothes made him look more like a girl, in the eyes and the set of his chin, he still saw his boy self.

“Why did you do that Connie?” his stepmother asked. “Why did you put your hands behind your back?”

He looked at her. “My wrists are half again as big as Alex’s,” he said.

“They are not!” Genevieve sounded exasperated. She put her own arms out for comparison. “See? My wrists and forearms are bigger than yours. I grew up on the manor farm of my grandfather in Hampshire. I rode horses and pitched hay with the boys, too. I used to wrestle them.”

She suddenly colored a bit and stifled a laugh. “Well, I don’t have to tell you everything. But the point is, you’re a little different from other girls, Connie. But that’s fine. We’re all a bit strange in our own ways. Don’t try to hide who you are and just be the best you, you can.”

Constantine took a deep breath and looked at the mirror again. He still thought he looked ridiculous.

“You’re quite pretty,” his sister said. “I’m actually a bit jealous of your skin, in particular.”

“You do have lovely skin,” agreed Genevieve. “Your complexion is healthy without being too highly colored. What do you think, Miss Vivian?”

Miss V appeared to consider the question. “Lovely skin,” she agreed. “But I think your best feature, Connie, is your mouth. You have a beautiful smile and your lips make a perfectly plump cupid’s bow.”

Constantine closed his eyes. He had not wanted to hear that about his mouth. He’d actually been teased at Harrow about his girlie lips, though it had only been teasing, and nothing quite serious until the blowup with Punch Farthinger. He wished there was someone present he could punch in the nose.

He opened his eyes and despaired at his reflection again. He was neither, nor—but something in-between. It wouldn’t do. “If Father wants me to be a girl now….” His voice faltered.

“He does,” Genevieve assured him.

Again, tears leaked down his face. “Do you think he will believe me to be…pretty?” Connie ended on am embarrassing squeak.

“Do you want to be pretty?” Genevieve asked, perhaps sensing a wavering in his resolve.

Connie regretted having asked and certainly did not want to answer. But duty to his elders compelled him. “If it pleases Father—I’ll try,” he said in a very small voice.

Genevieve clapped her hands. “Brava,” she said, nodding at the other women. Miss Vivian, Alexandra and even the maids who were in the room clapped for him.

If he could have died right then, he would have happily marched off to Hell, arm-in-arm with the Devil.