Denver, Colorado, April 1877

I am a banker, educated at Yale, and would do well with a woman in possession of an intellect similar to my own …

Mrs. Pettigrew referred to the letter in her hand, then studied the woman standing before her. “Hm, perhaps,” she mused.

“Perhaps what?” the woman snapped in a British accent.

Mrs. Pettigrew’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you resist, ma belle?” she asked. “How do you expect me to find you a husband, when you keep rejecting all of my applicants?”

“Because this is hopeless!” Billie said. “Look at me!”

Mrs. Pettigrew looked the girl over. “I see nothing wrong.”

“Nothing? I’m the size of an oak tree, blind in one eye, scarred and half the men in Denver think I’m a pirate!”

“Perhaps if you would refrain from dressing as a sailor, you would not attract such comparisons?”

Billie glanced at her clothing – she’d put on her father’s old captain’s uniform for this appointment because, frankly, it was the nicest outfit she had. There wasn’t a dress in the world that she looked good in, and since she’d been working odd jobs as she made her way west, wearing men’s clothing was just more practical. But certainly Mrs. Pettigrew had a point.

After she and her father were set upon by highwaymen – stage robbers, they were referred to in this country – she’d been doing her best to make her money last. She’d lost far more than money during that robbery – she’d lost her father, the only family she had. She’d promised him she would marry, have a good life and children, and was now trying to pursue that.

Problem was, she was no beauty, at least in her eyes. Her minimal number of suitors back home in London had agreed. Of course, if her father had been rich, she’d have been married long ago, beauty or no beauty. Probably also miserable, for what man would marry her for love, or any other reason other than money? At least she still had the fortitude to carry out his dying wish, but how many men were looking for fortitude?

“But come now, you must not be so hard on yourself,” Mrs. Pettigrew went on. “You are … statuesque! Oui?”

Billie rolled her remaining eye. If the comrades of the murdering wretch that killed him hadn’t come back, he’d have paid dearly for his crimes. As it was, she’d only been able to knock him unconscious with a rock – just as he slashed her face with a knife. He fell and so did she, her face stinging like the devil. She’d thought the wound would hurt more, then remembered something her father told her: It’s the fatal wounds that fool a man, Billie Jane. Those are the ones to beware of, the ones with no pain …

The wound to her face began to hurt a lot. Or maybe it had all along, but she’d been so busy trying to keep her father from bleeding to death, she’d paid little attention to her own pains. Then she’d had to take refuge under a fallen log when his murderer’s compatriots returned to see what was taking him so long. They’d ridden away with the unconscious form of her father’s killer, leaving her with his dead body – and wounds far deeper than a knife could make.

Billie reached up and touched the rough eyepatch she wore. The scar on her forehead and right cheek wasn’t so bad, but doctors couldn’t save her eye. They’d half-blinded her, and made her bitter. She hoped that at least her and her father’s attacker had died from the blow she’d dealt him. Would serve him right …

“Ma petite,” Mrs. Pettigrew began.

“Don’t call me that! There’s nothing little about me.”

The matchmaker sighed and studied her. “Est-ce que parle français?”

Billie frowned and took a deep breath through the nose. Mrs. Pettigrew’s French wasn’t exactly perfect. “Oui, je le parle couramment.”

“Why, that is wonderful!” Mrs. Pettigrew declared. “You are fluent in the French!” She looked at the letter in her hand. “This gentleman wishes an educated woman. Do you speak any other languages?”

“Ich spreche Deutsch,” Billie said on a sigh.

“Two languages! Superb! Where did you go to school, my dear?”

Billie’s smile was sardonic. “On the deck of my father’s ship, mostly.”

Mrs. Pettigrew’s eyes grew wide. “What is this? You sailed with your father?”

“Not all the time – it depended on the crew. But yes, often enough.”

Mrs. Pettigrew gave her an appreciative smile. “I think you will suit Monsieur Miller nicely. But those clothes …” She began to walk a circle around Billie. “These will never do.”

“I keep these clothes because …” Billie stopped herself. There were several reasons, aside from being unable to find a dress that didn’t look like she was wearing a Bedouin’s tent. It was a way to remember her father. They were more convenient for working. And perhaps because after her ordeal, she was afraid of men, and it was safer to dress and act like one.

No, not perhaps. With her hair stuffed under a cap and her eyepatch and scars, she easily passed for a bloke. Not to mention her height and build – she was just over six feet and wide-boned to boot. Of course, she was also large in other places that marked her a woman – buxom, with a fundament big enough to keep things in balance. Those aspects, she had to hide as best she could while, say, digging ditches all day.

Mrs. Pettigrew pulled at her peacoat. “Take this off, ma belle. Let me see you.”

Billie shrugged off her coat, then, at the other woman’s prompting, her shirt. Underneath, she was wrapped up tight as an Egyptian mummy.

But Mrs. Pettigrew could see past the winding cloths. “Mon Dieu, you are, er … well-endowed.” Mrs. Pettigrew walked another circle around her. “In more places than one.”

She rolled her eyes. “Some of my father’s friends used to call me Buxom Billie.”

“That is not a bad thing. Many men desire such a woman. Especially one who is tall and strong.”

Billie turned to her in disbelief. “Really?” she scoffed. “I’ve yet to meet one.”

“Clearly you are new to the West.” Mrs. Pettigrew went to her desk and pulled a reticule out of a drawer. “Come, get dressed. We are leaving.”

“What? Where are we going?”

Mrs. Pettigrew went to a bell-pull and gave it a tug. “Shopping. You cannot meet Monsieur Miller dressed like an able seaman. We must make you into something special, worthy of your womanly charms!”

Billie glanced at her chest while re-buttoning her shirt. “Surely you jest.”

Mrs. Pettigrew’s eyes narrowed again as she smiled. “I do not jest, ma belle. Now let us go! We will pay a visit to my personal modiste!”

Billie’s eyes widened. “But Mrs. Pettigrew, I haven’t the money for such things.”

Adelia Pettigrew sniffed and smiled. “But I do.”

Vincenza de la Rosa (Vini for short, and short she was) peered at Billie through a lorgnette. If Billie were compacted to five feet tall, she might look like the short, squat woman, but she still moved gracefully. Billie marveled at the speed with which she hopped onto a stool to study her new charge. “This is a tall one!” she exclaimed. “And … wide.”

Billie fumed. “Excuse me?”

“She meant nothing by it, ma cherie,” Mrs. Pettigrew soothed. She turned to Mrs. de la Rosa. “What do you think, Vini?”

“I think this will be expensive. So much fabric …”

Billie made a fist and wondered how long she’d spend in gaol for punching the woman in the face.

“She is tall but proportionate, no?”

Mrs. de la Rosa nodded. “She could get away with not wearing a bustle.”

“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Pettigrew gushed. “No bustle!”

Billie’s expression was flat. “I heard.”

Mrs. Pettigrew continued to smile as the modiste pulled a notebook and pencil out of nowhere and started to jot things down. “We’ll need shoes,” she told Vini. “And other accessories.”

Billie’s expression changed to panic. “But Mrs. Pettigrew, I …”

“Yes, yes, I know. You have no money.”

Mrs. de la Rosa snapped to attention. “No money?!”

Billie willed herself not to cringe. She hated charity, and had decided on the carriage ride to the shop that she’d find a way to pay the matchmaker back, every bloody cent.

“Pish-tosh – I am taking care of this,” Mrs. Pettigrew stated sternly.

Mrs. de la Rosa calmed. “Well, that is another matter. We continue.” She hopped off the stool, went to the counter, picked up a small bell and rang it.

A pretty young blonde with big blue eyes rushed in and curtsied. “Yes, Mrs. de la Rosa?”

“Measure this woman, Maitred. I will be in my office discussing details with Signora Pettigrew.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The girl pulled a measuring cloth out of her apron pocket. She was no taller than her employer and studied Billie as if she didn’t know where to start.

“Use the stool,” Billie suggested dourly. “You might as well start at the top and work your way down.”

Maitred smiled weakly. “Yes, ma’am.” She stepped onto the stool and got to work - measuring Billie’s full height, her neck, the breadth of her shoulders. Billie felt more like she was being fitted for a suit than a dress – which would’ve suited her just fine.

“Oh dear,” Maitred said when she went to measure her bust and found nothing but wrapping. “This could pose a problem.”

“Just a moment,” Billie grumbled. At least they had her in the back room for modesty’s sake. It took a couple of minutes to unwrap her chest, and once she did poor Maitred gasped at the size of it. Billie sighed, partly at the girl’s reaction and partly because it was a relief to have the dratted bindings off. Maybe she’d still look like she was wearing a tent in the end, but a camisole would have to feel better than what she was used to.

Maitred kept on measuring, occasional jotting a measurement in her notebook. When she got to Billie’s hips, she checked for padding, then yelped in delight as she finished measuring. “You are perfectly proportionate, ma’am. Your bust and hips are the same.”

“How nice,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She knew how she was built. She also knew Mrs. Pettigrew hadn’t lied – there were men out there that liked a woman of her proportions, and some of them even liked her height. What they didn’t like was that she had a mind and could think for herself. She was no damsel in distress, and woe betide the fellow who tried to treat her as one. She pushed the thought aside, lest she back out of this mail-order madness and go work as a stagecoach driver.

“You are so wonderfully tall,” Maitred said. “If you don’t mind my saying.”

Billie stared at her. “You think it’s wonderful.”

“Yes, I wish I was taller. I hate being so small.”

“If it’s any consolation, I hate being so large.”

“Maybe we could meet in the middle,” Maitred suggested. “Then we’d both have what we want.”

Billie smiled. “If only we could. But at least you can put on heeled shoes. What can I do, stoop like a hunchback?”

Maitred nodded sadly. “We make the best of what the good Lord gave us.”

“Yes. We’ve little choice.” She watched the assistant scribble in her notebook and return it to her apron. “Where are you from, Maitred? You have an unusual name.”

“Massachusetts, originally. Nantucket.”

“Really? I’ve heard of it. Was your father a sailor?”

Maitred nodded. “On a whaler. You’re from England?”

“Cornwall, to be precise,” Billie said. “But I spent a lot of time in London. And my father was a sea captain.”

Maitred clapped in delight. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you! I’m Maitred Hubble. As to my name, my father gave it to me, but I don’t know where he got it from. He died soon after I was born – lost at sea – and never told my mother its origins.”

“I’m sorry,” Billie said as her eyes drifted away. “I lost my father too. Not long ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear, miss …”

“Call me Billie. Billie Jane Sneed, at your service.”

“Billie, then. Your mother?”

“Died giving birth to me.” She swallowed hard. She might as well be wearing a sign that said I KILLED MY MUM. She didn’t grow up to be large, she was born that way. Her father was big too, but her mother wasn’t. From her father’s description, she was no bigger than Maitred.

Maitred now stood, staring at her eyepatch with big blue eyes. “My mother’s gone too,” Maitred said quickly. “Consumption, last year.”

“I’m so sorry. How old are you?”

“Eighteen, come September.”

Billie glanced around the well-appointed dressing room. “And you want to be a dressmaker?”

“Oh, more than anything.”

Billie envied her. Maitred had a job she loved, was set up in a well-to-do shop and on her way to fulfilling her dream. Where was she? Getting gussied up to be mailed to some man in a town literally called Nowhere.

“I’d like to get married one day,” Maitred added tentatively. “Mrs. de la Rosa doesn’t want me to – she’d rather I work long hours for her.”

Billie’s eyes flicked to the door and back. “I see.” She bent to get eye-to-eye with the girl. “If you want to be a dressmaker, then be a dressmaker with your own shop. If you want to get married, then you get married.”

Maitred smiled as Billie straightened. “I always thought it was one or the other.”

“Not hardly. You just need to know what you want, then make it happen.” She went to a chair and sat. “You’re lucky. At least you know.”

“And you don’t?”

Billie looked at her. “No. I know what my father wanted.”

Before Maitred could reply, Mrs. Pettigrew and Mrs. de la Rosa returned to the dressing room. “Wonderful news, ma belle,” Mrs. Pettigrew said. “We will have several outfits made – they will be ready next week.”

Billie flushed red. “You didn’t have to commission so many …”

“Nonsense! You must be well prepared to meet Monsieur Miller. He is a banker, after all.”

Well, Billie thought as she began re-wrapping herself, that’s something. But those kinds of men didn’t usually want a woman like her – they wanted a pretty doll like Maitred to show off to their friends at social gatherings. She would never do in that capacity. “Mrs. Pettigrew … what happens if Mr. Miller doesn’t like me?”

Mrs. Pettigrew and Maitred stared at her in shock. Mrs. de la Rosa nodded in agreement. “How can you say such a thing?” Mrs. Pettigrew asked. “Look at you! You are beautiful!”

Billie closed her eyes. She wished the woman would stop saying that! “Mrs. Pettigrew, I know what I look like. And I know there’s not much anyone can do about it.”

“But that is where you are wrong.” She wagged a finger at her. “You have given Vini much to work with! You will be her greatest triumph!” She turned to the modiste. “Is that not true, Vini?”

Mrs. de la Rosa froze for a moment, swallowed. “Why, er …yes.” She looked Billie up and down. “My greatest triumph.” She put a hand to her chin and stroked it a few times. “Maitred! The purple velvet, quick!” Maitred ran from the room as Mrs. de la Rosa began to circle Billie. “I will make you a traveling suit fit for a queen!”

“I’d settle for one fit for the train to where this Mr. Miller lives.” She looked at Mrs. Pettigrew. “Is it really called Nowhere?”

Her new-found benefactor laughed and tossed her hands in the air. “Certainement!”

Billie sighed. “Figures.” She thought a moment as the two women circled and conversed about different fabrics. “At least in a place called Nowhere, I can count on even a banker being a man of modest ambition.”

Mrs. Pettigrew laughed. “Do not assume.”

“Why not? I’m sure he’s making all sorts of assumptions as to what kind of bride he has coming.”

“Perhaps, but we will surprise him, oui?”

For the first time in a long time, Billie laughed. “Oh, he’ll be surprised all right.” She just hoped the poor bloke didn’t die of shock when he saw her.