The blade made a small scraping noise that sounded loud in the silence. Despite herself, she sneaked a glance in the mirror. She hadn’t seen him clean-shaven, and she was annoyed to find her fingers itched to touch the newly exposed smooth skin. Looking away, she went to the bed and started folding the clothes he’d left there. This also felt strangely intimate, but it irked her to see his fine garments mistreated.
Still, her gaze kept wandering to the emerging planes of his face.
He dipped the brush again, rubbed white foam in a wide arc beneath his nose, caught his upper lip with his teeth—
“What are you doing?” she burst out.
“Removing my mustache.” Calmly—as he did everything else—he drew the razor over a section, rinsed it in the washbowl, shaved the next patch. And on, until many black hairs floated on top of the water, and the space above his lip was bare and a touch paler than the rest of his face.
He rubbed it. “Feels odd.”
He flashed a rueful smile full of straight, white teeth she hadn’t noticed before. Her own mouth gaped open as she laid the second shirt on the bed and sat herself at the edge, her hands clenched in her lap.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She finally found her tongue. “You look young.”
He laughed. “And just how old did you think I was?”
“I don’t know,” she hedged, mentally kicking herself for making such a brainless comment in the first place. “Older.”
“I’m twenty-three.” He looked back in the mirror, turning his head this way and that.
“Twenty-three?” They were much closer in age than she’d thought. “But you’re so—” She clamped her mouth shut. What was wrong with her this night?
“Yes?” He turned around and watched Cait as she felt her cheeks slowly turn red. His beautiful mouth split into a grin. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know what you were going to say.”
“I—” She could see her flaming face in the mirror behind him. “I was only going to say that you seem a…a rather serious young man.”
Except now he was laughing again. “I know. I was handed a lot of responsibility at an early age. That’s why I grew the mustache. I thought if I looked older…” His fingers moved to stroke the absent whiskers, then jerked away. “I miss it already.”
“I thought you wore it in imitation of the king.” She gestured at the glorious long hair that reached to the middle of his chest. “You look like a Cavalier.”
“My family did support Charles in the war,” he said distractedly. One hand went up to stroke the wavy mass. “Well, there’s nothing for it,” he announced in resigned tones.
“Nothing for what?”
“The hair.” He reached for his knife. “It must come off as well.”
She cocked her head. “Why?”
“Same reason I shaved the mustache. Gothard knows I’m alive now. I don’t want him to notice me following him. I’ll look different, yes?”
“Well, aye. But you look different already,” she argued. Why did she care?
He glanced in the looking glass again. “Not different enough.” Holding a hank of the beautiful black silk, he measured it against his shoulder and hacked off a hunk. Crookedly.
She winced. “You’re going to look like a wallydraigle.”
His expression went from pained concentration to obvious amusement. “A what?”
“A most slovenly creature.” She moved closer. “I’ll cut it for you,” she said, “if you’ll go down to the kitchen and ask to borrow a pair of scissors.”
Relief relaxed his features. “Done.”
He left the room before she quite digested the offer she’d made. Cut the Englishman’s hair? She wanted nothing to do with him. What had she been thinking?
She paced around the large chamber. The carved oak furniture all matched, and the counterpane and bedhangings looked to be of silk. Once again, she wondered how he could afford such a place. But apparently he’d been thinking ahead. He’d needed a mirror to accomplish this transformation, and not many small inns would provide one.
She jumped when he barged back in, holding the scissors. “Did you think I was a ghost again?”
“Nothing that benign.” She dragged a chair over to face the mirror and waved him into it.
He sat and looked at her reflection in the glass, handing her the scissors over one shoulder. “Go ahead,” he urged.
The black waves felt soft in her hands. Fighting shyness at being this close to him, touching him, she measured and cut, measured and cut, a wee bit at a time. Soon she was engrossed in the careful work, but not so much that she didn’t steal glances at him in the mirror.
As his curtain of hair fell away, his fine features seemed even more striking. She noticed the long black lashes crowning his leaf-green eyes. And those chiseled, mustacheless lips. He had such a beautiful mouth.
With her hands in his hair, her nose full of his spicy, masculine scent, he suddenly wasn’t quite so irritating. As his dark locks slipped through her fingers, it seemed as though a different person were emerging. Surely not, but she felt differently toward him all the same. And chided herself for it.
He studied her in the mirror as well. “What color are your eyes?” he asked.
“My eyes?” She clipped, then glanced up. “Hazel. Why?”
“They looked green earlier today, but now they look blue.”
She frowned. “Well, they’re hazel.” Placing the last silky sheared hank on the dressing table, she stepped away to assess her handiwork. His hair now neatly skimmed his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “It’s a much better job than I would have done.”
She glanced at his knife on the table’s marble surface. “I expect so,” she said, a wry smile teasing at her lips.
Despite all her reservations, she was feeling rather kindly toward him—until he stood, stretched, then unlaced the top of his shirt and pulled it free from his breeches.
“What are you doing now?” she burst out.
He sat back on the chair to pull off his boots. “Getting comfortable for bed.
