The Wedding Trap (5 page)

“In all of England, my lord.” Greenleaf drew back his shoulders, his angular chin pointing upward. “I am the finest hairdresser in all of England and likely the entire Continent as well. I have never seen my better.”

Well, he certainly does not lack for self-esteem,
Eliza mused.
Perhaps his middle name is Napoleon.

The introductions apparently at an end as far as the little dictator was concerned, the hairdresser tapped a pair of fingers against his lips and stared at her once more the way one might study a particularly distasteful but nevertheless intriguing beetle. He walked a slow circle, tsking and humming and sighing as he went.

Nerves pinched and fluttered along her skin, buzzing like a swarm of tiny gnats. She restrained the urge to twitch and slap, holding herself steady beneath his scrutiny, her eyes cast down. Over the years she had learned to endure all sorts of unpleasant, intolerable encounters by keeping her gaze lowered firmly toward the floor.

Suddenly fingers began plucking at her hairpins, diving with rude impertinence into her tresses to brush against her scalp.

She jumped and whirled, her hands flying defensively to her head. Fingers trembling, she tried to hold up her drooping topknot. “W-what are you doing?”

“Taking down your hair. I must see it free of this dreadful bun in which you have it yanked if I am to envision any kind of improvement. Already it has been made better simply by loosening it around your face. Now, put down your hands and let me take out those pins so I may see the challenge before me.”

She backed a step away. “No!”

Reddish-brown eyebrows rose, imperious as a pair of outraged monarchs. “No?” He turned to Kit, exasperation writ clearly upon his face. “My lord, if she will not cooperate then I see little point to this exercise. I am a busy man with many clients who do not balk at having a few trifling pins removed from their hair.”

Kit looked between the two of them. “Well, you did rather take her by surprise. Perhaps if you ask her politely you might begin again.”

The little man’s nostrils quivered anew at the rebuke. Still, he turned and made her a small bow. “My apologies, Miss Hammond, if I startled you. Now, may I please be allowed to continue?”

She hesitated, desperately wanting to refuse. She looked to Kit then to Violet, seeking their help and intervention.

Compassion lapped like a gentle ocean wave in Violet’s gaze. “Perhaps I could remove the pins?” Without waiting for a reply, Violet stepped forward, reached up and began to slide the remaining hairpins free of Eliza’s hair.

She had not won the battle, Eliza realized, but at least she had scored a minor point, thanks to Violet.

Greenleaf sniffed. “As you wish, your Grace.”

Freed of its restraints, her heavy hair swung over her shoulders and down her back to her waist. She knew how it must appear, hanging straight and uninspiring as a mud-colored cape. Staring at her shoes this time, she struggled against the vulnerability that left her feeling naked and exposed. A woman’s unbound hair was a private matter, she had always thought, an intimacy to be shared only with her lady’s maid, her bosom female friends and, one day, if fate was willing, her husband. Yet here she stood with her hair revealed to all—or revealed at least to the trio currently gathered in the drawing room for the occasion.

From beneath her lashes she peeked up at Kit and found him staring, an unreadable expression on his normally open, winsome face. Hurriedly she glanced away, her heart thrumming like a plucked violin string.

Then Mr. Greenleaf stuck his hands in her hair again.

“Thick as a horse’s tail,” the hairdresser proclaimed, gathering her tresses inside his fists before letting the skeins gradually slide free. “Soft, but manageable with the proper applications and techniques. Hmm, yes, this might be most interesting, inspiring even, like da Vinci given a blank canvas upon which to create.”

He walked around her, then reached out and scooped her hair forward, draping it so the locks cascaded over her black-clad shoulders and breasts. “Up. Chin up, please. Shoulders back, spine straight so that I may properly observe you, otherwise I shall be unable to achieve a thing.”

He marched several paces across the drawing room then spun to face her.

“Up, I said.” He sighed. “Please, Miss Hammond, I must have your cooperation.”

Cooperation, was it? All the little tyrant seemed to want so far was obedience. Then again, wasn’t that what her aunt had also always wanted? Unquestioning compliance in all matters both large and small. Perhaps that, as much as her present circumstances, was the reason for her wish to resist, and her ultimate decision not to do so. Long ago she had learned the futility of open defiance, taught beneath the painful slap of her aunt’s hard palm against her cheek.

With his commands scraping along her nerves like a claw, she raised her chin.

One fist planted on his hip, another raised to his mouth, Greenleaf raked her with his eyes. Abruptly, he tossed up a hand and waggled his fingers in the air. “Yes, I have it. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it immediately. We shall cut!”

“Cut!” Eliza gasped, and took an instinctive step away, her hands flying to her head.

“Cut Miss Hammond’s hair?” Kit stepped between her and the hairdresser, his dark brows furrowed. “I don’t know, seems rather extreme, don’t you think?”

“Sometimes brilliance requires extreme measures.”

Violet inserted herself into the conversation. “Yes, but even I know short hair is no longer the fashion these days. Perhaps some compromise could be made.”

“Compromise?” The older man gave an imperious sniff. “The Great Greenleaf does not compromise. And once I am done, short hair
will
be the fashion, mark my words.”

“Yes, but if she does not want you to cut her hair, then—” Kit said.

“I thought I made myself clear from the outset, my lord,” Greenleaf interrupted. “I am an artist and must be allowed free reign. If you and the others insist upon interfering, there is no point in continuing today’s gathering. I shall leave and you may hire some other coiffeur. A talentless hack who will no doubt bow and scrape and do precisely as you suggest, giving you what you believe you want with far from satisfactory results. Now, I bid you adieu—”

“Go ahead and cut it,” Eliza said.

Three pairs of eyes flew toward her.

“Your pardon?” Kit asked.

Eliza raised her voice to be clearly heard. “I said cut it.” Mayhap Greenleaf was right, she thought. Mayhap in this situation boldness and daring were precisely what was needed most of all. She’d come this far, she decided. Why let fear convince her to toss her opportunities away? “Mr. Greenleaf seems convinced my hair will look better than it does now and if he is as good as he claims—”

“It is not a claim. I am that good,” the little man declared, his slight chest puffed out like the boldest pigeon in the park.

“Then I put myself in your hands. Pray do not disappoint me.”

A long moment of silence descended, then a smile as wide as the English Channel creased his mouth. “Bravo! To work, then, to work. Where shall we set up? Certainly not here in this drawing room. Your bedchamber, perhaps?”

“You may use my sitting room,” Violet stated in her most authoritative duchess voice.

“Excellent.” The hairdresser clapped his hands twice and stalked toward the double doors. “My staff await me below. I shall send for them and we will begin anon.”

Greenleaf departed, residual energy circulating in the room as if a whirlwind had just torn through.

Violet crossed to Eliza, threaded a supportive arm around her waist. “Are you sure? You need not do this if you do not wish.”

Eliza braved a look at Kit, met his green-gold gaze. “
Is
he as good as he says?”

“The best, from everything I am given to understand. But every inch as temperamental as you have just witnessed. We can find another man, if you prefer, and I shall send Greenleaf on his way.”

Eliza bit back a sigh, sorely tempted to give in to her trepidation and do that very thing. But hadn’t she agreed to this plan? Hadn’t she pledged herself to letting Kit help her? If this Greenleaf was a master at arranging hair, then she must take the risk and let him arrange.

“I shall be fine,” she assured Kit and Violet with far more courage than she felt. “Besides, if it is dreadful I can always wear a wig while my own hair grows out,” she added with a wry smile.

As the next three hours passed, Eliza began to wonder if she would indeed be forced to resort to such desperate measures.

Expressly forbidden to look into a mirror, she had scant idea what the Great Greenleaf was doing to her hair. But what she couldn’t see she felt, often with a sense of escalating worry and horror. Even now a tinny aftertaste remained on her tongue from the lump of misery that had collected in her belly when the little man braided her long hair then retrieved a pair of shears from a nearby table.

She’d felt the scissors clamp down like a voracious pair of jaws, heard them make a sawing noise before finally closing with a
snick.

Seconds later, her shorn braid landed in her lap like some just-skinned pelt, dark and every inch as dead.

“A souvenir,” he’d cackled with heartless glee.

She’d clutched it, stroking the soft plait as she fought back tears. But she had only a few seconds to mourn before he and his minions had set to work, vigorously scrubbing her hair with soap, rinsing it clean with fresh, warm water. After that, they had proceeded to slather her locks with one odd-smelling concoction after another, wrapping her hair in towels and rinsing in between. She didn’t know what they were using but imagined she caught whiffs of blackberry, coffee and something that reminded her of dried autumn leaves and bread mold.

All the while, Greenleaf directed his staff around the room like a field marshal, ordering them hither and yon with precise, well-drilled movements. The series of decoctions at last complete, he draped a towel over her shoulders then worked her hair free of tangles using a fine-toothed ivory comb.

She assumed the ordeal was coming to an end, when he surprised her yet again by calling for the scissors—new ones this time, gleaming silver and wickedly sharp.

In a flurry of movement, he clipped and snipped, moving around her as if possessed, angling her head this way and that, pausing to stare as he drew bits of her hair through his fingertips, measuring and judging. She was starting to get drowsy by the time he stopped and roused her with a loud grunt of satisfaction. Clapping his hands, he called for the curling tongs.

She feared being singed by the heated metal rods but he worked with confident precision, her hair drying and curling all at once around her head. Handing the last nearly cold curling tong to his assistant, he reached for a pair of filigreed gold clips and placed them just behind her ears. He tugged at a pair of locks that drooped over her forehead and made one last inspection.

With a grand flourish, he swept the towel from around her shoulders. “
Et voilà!
Perfection.”

One of his helpers rushed forward, a large mirror at the ready.

Eliza gazed into it and felt her mouth drop open as she stared in astonishment at her reflection.

Kit snuggled deeper into his drawing room chair and tried to sleep. And to think he could even now be enjoying a jolly fine time with his cronies in Hampstead, watching fighters fight, betting and smoking and admiring the pretty demireps who came to such events on the arms of their latest protectors.

Instead he sat, a prisoner of his promise to Violet while they awaited the results of Miss Hammond’s haircut. Who would have imagined such a simple thing would take so long? He prayed the results would not be a disaster. Surely anything Greenleaf did would be an improvement, and Kit had been assured by a number of excellent sources that the imperious little man was extremely talented.

Greenleaf had better be, for what he charged. If Kit weren’t a lord and above dabbling in such low professions as Trade, he might have considered taking up the craft himself for that kind of blunt.

He must have sighed—again—though he hadn’t heard himself do so, since Violet suddenly peered up at him from the book she sat reading.

“Shall I go and check on her again?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They’ll only toss you out as they have done thrice already. Imagine having the nerve to eject a duchess. Prideful, secretive bunch they are.”

“Yes, you are right and I’m sure your mother would not stand for such treatment, but there was nothing for me to do but watch and wait anyway. I only hope poor Eliza is all right in there.”

“Of course she is all right. If they were actually torturing her, I think we would have heard the screams by now.”

Violet shot him a chastening look though he could see the humor playing at the corners of her mouth.

His own lips curved upward as he showed his teeth in unabashed amusement. “So, since I have been consigned to remain home for the evening, what is Chef preparing for supper?”

Violet was just beginning to tell him when Greenleaf appeared, striding grandly into the room. “My lord. Your Grace. Behold my newest creation.”

A woman glided into the room behind the hairdresser and for a long, pronounced moment Kit did not know who she was. He stood and stared, then stared some more. If not for the familiar dour black dress she had been wearing earlier in the day, he suspected he would not have recognized her at all, the change was so marked.

Was this striking bit of femininity really Eliza Hammond?

He nearly blurted out the rude question but restrained himself at the last second.

Violet meanwhile leapt to her feet and rushed toward her friend. “Oh, just look at you! Your hair is precious, simply precious. Oh, I love it!”

Touching a tentative hand to her new coiffure, Eliza shared a shy but obviously excited smile. “Do you really? It is so different, I am still trying to reconcile myself to the alteration.”

“It is magnificent,” Violet cooed, “just as Mr. Greenleaf promised. What do you think, Kit? Do you not adore it?”