In his bedchamber—after much protesting, and one particularly pointed look of warning from Lottie, despite the fact that, yes, he had indeed had his hands beneath her skirts before—she stood in her chemise with her arms folded, while Jasper paced the room, flinging garments onto a velvet sofa with all the glee of a valet gone temporarily mad.
“You shall need something rather ill-fitting, to begin with,” he muttered, rifling through a drawer. “You are too slight in the shoulders, though with the coat left loose and the cravat high enough, no one will look twice.” He paused, holding up a linen shirt to the light, then glanced over at her. “And it is rather fortunate,” he added, with the casual cruelty of a man trying to be helpful, “that you are not exactly… over-endowed.”
Lottie’s brows shot up. “Well. That is one way to say it.”
He turned with an expression that suggested he realised, far too late, that he had erred. “Only in the most complimentary sense,” he said quickly. “Streamlined. Lithe. Gracefully lacking.”
“Oh, do go on,” she said, folding her arms, “I am fascinated by this line of thinking. Gracefully lacking, was it?”
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Efficiently… compact?”
“Mr Deverell, choose your next words as though you value your life.”
He held up the waistcoat in surrender. “Irresistibly boyish.”
Lottie took the garment from his hands with a snort. “You are fortunate I am in the mood for a little mischief, or else I’d be strangling you with that very cravat.”
“I consider myself warned.”
She drew the shirt over her chemise. “I shall take it as a mark of our friendship that you are trusting me to become a man in your presence.”
“Frankly,” he said, grinning, “I’ve always suspected it would suit you.”
“Being a man?”
“Indeed,” he said cheerfully. “Now, moustache or no moustache?”
“I want the full effect,” she said at once. “Side-whiskers, too. I wish to look the sort of man who drinks port before noon and insults his hostess by accident.”
Jasper was already rummaging for pomade. “Then we must give you a ridiculous name. Mr Charleston, I think. From Wiltshire. Newly come to Town with no manners, a dubious education, and terrible judgement. You must not speak though, for your voice will give you away at once. You shall be a very solemn man.”
“Is that your impression of me?”
“No, that is my impression of my new second cousin Charleston, poor soul. Sadly doomed by his own mediocrity.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And if I am not to speak, how shall I order drinks? Mime?”
“You’ll raise your hand, nod gravely, and say something very masculine, only a single word or two.”
“Such as?”
“Whisky. Dreadful weather. Damnation, if the company grows lively. Now, at the glass, if you please,” he said, producing a small tin of pomade. “Hair up. No argument.”
Lottie lowered herself before the dressing table, and Jasper came to stand behind her. In the mirror she watched his hands gather her hair at the nape, twisting and pinning it with surprising skill.
“Consider yourself fortunate I am not a barber,” he said. “I might be seized by artistic conviction and cut the whole thing off.”
“Imagine Mama’s face on the morrow.” Lottie tried not to shiver as his fingers brushed the back of her neck. “But you are rather good at this. Perhaps you have missed your true vocation.”
“Oh, no doubt,” he murmured. “I live for transformation. Now hold still. If you twitch again, you shall end up looking like a villain from one of those ghastly penny serials.”
She stifled a laugh. “Is that not the goal?”
“No, Charleston. Villains draw attention. You, my dear fellow, are to be entirely beneath notice.”
“And earnest,” she added, watching as he smoothed pomade through the parting and darkened her brows with a faint touch of soot.
“Painfully earnest.”
