Page 14

“I gather zat we are considering something of a major reconstruction, are we, Madame?” Olivier asked.

Helene laughed. “Something along those lines.”

“Never fear,” he said, clashing his scissors. “I am the only man in London who is up to zis challenge! Now, if you would have a seat.”

Helene sat down. She was feeling a little bit daunted. She had spent so many hours—nay, years!—of her life tending to her hair: washing it, combing it, drying it endlessly before the fire. And in two seconds, it was gone. Truly, Rees was right when he said that she had a monstrous temper. More and more hair was flying to the floor. Helene tried not to look. She concentrated on the gloriously weightless feeling of her head.

“What are you thinking of doing, Monsieur Olivier?” Esme asked.

“We must be daring,” he announced. “It is zee only way. Courage!”

“How daring?” Helene asked, feeling a qualm.

“Very daring! It is zee only way to recover your beauty. More audacious than Lady Caroline Lamb ever dared to be.”

Esme giggled. “Really, Monsieur Olivier! Didn’t that young woman chop off hair from…another place and send it to Byron?”

Helene looked at her, scandalized, but Monsieur Olivier just chuckled. “An indiscreet young woman, but she did have acceptable hair. It’s been all of five years since I gave her that short hair, and now I’m tired of making frizzled ringlets, day in and day out. With luck you will start a rage, Lady Godwin, and I can shear off hundreds of tired curls in the next few weeks.”

Helene tried not to look at the mirror. More and more of her hair flew from the scissors. An hour later, Helene didn’t know whether to faint or applaud. Her hair was short now. Truly short. It clung sleekly to her head until her jawbone, where little wispy curls softened the angles of her cheekbones and emphasized her eyes.

“Oh, Helene,” Esme said in an awed voice.

“Zhee looks spectacular!” Monsieur Olivier said in a smug voice. “Only I could have done this for you, Madame! You see, I have given you zee appeal.”

“Appeal?” Helene said, still staring at herself.

“You look utterly delicious,” Esme put in. “You are going to turn heads with a vengeance!”

“As long as I can turn one head, that’s enough,” Helene said, staring at herself. In truth, she looked like another woman: a bold, impudent, sensual sprite of a person.

“He will be yours!” Monsieur Olivier kissed the tips of his fingers. “Believe me, Madame, zere is no man in London who will not be at your knees!”

“Good,” Helene whispered. “I hope they all are.”

“Rees as well?” Esme said with an eyebrow raised.

“Only so that I can spurn him,” Helene said firmly. “But yes, Rees as well!”

Six

With the Wave of a Wand

Hyde Park

“And then she said what?” Rees’s friend Darby was utterly fascinated by the debacle of the dressing room.

“Lina announced, loudly, that I must wish to return home because I was overcome with desire at the sight of her in that gown, and had to have my way with her,” Rees said gloomily. “Which is rubbish. I haven’t been to her room in weeks. Months perhaps.” Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time.

“Why on earth not?” Darby asked, startled.

They were walking in the woody part of Hyde Park, where one never saw the fashionable sort of gentlemen. Rees kicked a trailing strand of faded wild roses to the side but didn’t answer.

Darby stopped and chose a coral bud to put in his buttonhole. He was wearing a morning costume of bronze broadcloth. The rosebud looked strawberry-pink against his chest, perhaps just a shade pinker than he would have desired.

“I don’t know,” Rees said. Darby wasn’t looking at him, just shaking back his deep lace cuffs and examining all the rosebuds on the bush, so Rees knew he was burning with curiosity. You couldn’t be friends since you were both in short coats without being able to read each other’s minds. “The prospect simply isn’t appealing anymore. I’d move her out, but I need her voice to help me with this opera.”

“Appealing? Just when does making love to a woman with a body like Lina’s lose appeal?”