Paris.” Lord Waverly studied Lisette for a long moment. No womanly curves were discernable beneath her shapeless habit, leading the earl to deduce that her figure was as yet undeveloped. “I think our best bet is to disguise you as a boy, and let it be known that you are my ward,” he declared at the end of this inspection.
Lisette was not best pleased with this plan. “A boy, milord? Pourquoi? Why should your ward not be a girl?”
“Because no one in his right mind would name me ward to a girl of seventeen!”
“Très bien, then I will be your sister,” pronounced Lisette.
“My dear child, I am thirty-five years old! You might well be my daughter!”
Lisette could not agree. “C’est absurd! If I were your daughter, I must have been sired when you were but seventeen!”
“Just so,” the earl said darkly.
He left Lisette alone to ponder the significance of this cryptic utterance while he undertook to procure a suit of clothes befitting a boy of, he thought, about thirteen. It was while he went about this task that he first heard the rumors of a wicked girl who had escaped from the convent of Sainte-Marie on the very morning she was to have taken her vows.
Being nominally Anglican, Lord Waverly had not given much thought to what might happen to Lisette if she were captured, and he was disturbed by the whispered horrors of hair shirt and scourge. His rôle in Lisette’s flight underwent a metamorphosis from the capricious lark of an inebriate to a mission which must succeed.
Having purchased a shirt, coat, trousers, shoes, and stockings, Lord Waverly stopped at the frame shop below his lodgings and requested of its proprietor the loan of a pair of shears. Lisette, fully cognizant of the need for disguise, received her new wardrobe with resignation, but questioned the necessity of the scissors.
“What do you intend to cut, milord? Are the shirtsleeves too long, perhaps?”
“Take off your headdress, Lisette,” said Lord Waverly, not quite meeting her trusting gaze.
Lisette obeyed and the headdress was removed, revealing a cloud of dusky curls.
“Unpin your hair.”
As realization dawned, Lisette’s dark eyes grew wide with horror. “Non, milord, do not cut my hair! I will cover it with a hat, and no one will ever suspect!”
“They are already searching for you,” Waverly informed her. “Your escape is already the talk of Paris, and God help me, I didn’t know until I heard it in the streets what a price you will pay if you are caught. We cannot take foolish chances.”
“But, milord—”
“No buts, my child. If you expect to reach England safely, you must do as I say.”
Reluctantly, Lisette removed the pins from her hair, and the dark locks tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. Without a word, Waverly set to with the scissors, and for a long time there was no sound in the tiny room save the metallic snip of the blades and the hushed whisper of Lisette’s long hair sliding down the back other habit to land at Waverly’s feet.
“Finished,” the earl pronounced at last. “It is a comfort to know that, should my skill at cards ever desert me, I can support myself as a valet.”
Receiving no reply to this admittedly lame attempt at humor, he laid aside the scissors, took Lisette’s chin in his hand, and tipped it up, the better to survey his handiwork. Freed of its weight, Lisette’s remaining hair curled riotously about her head in a manner many a dandy required the use of curling tongs to achieve. But the earl’s admiration of his chef d’oeuvre was cut short by the sight of Lisette’s brimming eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Lord Waverly, who would have hardened his heart against hysterics, stroked her damp cheek with one finger.
“It will grow again, ma petite,” he said gently.
“Oui, milord,” agreed Lisette, her voice little more than a whisper.
* * * *
They remained in Paris for three days, waiting for the hue and cry surrounding Lisette’s