Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) by Lisa Kleypas

Cautiously he entered the shop.

“Welcome, sir,” said the barber, a jovial-looking man with an intricately curled mustache. “Cut and a shave?”

“A cut,” Keir replied.

The barber gestured to the chair. “If you will, sir.”

After Keir sat, the barber adjusted the head and foot rests, and handed him a card printed with a dozen little illustrations of men’s heads.

“What’s this for?” Keir asked, looking at it closely.

“To choose a style.” The barber pointed at a few of the labeled drawings. “This is called the Favorite … and this is the French Cut … this is the Squire …”

Keir, who hadn’t been aware there was a choice beyond “short” or “not short,” scrutinized the little drawings. He pointed to one in which the hair was close-cropped and tidy. “That one?”

“A good choice,” the barber said, walking around the chair to assess his head from different angles. He tried to tug a fine-tooth comb through the heavy, slightly curly locks, and paused. “Hmm. This is going to be the work of two haircuts on one head.”

After washing and rinsing Keir’s hair in a porcelain sink with a spray connected to rubber tubing, the barber shepherded him back to the chair and fastened a cloth around his neck. A long session of snipping and shaping followed, first with scissors, then with clippers that cut layers into the locks with each squeeze of the spring-tension handles. Finally, the barber used a razor to neaten the back into a precise line.

“Shall I trim your beard, sir?” the barber asked.

“Aye.”

The man paused, viewing Keir speculatively. “You might consider a full shave,” he suggested. “You certainly have the chin for it.”

Keir shook his head. “I must keep the beard.”

Looking sympathetic, the barber asked, “Pockmarks? Scars?”

“No’ exactly.” Since the man seemed to expect an explanation, Keir continued uncomfortably, “It’s … well … my friends and I, we’re a rough lot, you ken. ’Tis our way to chaff and trade insults. Whenever I shave off the beard, they start mocking and jeering. Blowing kisses, calling me a fancy lad, and all that. They never tire of it. And the village lasses start flirting and mooning about my distillery, and interfering with work. ’Tis a vexation.”

The barber stared at him in bemusement. “So the flaw you’re trying to hide is … you’re too handsome?”

A balding middle-aged man seated in the waiting area reacted with a derisive snort. “Balderdash,” he exclaimed. “Enjoy it while you can, is my advice. A handsome shoe will someday be an ugly slipper.”

“What did he say, nephew?” asked the elderly man beside him, lifting a metal horn to his ear.

The middle-aged man spoke into the horn. “Young fellow says he’s too handsome.”

“Too handsome?” the old codger repeated, adjusting his spectacles and squinting at Keir. “Who does the cheeky bugger think he is, the Duke of Kingston?”

Amused, the barber proceeded to explain the reference to Keir. “His Grace the Duke of Kingston is generally considered one of the finest-looking men who’s ever lived.”

“I know—” Keir began.

“He caused many a scandal in his day,” the barber continued. “They still make jokes about it in Punch. Cartoons with fainting women, and so forth.”

“Handsome as Othello, they say,” said a man who was sweeping up hair clippings.

“Apollo,” the barber corrected dryly. He used a dry brush to whisk away the hair from Keir’s neck. “I suspect by now Kingston’s probably lost most of those famed golden locks.”

Keir was tempted to contradict him, since he’d met the duke earlier that very day and seen for himself the man still had a full head of hair. However, he thought better of it and held his tongue.

Upon returning to his flat, Keir heated enough water to scrub and wash thoroughly, using plenty of soap. He dressed in clean clothes, shined his shoes, and made himself as presentable as he could. A brief consultation of a map of London revealed that Carnation Lane was only a few minutes’ walk away. Before leaving, he tucked a half-pint glass bottle of Priobairneach in the inside pocket of his new coat.

The evening was cool and damp, the moon reduced to a pallid glow behind a murky haze. The wharf had quieted, with lighter barges, eel boats, and packets now moored, the spars of a large ship pointing upward like the ribs of a clean-picked carcass.

Keir walked away from the docks toward the main thoroughfare, passing small alleys and byways that were deeply shadowed from overhanging eaves. Laborers and shopkeepers had locked up and gone home for the night, and now a different sort of people had begun to emerge: prostitutes, swindlers, beggars, street musicians, sailors, navvies. Vagrants with gin bottles slouched in doorways, while others huddled in stairwells. A group had built a little fire of rubbish beneath the stone arch of a canal bridge.

Streetlamps were few and far between in this place, and so far, there hadn’t been a glimpse of a constable or anything resembling law enforcement. Keir kept to the side of the old wood block pavement as a group of drunken revelers staggered past, howling out a drinking song. A slight smile came to his lips as he thought of what his father had always said whenever someone was that far gone: “The lad has a brick in the hat tonight.”