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women had black hair.
    He couldn’t recall the last time he’d met a female with red hair, and the sight disturbed him very much. It tickled his innards. It had him pondering her in a new and different way that should never be allowed.
    Why would she have red hair? And why was it so long and luxurious? If he’d ruminated about nuns at all—which he couldn’t remember ever having done—he’d have supposed they cut their hair very short.
    During his initial encounter with her, when she’d been cloaked in her nun’s habit, he hadn’t assessed her attributes. He’d viewed her as having no sexual gender, a sort of neutered, sterile person with no feminine parts.
    But on seeing her like this, he was forced to admit she was very pretty. Actually she was quite a bit beyond pretty. She was extremely arresting, with perfect facial features, merry blue eyes, and curves in all the right spots. Cad that he was, he was suddenly evaluating her in a sordid manner that proved he was even more corrupt than he’d presumed.
    “Your hair is red,” he blurted out.
    “Aah!” she shrieked, and she yanked her towel off the bed and draped it over her head, but she couldn’t conceal all of the lengthy tresses.
    “Why?” he asked.
    “Why what?”
    “Why is your hair red? Why do you have hair?”
    “Why do I have…hair? Why is it red? Oh, you’re being ridiculous. Would you please leave?”
    “No, I mean, I would have expected nuns to cut it.”
    “Some do. Some don’t.”
    “I’m glad you don’t.”
    “Mr. Hubbard, please! It’s highly inappropriate for you to be in here with me, and I simply can’t discuss my hair—or any other intimate topic—with you.”
    If she knew anything about him, and she didn’t, she’d know that it was useless to order him about. He never listened to anyone, particularly females.
    From what he recollected of his aristocratic father, and it wasn’t much, he’d inherited his father’s worst traits for being haughty and overbearing. He always thought he was in the right, and with regard to women, he always was. He found them to be excessively silly—each and every one he’d ever met—and he discounted whatever they said.
    He’d been loitering in the doorway, and he brazenly entered and walked over to her. Leaning in, he trapped her against the bed post. He was six feet tall, and she was tiny, probably five-foot-four in her stockings, so he towered over her. He grabbed the towel, and after a paltry tug-of-war she could never win, he pulled it off.
    He was being such an ass. He understood that he was, and it was his customary mode of carrying on, but for some reason, she made him want to behave more horridly than ever.
    “Who was the red color inherited from?” he asked. “Your mother?”
    “Yes. I’m told she was very vain about it too.”
    “You were told ? You’re not sure?”
    “She died when I was a baby, but my father mentioned it once when he was scolding me about vanity.”
    He reached out and riffled his fingers through the soft strands. “It’s a shame that you have to hide it.”
    “It comes with my choice of vocation.”
    “While you’re here, you don’t have to.”
    “I don’t have to…what?”
    “You don’t have to hide it. You can chuck your veil in the ocean for all I care. Living in this villa is like living in a fairytale. Who’s to know what you do?”
    She was tense as a board, clearly terrified over what insane act he might perpetrate next. She’d been staring at his chest, too nervous or too mortified to look him in the eye, but his suggestion about her wimple must have sounded outrageous. She whipped her gaze to his.
    “Uncover my hair?” Her tone was appalled, as if he’d proposed she strip naked and dance in the moonlight while he watched.
    “Yes. The temperature is always unbearably hot, and you must be miserable in all those black clothes. Why not?”
    “It’s not possible, Mr. Hubbard.” She yanked her gaze away, growing mesmerized