intense-looking man in a black suit, a languid-looking youth and a woman she guessed was Lady Sebastian’s dresser.
She tried not to stare about her at the array of gowns draped over chairs or hanging from the blue brocade screen in the corner. Hat boxes teetered in a pile and gloves spilled out of their packaging. Bel was not so reticent.
‘Eva, you must have bought out every shop in town!’ She picked up a gauze scarf and ran it through her fingers.
The Grand Duchess laughed, shedding her furs and gloves into the hands of her silent dresser. ‘Thank you, Veronique. But of course I have been shopping—I haven’t been to Paris yet this year. One must dress, my dear! Ah, Monsieur Antoine.’
‘Your Serene Highness.’ Eva did not correct him and from the elaborate flourish of his bow Jessica guessed he would have been mortified if he been unable to extract every drop of enjoyment from his contact with royalty. ‘In what way may I serve you?’
‘This lady, who as you see has naturally a most modest and elegant style…’ Elegant? ‘…has, for reasons which I cannot reveal, to appear in society in quite another guise. Naturally, this matter requires the utmost discretion. I trust I may rely upon you?’
‘A matter of state!’ Eva did not disabuse the coiffeur of this useful notion. ‘Our lips are sealed, your Serene Highness. May I enquire in what way madame should be transformed?’
‘Into a lady of some…experience. A lady who will be invited to the very best parties, naturally, but one who will be popular with the gentlemen, shall we say?’
‘I comprehend entirely, ma’am. Dashing, a little dangerous, perhaps? A lady of powerful attraction.’
‘Precisely,’ Bel said, perching on a stool and untying her bonnet. ‘Dangerous.’
The hairdresser advanced upon Jessica with finicking small steps, his head on first one side, then the other. She tried to look experienced, dashing and dangerous and knew she was failing comprehensively to look anything but a governess out of her depth. It was an effort of will not to shift from one foot to the other under the intensity of his stare.
‘If madame will kindly shed her pelisse and bonnet and sit here.’ He gestured to a stool set before the dressing table. The dresser darted forward, removing the items and taking Jessica’s gloves. Feeling as though she was going to the dentist, Jessica sat.
‘Remove the pins!’ The acolyte darted forward and began to deconstruct the tight, careful coiffure pin by pin, then combed out the braids. Her hair, blonde, waving and long enough to reach to her elbows, fell about her shoulders. ‘Hmm.’ Monsieur Antoine picked up a strand, rubbed it between his fingers, peered closely at it, then dropped it dismissively. ‘A natural, most English blonde.’ That did not appear to be a recommendation. Jessica seemed to recall hearing somewhere that blondes were out of fashion.
‘It is a very pretty colour,’ Bel said supportively.
‘But not dangerous,’ Monsieur Antoine pointed out incontrovertibly, beginning to prowl again. ‘Not dashing.’ He came close and stared into Jessica’s eyes as she blinked back. ‘Gold, that is what is needed, with just a hint of red.’
‘Won’t that be a touch brassy?’ Anxious, Jessica frowned into the mirror at her pale skin and long—but blonde—lashes. What would she look like with brassy hair?
‘Brassy? Brassy? Madame, remember, I am an artiste! We speak here of guineas, of glow, of subtle excitement. Of élan, panache!’ He scowled, perhaps daunted by the reality in front of him, then made a recover. ‘And curls. This demands curls. The scissors, Albert.’
‘You are not going to cut it?’ Jessica grabbed handfuls defensively.
‘But of course; as it is it is impossible—the hair of a governess.’ He stood poised, the scissors in hand, having delivered what was apparently the ultimate insult. ‘I assume madame has come from the Continent…’
‘I have?’
‘She has,’ Eva confirmed. ‘The very latest French style, if you please, monsieur. It will grow again,’ she pointed out to Jessica.
‘Oh, very well.’ Jessica released her grip and clasped her hands in her lap. Curls and gold it was. In for a penny, in for a…guinea. At least it should soon be over.
Two hours of snipping, washing, soaking in strange substances, more washing, combing, the application of a thick red paste, rinsing, drying and curling later, Jessica stared dumbfounded into the mirror again.
A mass of shiny guinea-gold curls framed her face in an outrageously flattering manner. The curls were short enough to cluster naturally, except at the back where they were half-teased down into flirty ringlets on her shoulder and half-pinned up to give some mass to the coiffure. The wide-eyed woman looking back must be her—after all, the eyes were green, although they looked darker and more intense than she remembered, the mouth was the same, although now it was parted in a gasp of surprise and the plain blue gown was certainly the one she had arrived in.
‘Oh,’ said Jessica. ‘That is me?’
‘It most certainly is,’ Eva said with satisfaction. ‘A most excellent result, Monsieur Antoine, exactly what I had hoped for. You will call upon madame daily once she is established and you will maintain this look, with appropriate variations depending on her social diary.’
The hairdresser and his assistant bowed themselves out, leaving two satisfied ladies and one stunned one behind them.
‘Now,’ said Bel with resolution. ‘Now we shop.’
‘After luncheon,’ Eva said firmly, walking Jessica to the door. ‘When we have made lists.’
‘But who is going to pay for all this?’ Jessica protested, waving a hand in a gesture that encompassed the pile of parcels and hat boxes that surrounded the three of them and the even larger list of items that would arrive from the workshops of the modistes and milliners they had spent the afternoon visiting. It might well be vulgar to mention money, but someone had to—Bel and Eva appeared oblivious to the amount that was slipping through their prettily gloved fingers.
‘Gareth is,’ Bel said. ‘Now don’t frown, Jessica—sorry, Francesca. We really must become used to calling you that or we will make slips later. He can well afford it and, if this is to be done, it must be done properly or no one will believe it. And these things are not so very extravagant, just suitable to your supposed background. Here we are, your new home.’
Jessica peered out and her wavering spirits rose at the sight of the neat narrow house with its black brick and shining door knocker and the pair of clipped bay trees by the green front door. Her own house, even if it were only for a few weeks. Somewhere that was all hers, not a plain room in someone else’s house where she was regarded as barely above a servant and entered a reception room on sufferance. However difficult this task she had accepted was going to be, at least there would be a safe haven to retreat to at the end of each day.
‘I have left it fully furnished,’ Bel was saying as they climbed the steps and the door swung open. ‘And I will leave Mr and Mrs Hedges and the rest of the staff to look after you. Good afternoon, Hedges, this is Mrs Carleton. I hope you received my note this morning and everything is ready for her?’
‘Yes, my lady.’ This butler was cut from a very different cloth than Lady Sebastian’s ex-pugilist, but his expression as he regarded the incongruous figure before him with the dashing hairstyle and the governess’s clothes was a masterpiece of tact. ‘Mrs Carleton, ma’am. Mrs Hedges has prepared your room.’
‘Thank you, Hedges.’ Jessica had long since learned not to show that she was intimidated by superior butlers, but now she hesitated. If this really was her house now… She glanced at Bel, who gave a slight nod of encouragement. ‘Could you bring tea to the drawing room, please?’
‘At once, ma’am.’ He