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 moved to throw open a door and Jessica smiled, inclined her head and swept through it. Goodness, she thought faintly, that worked.
‘I have left all my staff in place here except for my dresser, and that is going to be an important position under the circumstances.’ Bel sank into a chair and put her feet up on a beadwork footstool. ‘Ooh, why is shopping so tiring?’ She did not wait for an answer, her brow clearing as an idea seemed to strike her. ‘I wonder if Lady Catchpole’s dresser has found a new employer.’
‘Lady Catchpole?’ Eva frowned. ‘I do not know her.’
‘She was Rosa Delagarde, one of the leading lights of the stage for the past three years, but she caught herself a baron and they married last week. Now, knowing George Catchpole, he might have married an actress, but he is going to want a command performance as a lady from her in future. I would not be at all surprised if he will insist on a starched-up dresser of the highest respectability.’ She got up and went to the French writing desk at the side of the room and drew out some paper. ‘I will write at once. La Delagarde was always turned out in the most dashing style—just what we need.’
‘But would she be discreet?’ Jessica wondered.
‘There was never any gossip about the Catchpole romance before the announcement, and that would have made her dresser some good money if it had been leaked to the scandal sheets.’ Bel folded the note, stuck on a wafer and addressed it as Hedges brought in the tea tray. ‘Hedges, please see this is delivered as soon as possible.’
They sipped tea in companionable silence for a while. Jessica had no idea what was passing through the minds of her two companions, but her own thoughts were a muddle of impressions, worries and, lurking under everything else, excitement.
I am taking tea with a countess and a Grand Duchess, I have been shopping in the most exclusive shops in London and I am about to embark upon a Season of scandal with a man who has a completely reprehensible effect on my pulse rate.
‘Can you dance?’ Bel asked, cutting across Jessica’s ruminations on just how Gareth Morant made her feel and how shocking it was that he should have such an effect.
‘Yes. In theory,’ she added with scrupulous honesty. ‘I have taught all the country dances and so forth, but I have never waltzed, nor have I danced a cotillion.’
‘A dancing master, then?’ Eva reached for her reticule and extracted her note tablets. ‘Another list is called for, I can see.’
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