The French Maid by Sabrina Jeffries Page A

study was his inner sanctum, and woe be unto the person who deigned to disturb him while he was in it. She’d learned early on not to do so.
    “Eleanor?” he said, abruptly reminding her that he’d asked her something.
    “Yes, I can amuse myself,” she responded mechanically.
    He rounded the table and bent to press a quick kiss to her forehead. “Good girl. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
    At breakfast. She tamped down her disappointment. Tonight was Tuesday, and Henry only came to her bed on Wednesday evenings. She watched shamefully as he strolled off with his black hair gleaming in the candlelight and his trim, muscular thighs flexing beneath tight knee breeches. If not for his crammed calendar, she’d think he really did have a mistress. He’d certainly have no trouble winning one.
    But no, Mama had unfortunately been right. The only mistress Henry had was England. And England was proving to be greater competition than any female.
    The next morning dawned far too bright for a woman who’d spent half the night flailing about alone in her bed. As the cock crowed, Eleanor dragged herself into a sitting position. Gone were her maiden days of late night balls followed by leisurely mornings. Now she was married to a prospective prime minister. Keeping up with Henry meant sleeping very little.
    She performed her morning ablutions and exchanged her nightdress for a chemise. But when she entered her dressing room, she nearly leapt out of her skin, for there sat the French Maid whom Henry had hired and she’d forgotten about. She hadn’t heard the woman enter—had she been sleeping that soundly?
    Or was the woman merely as otherworldly as she appeared? “Babette something-or-other” bore the ethereal look of a fey sprite—silver-blond hair, delicate features, a slender figure swathed in gossamer muslin. With a sinking stomach, Eleanor deduced why Henry had hired this woman without consulting her. What man wouldn’t want such a beauty around, especially when his wife was less than … attractive?
    “ Bonjour , my lady,” the angelic creature said. “My name is Babette Lebeau, and I am—”
    “I know who you are,” she said curtly.
    “I hope you do not mind my presumption in awaiting you here, but I did not want to be in the way elsewhere in your household.” Babette pointed to the chair in front of the mirror. “Come. Sit here and I shall dress your hair.”
    The woman’s matter-of-fact pronouncement oddly eased Eleanor’s misgivings. Babette’s English was amazingly practiced, and she sounded older than she looked. Eleanor did as the woman bade, relaxing under Babette’s calming brush strokes.
    “With a little effort,” Babette added, “we shall make you beautiful this morning. You would like that, no?”
    “Yes.” Eleanor frowned at her own plain image and mousy brown hair in the mirror. “But such an effort requires far more time than I can spare. Even if you could manage it.”
    Babette smiled enigmatically. “You cannot know until you try. Wait one moment, my lady,” she said and stepped out of the room.  
    More than one moment passed and Eleanor grew impatient. “Babette,” she called out, “I promised Henry I’d be ready to leave at nine, and it’s half past eight now.” “I wish to show you something,” Babette said from outside the dressing room. Then she entered, and Eleanor gasped.
    Gone was the ethereal beauty. By changing her coiffure, adding a black shawl, and God knows what other conjuring, Babette had transformed herself into a drab charwoman. The silvery blond hair now looked washed out, the sparkling blue eyes were a dull cloudy gray, and the unsmiling countenance worsened the effect.
    Babette fixed her with an earnest gaze. “You see, my lady, though it takes some work to bring out the beauty in a woman, it takes little to leach it away.” She stepped toward her. “So I ask you, shall we make the effort? Or shall you continue to throw up your hands in defeat and