Page 20 of Frankly, My Dear

“What?”

“You need another gown,” he said studying the window display of the dressmaker’s shop.

“I thought you didn’t have money for frivolous things.”

“I don’t, but if we don’t soon find a way of keeping your breasts under cover, you won’t consider it such a frivolous matter. It doesn’t take much to cause a riot in the Vieux Carre.”

Selene looked down and, sure enough, her gown had slipped again, the lacy edges of the bodice barely concealing her nipples. She jerked it up with a tsk-ing sound of chagrin, feeling her face turn even hotter with humiliation. “You could have told me,” she complained.

“I just did.”

“Hah! How long was I walking around letting it all hang out?”

“Long enough.”

“And you didn’t think I should know?”

He shrugged. “A man deserves a little compensation for his trouble,” he said, sweeping her bosom with an appreciative appraisal. “And you have caused me more than a little inconvenience.” His damn lips were twitching with amusement again, the beguiling dimple fighting to emerge, as he motioned her toward the shop door with a jerk of his head.

Selene started to tell him what she thought of his sexist tripe, but was interrupted by an exclamation from a blonde woman exiting the shop. “James, mon ami!” The woman came forward to kiss him on both cheeks in greeting. Her maid stood quietly in the background.

“Lizette,” he acknowledged, holding her at arm’s length and gazing at her fondly. “You have grown far lovelier since last we met, chérie.”

The young woman wore a lemon-colored silk dress trimmed with an embroidery of roses and topaz buttons down the front, complemented by a topaz parure of earrings and necklace. She even wore a lemon-colored bonnet and matching shoes, and carried a fringed parasol with a lemon background and blue cabbage roses. Any more yellow and the sweet young thing would look like a canary.

Selene thought she would gag.

Sniffling, the woman dabbed at her eyes dramatically. “I never had an opportunity to offer my condolences last year after Giselle’s death. Such a sad ending for your unfortunate wife! And she left that poor motherless child…Etienne, is it not?”

James nodded, his jaw rigid with some strong emotion.

“Ah, well, c’est la vie. But that is no excuse for your neglect.” Lizette tapped James reprovingly on the arm with a closed fan—yellow, of course—that dangled from her wrist. She pursed her lips flirtatiously. “How long has it been since you visited me, cher?”

Selene felt an unaccustomed lurch of jealousy in the region of her heart as James still held the woman…Lizette…then pulled her to his side with an arm around her shoulder. The woman’s blonde head came barely to his neck.

Used to being the center of attention at every gathering, something she’d always thought she hated, Selene found herself feeling unwanted and in the way, almost invisible.

With uncharacteristic meanness, Selene wanted to tell the little Southern belle that if she’d use a little blush on her cheeks it would call attention away from her weak chin, and a few hot rollers would put some body in her lank hair.

Hah! Who was she kidding? Selene didn’t think she’d ever seen a woman with such a pert little nose and such a disgustingly perfect rosebud mouth in all her life. Lizette was beautiful, even in yellow, and she and James made a fantastic couple. Damn.

Just then, Lizette noticed Selene, still standing in the background like a tree. “And this is…?” she asked, peering up at James over the top of her fan with accusing coquettishness. If she fluttered her eyelashes at James one more time, Selene thought she might gag.

James removed his arm from Lizette’s shoulder and drew her over to Selene, who felt like a gangly, overdressed, un-kempt giant next to the fair damsel with her petite frame and pristine clothing and hairstyle. Insecurity about her appearance had never been one of Selene’s problems, and she didn’t like it. At all.

The dolt didn’t even notice her discomfort; his attention was still on the beautiful woman at his side. “This is Sandra Selente, or Selene—Etienne’s new governess and my mother’s new nurse and housekeeper.”

Nurse! I can barely put on a Band-Aid.

“And this is my cousin, Madame Lizette Baptiste,” James told Selene.

Selene honed in on the word madame. That meant she was married, didn’t it? And cousin? She started to smile.

“Au contraire, James. We are not cousins,” Lizette immediately corrected. She explained to Selene, “I am widow to James’s second cousin Rene. He died of the fever two years ago.” After dabbing at her eyes with a snow white lace handkerchief, Lizette tapped James playfully on the arm once again with her fan. “We are not blood kin, as you well know.”

Lizette’s meaning was not lost on Selene. The jerk squeezed Lizette’s hand in acknowledgment.

Selene wondered where she might buy one of those fans—a big one. She’d like to tap James a few times, too.