Victoria's secrets: with a dash of ooh la la, Victoria Beckham models the couture collections in Paris. Back in England, the world's premier footballer's wife insists she's just an ordinary girl--one with designs on your wardrobe.

Above the fireplace in Victoria and David Beckham's palatial Brit abode is a particularly sexy portrait of the couple, shot by Steven Klein. David wears black nail varnish and studded cuffs; Victoria wears killer heels. Spaced around the room are other images from the same photo session; in each one David is kneeling, while Victoria towers above him, talons sunk deep into his tousled hair, pushing his head back in various angles of apparent ecstasy. It's all very rock 'n' roll--and, quite honestly, in sharp contrast to the rest of the room, which is decked out very comfortably with sofas and pillows in dark-chocolate and tranquil oatmeal hues and presided over by a couple of gentle, smiling Buddhas. Kid's portraits in glinting frames colonize every surface--variously Brooklyn, 7, Romeo, 4, and Cruz, 1, in face paint, in ski suits, in new school uniforms, and at swank birthdays with Mom and Dad. In all, the feeling is very cozy and familial, with just a touch of outrageous glamour--exactly as our chatelaine likes things.

It's late July, days after the Beckhams returned from their much documented Mediterranean vacation (and just two weeks before David, Real Madrid midfielder and former England captain, is dropped from the England soccer team after a decade of playing for his country). Today, however, Victoria, 32, looks tanned and relaxed--and far prettier than the rather hunted figure she strikes in her paparazzi shots--dressed simply in a little black tank and moss-colored sweats, with her hair tied in a loose bun.

The vacation, she explains, was a necessary tonic from the stress and the scrutiny generated by the World Cup. "I was just wanting to wake up with [David] every morning and go to bed with him every night. Just to spend that time together with the kids was absolute bliss."

The Beckhams spent two and a half weeks en famille in Spain before Mr. and Mrs. peeled off for a few days of romantic grown-up time on the Italian Riviera, cruising on Roberto Cavalli's luxuriously appointed yacht. Even the most casual of tabloid browsers will be familiar with this leg of the Beckham itinerary from the retina-scorching pictures of a bronzed David diving nimbly into the Med wearing nothing but a skimpy white Speedo. "Gucci," Victoria corrects me. "He just looks so good, he can get away with it," she adds with an amused shrug. "I said to him, 'My God, if I were you, I'd go shopping dressed like that.'"…