The Blairs' Dangerous Luxury; Carole Caplin is Tony and Cherie Blair's close friend and lifestyle guru, but she embroils them in one scandal after another.

BYLINE: Leslie Bennetts

Every time the telephone rings, the caller is greeted with endearments so syrupy they practically drip into the receiver. "Hello, my darling," Carole Caplin says, her voice dropping to a throaty bedroom purr. "How are you, my sweet? Cooool.... Oh, fantastic! Whatever works for you, my angel. Lovely! All right, my darling. Bye, sweetheart!"

Although her tone is the sort most people would reserve for a tryst with a lover, Caplin could be speaking to a client, a girlfriend, a fashion designer, a shop owner, her mother, her sister, or a journalist she's never met, all of whom elicit the same treatment. But as Caplin croons into the phone, you know she's not talking to either of her two most famous friends, British prime minister Tony Blair or his wife, Cherie Booth.

Not that the Blairs are deprived of Caplin's honeyed blandishments. But when Downing Street calls, Caplin slips out of the room and into the bathroom, cooing all the way-and closing the door firmly behind her. (Whatever would she do without mobile phones?) Although you can't quite make out the words, the saucy lilt of her voice, the insinuating ripple of her laughter, the soothing seductiveness of her tender murmur are irresistible. Talking to Carole Caplin is like having her submerge you in a warm, fragrant bath.

Which, of course, she would be only too happy to do. Carole Caplin loves baths. Carole Caplin believes in baths. Carole Caplin pops all her clients into long, luxuriously perfumed baths before she works them over from head to toe in a delicious massage. In fact, this was her rebuttal when Britain was inflamed by rumors that Caplin showered naked with the prime minister's wife (to scrub the toxins off Booth's body, it was said, presumably after one of those invigorating exfoliation sessions Caplin advocates so fervently).

Caplin remains indignant at the willful obtuseness of that report. "It is pure fantasy," she insists. "I just hate showers. I'm a real heat bunny-the first thing I want to do is get in the bath. I'm a real bath kit!"

She is indeed, as any Brit can tell you. Carole Caplin is so notorious that the entire United Kingdom possesses intimate knowledge about everything from her complexion routines, diet tips, and nose job to the precise muscle tone of her astonishingly firm derriere and the gravity-defying tilt of her pneumatic breasts (all of which are on frequent public display, thanks to her penchant for posing topless and, on occasion, bottomless). "Carole's been famous for years, but now she's infamous," says a close friend who is also in the Blairs' inner circle. "Everyone knows her."