‘Depends on your mama, miss.’
‘I suppose it does, doesn’t it? Ugh. Bloody 1817. Anyway, call me Etta.’
‘Not on your life, miss,’ said Bessie, casting her a disapproving look.
They had passed through several corridors, down some fairly ordinary-looking stairs and then through wider, more lavishly decorated corridors. It was like visiting a stately home, but everything was … new.
Etta smelled beeswax as they stepped into a corridor, the walls lined with colourful portraits of what were presumably Hetty’s relatives. Hers, even? Although surely Hetty had hundreds of relatives in the intervening two hundred years.
She took in the portraits as they passed by, blinking at the freshness of the paint, then at the panelling below it. It was wood – not the dark wood of the stately homes she’d visited on school trips, but bright, polished wood that reflected light across the room. It hadn’t been painted, either. It had never occurred to her that wood panelling might not have started off dark and forbidding. The more you knew, Etta mused, and hurried after Bessie who led her to a huge, wide staircase, looking up to high ceilings. There was marble everywhere, and even though summer light streamed in through large windows, Etta found herself gathering the shawl Nanny had put around her shoulders and pulling it tighter.
She was in a full-length pale blue dress, just like the ones in her favourite period dramas, but with even less stretch than she had imagined. Mercifully, it was short around her ankles by a good few inches. Nanny had muttered about that, but Etta was glad of it as she carefully picked her way down the stairs in Hetty’s leather boots. Her mother’s dainty shoes had not fit.
As she navigated the stairs, Etta noticed a passing footman stumble with a silver salver of letters. Openly staring at her, he stood to one side of an open door and briefly bowed his head.
Etta realised he was making room for her to enter and looked back at Bessie. Bessie nodded encouragingly towards the door and said, ‘The breakfast room, miss.’ It was clear Etta was now on her own.
Thankfully there were only two people sitting at the mahogany table in the elegant room and both were already known to her. She nodded at them as they stood up. ‘Max, Charlie. Good morning.’
At this her brother Charlie gasped. ‘Oh no, Hetty! You can’t call him that! Lord Stanhope – or at least my lord!’
Etta looked over at Max. ‘Does that mean you have to call me “my lady” then?’
Her brother looked vaguely appalled. ‘Hetty! You aren’t a lady! Not yet, at any rate,’ he reflected. ‘Maybe you’ll pull it off, if Mother finds you some new clothes.’
Etta rolled her eyes. ‘I suppose you mean I need to get married to a lord to be a lady. So I must be Miss – oh, what is it again?’
‘Bainbridge. Miss Bainbridge. May I help you to some breakfast?’ Max moved to a sideboard loaded with hot chafing dishes, their contents kept warm by lit candles.
Etta strode over for a look. It was an eclectic mix, but all good stuff. ‘What have we got here? Ooh, bacon! And sausages, and all sorts. One of everything, I think.’
Max looked at her speculatively. ‘One of everything?’
‘Except the fish, yes.’
As he placed her plate at an empty place setting, Charlie looked over and rolled his eyes. ‘Hungry, are we, Hetty?’
She glared at him. ‘Why yes, Charles. Must be all of thoseexperimentsyou’ve been doing on me. Good thing Lord Stanhope was around last night, wasn’t it?’ She turned to Max. ‘And don’t think you’re escaping from this one,my lord. You’re practically his co-conspirator.’
‘Me? I was the one who rescued you, Miss Bainbridge!’
‘Perhaps, but you’re still a close ally of my tormentor.’
Max seemed to relax slightly when he saw the twinkle in Etta’s eyes. Charlie, however, was oblivious.
‘Tormentor? By god, Hetty, taking it a bit far there. For heaven’s sake, don’t say that to Mama.’
This last sentence came out in a rushed undervoice, as movement could be heard in the hallway. Within moments a middle-aged woman quietly entered the room. She was short, gaunt and delicately featured, wearing what Etta thought was the most elegant and expensive-looking dress she had ever seen; trotting at her heels was a tiny, extremely fluffy white dog.
Etta didn’t have to guess for even a second what Hetty’s relationship was to this woman – what she’d seen in the glass windows she’d passed earlier was a close reflection of the lady standing in front of her. As Etta and her companions rose up to greet her mother, she saw golden hair, a straight and neat little nose, a plush rosebud mouth and wide, innocent blue eyes.
‘Oh, Maximillian, I see you stayed overnight? I’m glad to …’
She stopped, her eyes having registered Etta, and looked at her in complete bewilderment.
‘H-Hetty …?’
Etta quickly searched for the right title to use for hermother. ‘Mum’ felt too modern. Mama. That’s what Charlie had just said.
