Hetty grinned, feeling daylight flooding her as she handed over the rest of her bright pink miracle, and then started awkwardly as Stella linked their arms.
‘What next?’ she asked, her voice shaking slightly.
‘Hmm. How do you feel about meerkats?’
‘Good. Great. Wonderful. I feel just excellent about meerkats. Lead the way.’
‘You don’t know what a meerkat is, do you?’
‘Not a clue.’
There was some invisible bond pulling them together, Hetty thought, and it seemed to pull tighter as the day went on.Bessie wouldn’t believe her eyes if she saw me now. Oh, how she wished she could share these feelings with someone – andyet at the same time, they seemed too private, too precious to share with a single soul.
As a young girl, Hetty had never met handsome princes or dashing knights in her dreams. They had always been full of princesses instead. And even in the wildest ones, no warrior queen or ethereal angel had been quite so spectacular or blinding as Stella.
‘Come on, we have to do this! I freaking love these!’
Stella was pulling her towards a board gaudily painted with cartoon animals – the faces had been cut out. Stella handed her phone to a confused-looking tourist. Hetty hesitated for a moment, but, though it was hard to explain, the pull of Stella’s hand on her wrist wasn’t just physical.
‘Say cheese!’ Stella called to Hetty.
‘Cheese!’
They emerged from behind the cut-out and looked at their photos – Hetty as an elephant, Stella the giraffe – and electricity seemed to crackle between them. She’d never danced a waltz, never even attended a dance, but suddenly Hetty felt the desire to twirl and spin and dance until she was dizzy. The world seemed to shine around her in a new, vivid way which totally eclipsed the simple satisfaction she’d always found in her studies.
As they walked towards the lion enclosure – and before she even knew what she was doing – Hetty’s hand brushed against Stella’s.
Hetty pulled her hand back. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—’
‘To hold my hand?’ Stella asked, taking Hetty’s hand in hers. ‘That’s a shame, because I like it.’
Hetty stared at Stella and felt a sudden, intense urge tokiss her, tingles running between their joined hands. She blinked it away.
‘Is this a bit much for you, Hetty?’ said Stella.
‘Maybe a little. Only … only a very little, though.’
A crowd had appeared out of nowhere and they turned to see what was going on. To their surprise, a lioness had appeared at the window. Their hands gripped more tightly than ever.
The lioness watched them quizzically for a moment, before abruptly turning and calmly prowling over to her mate.
Hetty turned in delight, only to find Stella watching her. Stella reached over to push a loose strand of hair behind Hetty’s ear, and Hetty found herself wishing she were a little braver – that she could embrace her inner lioness.
Chapter 22
1817
The morning after the ball was, according to Bessie, not to be spent doing anything other than resting after a long night of dancing. Lady Bainbridge took her own breakfast in bed, at about eleven o’clock.
Etta wasn’t as exhausted as all that. Max’s dance request had set the tone for the evening and she’d enjoyed several more dances until the waltzes started. She wasn’t allowed to join in on account of not having been approved by someone or other at something called Almack’s, which had been a blow, but overall she’d had a surprisingly successful evening, socially.
But the number one most surprising thing about her first ball had been thesmell. The 1995 adaptation ofPride and Prejudicehad absolutely not warned her about that aspect of things, with its rose-dotted intro sequences and woodland walks, but then again how could it? Things had started off relatively sweet-smelling, the ladies giving off a delightful odour of either rosewater or lavender and the gentlemen of sandalwood or mint. It didn’t last long, though, as peoplestarted getting drunk and dancing more energetically. By the end of the evening, the whole place had begun to absolutely hum. There was only one flushing toilet in the vicinity, so rooms had been created for guests to relieve themselves in chamber pots. This was, apparently, the norm. Nobody blinked an eye.
Etta hadn’t seen Max again after their dance, but her promise to explain things with a letter never really left her mind. And now she had an entire morning to write to him. The biggest question, of course, was what she dared put in writing in the first place. Then again she instinctively felt she could trust him. She sat at the writing desk in the family morning room at the back of the house, clutching a pencil, desperate to be interrupted.
The piano looked at her. She could almost feel its woody little eyes. It was so long since she’d played and the one at the Bainbridges’ house was beautiful. When she played nowadays, it was at the old uprights found at various train stations. She’d lost her piano along with her family, her dog, their home and everything else when her father died. There was no room for a piano in the tiny studio flat she’d ended up in after uni, all alone and frantically job-hunting.
But once upon a time she’d hoped she might be on track for a career as a musician. As a teen she’d played at every school event she could, backing up the school choir and teaching younger students for extra cash. She once even optimistically applied for a place at the BRIT School, although the family finances would never have stretched far enough to relocate if she’d got in.
