She cried over her letter to her mother, as the reality of what she was doing started to creep over her. She listed the people she’d stolen from, the money she’d taken, so that nobody else would cop the blame. Her tears had blotched the paper, making it hard for her pencil to write. Etta wrote around the teardrops. She wasn’t from 1818, she reminded herself. She was from 2023, and she had lived alone for years. This was barely real. The lady she was writing to was not her mother; the rich man whose desk drawers she’d extracted a bundle of weird, large bank notes from was not her brother.
Max was not her fiancé. This whole world, her happy ending – it was all a fantasy. A dream that had gone bad. It was time to wake up. If she couldn’t return to 2023, then she could at least leave London – and she planned to do just that at first light.
Etta rubbed her eyes wearily, remembering the worst part, which had been writing to Max:
Lord Stanhope,
Let me be the first to congratulate you on your engagement.
Goodbye,
Etta
She hadn’t been able to help herself, but she knew her curt little note – written several times until she’d finally produced one without wet patches – would worry him. Well, good. Perhaps he shouldn’t go around letting dull-as-ditchwater, double-crossing bitches kiss him in corridors.
She had been travelling for most of the day; she hoped they would be at Dover soon. She wondered whether anyone would guess where she was going. Probably not, since Hetty couldn’t speak French. Etta, however, could. She was rusty, but she’d got an A at A-level. She’d be fine. Surely, she’d be fine.
Probably.
Chapter 46
1818
Max was just tying his cravat when a servant interrupted his valet with the news that Lady Best was waiting downstairs. He’d spent a restless night. It was bad enough to be unexpectedly mauled by a young lady the very night before his interview with the local bishop, but to be caught by Etta mid-maul was far, far worse.
Of course, it was fixable. Nobody but Etta and the Bramleys had seen, thank god, but even though it was most certainly not his fault he was going to have to take Etta a huge bouquet of flowers for even letting himself be trapped in such a scenario. He’d searched for her in the ballroom with more obvious desperation than was decorous, but she’d been nowhere to be found. He didn’t blame her: the situation had looked dire, to say the least.
But now Lady Best was at his door, which meant the situation was even more dire than it had looked last night. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t about to make a scene, because there was no way on earth he was going to become in any way attached to her and her dull, duplicitous daughter.
He sighed, resigned to a difficult conversation. ‘Tell Lady Best I shall be with her shortly—’
But he was interrupted by a booming noise from downstairs. Max froze, his hands still against his collar. The unmistakable sound of his father’s voice echoed across the hallway:
‘Lady Best, you will remove yourself from my houseimmediately…’
Max waved his valet to one side and crept down the hallway, feeling like an errant schoolboy. He didn’t have to listen hard in order to hear the Marquess’s livid tirade, but he felt an irresistible urge to see how his victim was taking it.
‘Years ago, you attempted to entrap me into marriage with your foolish self. Now, decades later, you attempt it again with your idiot harpy of a daughter.’
Max peered down the grand stairs into the hallway. Lady Best stood indignantly on the tiled marble floor, her daughter cowering behind her.
‘Sir, I did not come to speak with you. I came to speak with your—’
‘Son, I know. You came to harass my son. Well, I can tell you here and now that if my son ever,everhas thelatent idiocyrequired to propose to you, your daughter, orany memberof your family, I shall immediately disinherit him.’
Max couldn’t help but smile. It seemed his father was finally back in full health. Perhaps the opportunity to ream out his old enemy had helped him regain hisjoie de vivre. The Marquess certainly seemed to be enjoying himself.
‘But your grace, your son was clearly caught—’
‘By whom, I might ask?’
‘Well, by—’ Lady Best began to bluster, her defences clearly worn down.
‘Miss Henrietta Bainbridge, perhaps?’
The older woman swelled slightly, buoyant with what she clearly considered to be good news. ‘Yes! Mad Hetty! And the Bramleys. They were there to witness the terrible affront on my daughter’s virtue inflicted by your son! Ask them!’
She was interrupted by a shout of derisive laughter from Lord Kent. ‘The Bramleys! Ha! My Miranda’s family! You chose badly, if you thought to choose my deceased wife’s kin. The Bramleys couldn’t be more trustworthy allies of the Kents.’
