‘No, silly! What I mean is, loads more people actually saw it. And then two million of those people pressed a little heart-shaped button saying they liked it.Two million.’
Aunt Aggie was bringing in a tray of tea. ‘It means, Hetty, my dear, that the two of you will need to choose an agent. Do let me introduce you to my good friend Marina.’
Chapter 48
1818
When Max arrived at the Bainbridges’ residence, he knew immediately that something was horribly wrong.
Servants were coming and going through the large front doors at full speed, and Max followed a lost-looking and very upset Monsett to a much more upset Lady Bainbridge. The woman was clutching Etta’s maid Bessie to her bosom, the both of them wailing.
Max turned to the panicking butler. ‘Monsett. I realise this is most irregular, but—’
Charlie rushed over, looking more hassled than Max had ever seen him or perhaps anyone. ‘Never mind that, Monsett. Max, come with me now. Now! Mother?!’
A deep foreboding was sweeping over Max as the panic of the household seemed to infect him. Charlie led them straight into his study, looking suddenly twenty years older than he had just moments ago.
‘Etta has gone missing,’ Charlie croaked, turning to comfort his collapsing mother.
‘Missing?’ repeated Max, the beginnings of dreadunfurling within him. He instinctively poured each of them a large glass of brandy and turned to Lady Bainbridge, heart in his mouth.
‘How …?’
‘Monsett has heard back from several of the footmen he sent across the city, and it seems Henrietta caught the stagecoach towards Dover,’ Charlie explained. ‘A clerk at the ticket office was able to give a detailed description.’
‘But – but why?’ asked Max.
An anguished voice rose from Lady Bainbridge’s hunched figure. She jabbed a finger in Max’s direction. ‘You.’
Charlie’s mouth almost vanished into a hard line as Max’s face collapsed. His voice came out in a tone he barely recognised. ‘Surely she couldn’t truly believe …?’
‘Well, she did,’ said Lady Bainbridge, handing Charlie a tear-stained note, which he read with increasing consternation.
‘Am I reading this correctly? You are engaged to Miss Best?’
Max felt his chest crackle with rage. ‘Do you seriously believe,’ he drawled incredulously, ‘that I would prefer an insipid damsel who attempted to trap me into marriage to your sister – the woman with whom I have been deeply in love for many, many months?’
Lady Bainbridge raised her head, watching carefully as Max continued, ‘Do you, Charles Bainbridge, my childhood friend of two and a half decades, really truly believe that the Stanhopes would ally themselves with harpies such as the Bests? That we would … It was an awful scheme by the awful Best woman, but my father and I have seen that off. It is your sister whom I want to marry. With whom I am in love.’
‘Says here you were spotted kissing Miss Best by the Bramley girls,’ Charlie interrupted, still cynical.
‘Oh, and you think I was in on that, do you? That my reputation can’t survive a mere kiss? And the Bramley girls will be all over London with it? The Bramleys?! I’ve known George Bramley since Eton, and so have you. My ownmotherwas a Bramley. I’d trust the Bramleys with—’
‘Enough, Maximillian. Henrietta clearly has no idea how society works. How unequal the balance is between men and women. As proven,’ Lady Bainbridge raised her eyebrows, ‘by her highly inappropriate closeness with yourself these past few months.’
Max drank some of his brandy, the wind stolen from his sails somewhat by the surprisingly humbling glare of an outraged Lady Bainbridge.
‘While your reputation as a man will easily survive Miss Best’s attentions, you must be aware we have all spent months making sure Henrietta knows that hers would not. And we all know Henrietta sees women to be the equal of men – as, of course, we are.’ Lady Bainbridge slammed her empty glass down on a side table. ‘But not equal in the eyes of society, sadly.
‘I cannot travel to fetch my daughter, of course, unless we all want a wash of rumour to be across half of London before the end of the day,’ she continued, putting her handkerchief to one side and picking up Hercules. ‘Which means that I will be having stern words with the servants while you two go on a trip and my daughter “lies abed with a cold”.’
Charlie puffed out his chest. ‘What, Mama, you’re happy for me to be left alone with this charlatan? I can’t promise he’ll remain unharmed.’
Max and Lady Bainbridge looked at one another for asplit second, before turning to Charlie with eyebrows raised. Charlie stood glaring at the two of them until his mother finally broke the silence.
‘Now is not the time for levity, Charles. Off you both go.’ Lady Bainbridge stood up. ‘Maximillian, I do not expect you to return without my daughter.’
Max nodded solemnly, as Lady Bainbridge and Hercules swept out of the room. He turned to Charlie. ‘We must leave immediately.’
