Chapter 20
Etta didn’t think at all about Max while she was being told off for her trip to the shops, first by Bessie, and then half-heartedly by her mother.
She didn’t think about him as she walked in the park the next morning, or the following day as she walked around checking flower arrangements for her ‘coming out’ ball.
She didn’t think about him over lunch and she certainly didn’t wonder whether he would like her beautiful light-blue silk and lace dress.
But she really, actually, didn’t think about him as she stood by the door ready to meet her first guests a week later. For some reason, as the first carriages drew up and people started stepping down, reality hit her.
Until now, when meeting people in this age, she’d let her mind wander. She’d detached herself from reality, as though she were cosplaying at being a Regency lady. It had felt like being in a strange immersive play where everybody was just really, really great at method acting.
But now, as she watched a stunningly beautiful young brunette woman approach her up the steps, she found herself taking an involuntary step to the side – as if her body simply didn’t want to get in the way of such elegance.
This woman looked too immaculately put together not to be real, her silken yellow cloak shimmering in the candlelight as though made from spun gold.
Lady Bainbridge greeted the woman and her mother first. ‘Mrs Marley, Miss Marley. How lovely.’
Mrs Marley seemed very pleasant and ready to pass by, but Miss Marley’s face contorted into a rather false smile as she studied Etta.
‘Miss Bainbridge. How … surprising … to finally meet you,’ said Miss Marley. Not waiting for a response, she swept past into the ballroom, smelling faintly of roses and malice.
Etta’s confidence crumbled. She looked up at her mother, who was greeting more guests and felt remarkably alone. She really was in 1817, she realised. This wasn’t a dream. For the first time, she really felt every one of those two hundred and six long years.
She curtseyed again and again, barely looking at her guests and feeling like she shrunk an inch with every passing dignitary. Her family must be important, she thought. And real.
She was fingering her bracelet as she registered her mother’s hand against her bare arm. ‘Why, Henrietta, you’re chilled to the bone! You should have said! Well, it is time to go inside now anyway. The quartet will be setting up.’
Her mother swept her inside and Etta grabbed a cup of champagne from a passing footman on her way in.
Lady Bainbridge gave her side-eye but, typically, as they were in public, said nothing.
The pursing of her mother’s mouth, however, indicated that Ladies Did Not get drunk.
She made a mental note not to get too wrecked, however tempting it was – Hetty’s body probably couldn’t take as many negronis as hers could back in 2023 – but she needed a little Dutch courage.
As she made her way across the ballroom, on a mission to eat her feelings at the buffet table, she heard Miss Marley’s voice wafting towards her from a crowd of giggling women who all seemed around their age.
‘The audacity! Remarkable, truly remarkable. I suppose Lady B is happy to think her daughter’s not a loony, but I’m not convinced just yet.’
To her surprise, Miss Marley was staring her dead in the eye. Etta tilted her head questioningly, but Miss Marley smiled maliciously and steadily returned her gaze. Audacity indeed – she had meant for her to hear every word.
Etta stepped towards Miss Marley and her little band of female admirers, who started in a mix of horror, fear and glee. Had she not been having a huge internal crisis, Etta would have been angry as hell. As it was, she was backfooted and confused.
Etta cleared her throat. ‘Miss Marley, is it? Nice to meet you.’
Miss Marley looked at Etta contemptuously. ‘We met at the door. It seems it’s true, then. Hetty really is unfit for company. Her brother was right.’
‘My brother?’
She smiled around her at her acolytes. ‘Oh, yes – we know all about poor Hetty Bainbridge. “Dicked in the nob”, I believe he likes to say in his club. Well, how lovely that your mother is finally letting you out.’
Etta was absolutely stunned. Not even the biggest bitch in high school had been as much of a bitch as this Marley woman. There was nothing in Etta’s armoury for this kind of attack. Then fate came to the rescue.
‘Miss Bainbridge! I don’t think you recognised me and Mama when we arrived earlier. It’s so overwhelming, isn’t it, one’s first ball?’
Etta whirled round and was immensely relieved and grateful to see Miss Best, the young woman from the inn, standing behind her.
Miss Marley let out a cruel laugh. ‘Oh, you have an ally, I see? Well, a friend in need is a friend indeed – and Miss Best, what age are you now? Twenty-five, is it? Truly a friend in need.’
Etta knew this would be a moment she’d be thinking about later, once she’d come up with a dozen cutting replies, but frustratingly she found herself grappling for a comeback.
Miss Best’s bottom lip fluttered, but she had obviously dealt with Miss Marley in the past. She took Etta’s arm and turned away. ‘Come, Miss Bainbridge. Do tell me where you got your dress. The trimming on the flounce is quite lovely.’
As they walked away together, Etta heard the words ‘Too bran-faced to wear white, of course …’ recede into the background.
She pulled Miss Best into an alcove. ‘Thanks for rescuing me – my god, what a bitch!’
Clarissa giggled, eyes wide. ‘Henrietta! You mustn’t!’
‘Well, she is, though. And at my own party!’
Clarissa sighed. ‘Yes, well. Miss Marley isn’t the easiest person to deal with, I must admit. And she does lead the pack, rather.’
Etta paused, mentally taking stock of the encounter. ‘And has Charlie really been going around telling anyone and everyone I’m off my trolley?’
Clarissa looked confused. ‘Off your trolley?’
‘Dicked in the nob,’ Etta clarified.
‘Oh.’ Clarissa looked at Etta assessingly. ‘Yes, I’m afraid he has been rather … active. But you don’t appear insane to me. Perhaps … eccentric. But your family is thought of very highly, you know. Miss Marley may well come to regret her treatment of you.’
‘You bloody bet she will.’
Etta was not a violent person, but right now she badly wanted to hit Miss Marley in her smug little face.
She leaned into the wall and pressed her hot face to a cool marble column next to them.
The room seemed to be rammed with posh people pretending they weren’t there solely to see what Mad Hetty looked like and Etta’s dress felt tight and sweaty.
She could feel every whalebone in her stays pressing against her chest.
‘Ugh, it’s so hot in here. I need a sit down.’
Clarissa grasped Etta’s arm. ‘Not now! Lord Stanhope is approaching! He’s a friend of your brother’s, isn’t he?’
Etta saw him immediately. He was like something hot off the pages of Vogue or GQ. His hair shone in the candlelight and his immaculate clothes only accentuated his masculinity. It was his expression, though, that was most arresting. Etta thought his eyes might bore into her very soul.
It was exciting and thrilling and slightly too intense. Did he not realise she was halfway through an existential crisis? She felt irrationally cross with him, then looked down. She coughed out a bubble of laughter as she saw his feet.
‘Miss Bainbridge, I’ve been looking for—’
‘Max, your shoes.’
‘Lord Stanhope,’ Max said. ‘What of my shoes?’
‘Your shoes. Look at them. They’re like ballet slippers or something.’
Clarissa stepped into the breach, nudging her gently. ‘Miss Bainbridge, Lord Stanhope’s shoes are quite appropriate, I must tell you.’
Max looked at Clarissa quizzically and Etta remembered Miss Marley’s earlier venomous attitude towards Miss Best. Well, nobody could accuse Clarissa of being anything but lovely.
‘Lord Stanhope, delightful to see you,’ Clarissa said demurely. ‘Miss Bainbridge is still learning the ropes, as you see.’
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, please don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be fine under your tutelage. If,’ he added, looking rather pointedly at Etta, ‘you decide to take her on, Miss Best.’
Clarissa smiled and murmured some form of agreement, while Etta continued to take stock of his shoes and pleasingly well-cut britches.
Her gaze lifted to his face and she found he was smiling at her.
‘Miss Bainbridge. Have you had your dance lessons yet? Will you dance with me?’
Etta pulled a face. ‘Okay, then. I’ve been learning non-stop, so I might as well give it a bash.’
Poor Miss Best looked appalled at Etta’s lack of graciousness, as Max guided Etta towards the dance floor.
She did well enough, she thought. Hetty would probably have floated like a fairy.
But Etta barely bothered to mind her steps as she romped around the room.
She knew people were probably staring, but at this point, what had she really got to lose?
She may as well have fun, she thought, narrowly avoiding stepping on another set of toes as she rounded a corner.
Perhaps others were disapproving, but Max seemed more than happy to match her energy. Slowly, she felt everyone seem to perk up. At first she thought she was imagining it, but she saw young women smile a little wider, their partners swinging them slightly more enthusiastically.
The dance ended and Max led a somewhat out of breath Etta off the dance floor.
‘Wow. That was way more fun than it looked in Bridgerton, and certainly more fun than that old dancing teacher at home made it look. More like a ceilidh dance,’ she said.
Max manoeuvred her towards the edge of the room. ‘Well, you certainly brightened things, I must admit.’
‘Do you think? I thought they all had sticks up their arses, but I don’t care. It was fun.’
‘Etta! Miss Bainbridge!’
Etta smiled. ‘Yes, I know, I know. No swearing. Sorry, I forgot.’
Max looked like he was wrangling with what to say next. ‘Miss Bainbridge, we need to talk and we don’t have long. You’re not Hetty, are you? So what has happened to her?’
‘If I tell you, you’re going to think I really am Mad Hetty Bainbridge.’
He looked at her seriously. ‘Try me. I promise to hear you out.’
Etta took a breath, considering this. The party all around her seemed to blur out of focus. Oh well, she thought. In for a penny, in for a pound.
‘I think … I think Hetty and I swapped lives. One minute I was heading to work and it was 2023, and then these two old ladies appeared and told me I was about to swap with her and that … That it was about this bracelet. Then I was in a cellar strapped to a chair and it’s 1817 and it’s not a dream …
’ Etta’s voice caught. ‘I know I probably sound crazy, but it’s not going away.
It’s been weeks and I haven’t woken up.’
Max rubbed his temples. After a moment, he leaned forward, his face fixed, his voice low. ‘Miss Bainbridge, there is clearly more to this story than can be told here. I am aware this is a scandalous proposal, but … do you think your maid could arrange a correspondence between us?’
‘Bessie? Oh yes. I daresay she can have a word with her close friend James, the second footman. Can’t I just write to you like a normal person, though?’
Max raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, Miss Bainbridge, but a lady does not openly write to a gentleman. And your letters will most likely go to your brother to be franked before leaving the house.’
Etta sighed. ‘Ugh, okay. I’ll talk to Bessie. You’re right. I hate using the bloody feathers to write though. My mother says I’m terrible at it. She won’t let me write any invitations. So I hope you’re all right with pencil.’
Their time was up. Miss Marley was approaching with the awful, arch Mr Smythe. He’d refused to so much as touch her hand when they’d been introduced at the door, so she’d taken special care to remember the toad’s name.
‘Why, Lord Stanhope, how lovely to see you. We were just remarking on your kindness to Miss Bainbridge,’ said Miss Marley, who slowed her voice to a patronising crawl. ‘How are you, Hetty? Enjoying your first dance?’
Max didn’t react. ‘Miss Bainbridge was just telling me about her interest in … Calligraphy.’
Etta knew she had a dangerous look on her face, but before she could say anything they heard the odious Mr Smythe’s smarmy, patronising tones. ‘How delightful. You can read and write, then, Miss Bainbridge?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Etta. ‘Can you?’
It seemed Mr Smythe wasn’t accustomed to quick retorts. His face blank, he sputtered, struggling to know what to say.
Max cut in. ‘As a matter of fact we used to call you Wobbly in school, didn’t we, Smythe? Wobbly was never all that strong in Composition class. Or Comprehension, come to that.’
Smythe looked burningly angry. ‘Oh, very amusing, Stanhope.’
Etta screwed up her face mock-thoughtfully. ‘I think it’s Lord Stanhope, isn’t it?’
A burst of laughter surprised itself out of Max. He cleared his throat, signalling it was time for an entente.
‘Miss Marley,’ he addressed her graciously. ‘I believe a dance is about to begin. Is there room for me on your dance card?’
He led Miss Marley to the dance floor, while Smythe pointedly strolled away from Etta, leaving her on her own.
Etta didn’t care. She watched Max make polite conversation with Miss Marley for a moment, who despite her acid tongue to her was certainly being pleasant enough to him, and then went off to find the food.
Hopefully there’d be eclairs, because she could do with more than a little bit of comfort eating right now.
Miss Marley might be more than a little tart, but – much like Lady Bainbridge’s little lemon curd-filled pastries – she was also beautiful.