At that moment Hamilton, our butler, appeared with that uncanny sixth sense that butlers seem to possess that someone has arrived, however quietly one creeps.

“Welcome home, my lady. Most inclement weather, I understand.” He helped me out of my sodden overcoat. “Shall I have your maid run you a bath? Tea will be served shortly.”

As if on cue Fig appeared at the top of the stairs.

“I thought I heard voices in the front hall,” she said, coming down cautiously with one hand on the banister, attempting to look as frail as La Dame aux Camélias, but not quite accomplishing it with her sturdy, horsey body and her ruddy, outdoor complexion. “I think we’ll take tea in the morning room today, Hamilton. It’s so much cozier in there.”

“I remember your telling our American guests once that nobody ever went into the morning room after lunch for any reason,” I couldn’t resist reminding her.

“Economy, Georgiana. One uses less coal in a small room. Rules have to be bent unfortunately. I never thought it would come to this, but it has.” She scowled at me critically. “You look like a drowned rat, Georgiana. Go and have a bath, for goodness’ sake—if your maid can be trusted to run one for you without flooding the place again. Really, that girl is too hopeless for words. Tell Lady Georgiana what you found her doing this morning, Hamilton.”

Hamilton gave an embarrassed cough. It was against the servants’ code to tell tales on one another. “It really wasn’t important, Your Grace, and I have spoken to the girl.”

“He asked her to help clean the silver and do you know what she did?” Fig’s strident voice echoed up the stairwell to the balcony above. “She lifted her skirt and started polishing the salt cellar with her flannel petticoat. Can you imagine?”

I thought this was rather funny, but I tried to keep a straight face. “It saves on cleaning cloths, I suppose,” I said.

“She claimed that was the way her ‘old mum’ always did it,” Fig continued, eyeing me triumphantly as if it was I who had been caught out. “Hopeless, Georgiana, simply hopeless. Surely you can manage to find someone better?”

“One can’t afford to pay a top-class maid from an allowance of zero,” I said sweetly. “Which is the amount I am currently receiving from the Rannoch coffers.”

Fig flushed. “Binky has no obligation to support female relatives past the age of twenty-one,” she said, “even if he had the money to do so, which he hasn’t. Times are very hard, Georgiana. We are having to cut back to the bone as it is, and I think Binky is being jolly generous, allowing you to stay on at Rannoch House with us.”

“I expect Cinderella felt much the same way,” I said.