The new maid keeps apologising to the furniture.

08:14 | September 4 | Thursday | Entrance Hall, Eaton Square | Overcast • 14°C

The house is quiet in the way old London houses are quiet on a Thursday morning — clock in the drawing room, the far tick of the pipes, a delivery van rolling past on the cobbles outside. In the entrance hall, in front of the tall bookcase, Corin is in the fourth hour of drill.

Miss Rina is in the wingback chair by the bookcase, upright as a hymn-book, one silver-slippered ankle crossed over the other. Her hands rest folded one over the other in her lap. She is watching, and she is not moving, and she has that particular set to her mouth that means she is teaching.

Facing the bookcase, back to the stairs, is Corin. Mint-green twin-tails hanging past her waist. Small. The pinafore is spotless. Silver X-cross clips catching the little light there is. She is holding the hem of her apron in her fingertips and lowering, very slowly, into what a Sebastiane girl is meant to know as the Third Curtsy — knees together, weight on the balls of the feet, chin one soft inch down.

"Again," Miss Rina says. Her voice is pleasant and unhurried and it strips the paint off the walls.

Corin rises. Corin lowers. Corin's left knee wobbles. Corin apologizes to the bookcase.

"S-sorry, ma'am."

"To me, kitten. Not the bookcase. Again."

She rises. She lowers. Somewhere in the descent she catches a shift in the air on the stairs behind her, and her shoulders go tight, and her head begins to turn. When she sees who has just come down, her knees forget the sequence entirely.

She topples an inch. She catches herself against the bookcase with a small "ehn-na, ehn-na, ehn..." and three books thump to the runner and one of them is Debrett's and she is on her hands and knees on the floor in a single half-second gathering them up with her whole heart in her throat.

"S-sir. Good morning, sir. Please excuse me, sir. I... I did not know you were coming down, sir. I... I would have... I would have been elsewhere, sir. I... um... Debrett's, sir, I am so sorry, Debrett's."

She is apologizing to a book. She is stacking the book on the bookcase and then she is stacking it in her arms and then she is stacking it on the bookcase again because she cannot decide which is correct. Her ears are pink. Her throat is pink. The tops of her cheeks are pink. Her twin-tails have caught on the edge of the shelf and she has not noticed.

Miss Rina taps a single fingernail once against the arm of the chair with a small dry sound. She does not rise.

"Corin."

"Y-yes, Miss Rina."

"Chin."

Corin's chin comes up half an inch. Miss Rina lets it.

"Master." Rina inclines her head — a courtesy, no more. Her red eyes are placid and very awake. "Good morning. You are earlier than the schedule. I hope we have not disturbed the house."

She does not apologize. She never apologizes. It is the great difference between them.

"Corin is being certified for front-of-house duty this week. We are on the Third Curtsy this morning. She is close. The knee, kitten, remember the knee." A small pause. A small, cool, entirely deliberate pause. "Since the master is present, I think we may as well practise on him directly. Kitten. To the master. As you were taught. If you please."

Corin makes a very small sound. She turns. She takes two small steps from the bookcase toward the foot of the staircase and stops at a servant's distance. She is holding the hem of her apron in her fingertips again and her fingertips are shaking. She will not look higher than a pair of polished shoes. Her twin-tails are still caught on the bookcase and pulling gently at her scalp. She has not noticed.

She begins the Third Curtsy.

Her knees are perfect. Her back is perfect. Her chin is exactly one soft inch down. For three whole seconds she looks like a Sebastiane girl.

And then she has to rise, and she has to lift her eyes, and her eyes get as far as the second button of a shirt before her breath stops entirely.

"...g-good morning, sir." A tiny whisper. "Corin Wickes. J-junior maid. At your service, sir."

Behind her, Miss Rina folds her hands one over the other at her waist. The look on her face is the mildest, kindest, most unreadable expression in the world.

"Well, Master?" Miss Rina says softly. "How does she do?"

15:47 | September 7 | Sunday | Kitchen, Eaton Square | Warm sun • 21°C

The house is empty on Sunday afternoons in the way old London houses are empty on Sunday afternoons — sun coming in at a slow amber angle through the tall sash windows, dust turning in it, the tick of the grandfather clock two rooms over. The drawing-room bell has gone unanswered twice, which is unusual enough. The green baize door at the top of the back stairs stands open.

Corin is at the servants' table.

Corin is at the servants' table surrounded by six identical white bakery boxes, tied with pink string, one of them open. She is holding a piece of strawberry mochi between her fingertips, a piece already gone into her mouth. There is a fine dusting of rice flour on the tip of her nose. Her twin-tails are catching the light. Her pinafore is spotless. She is chewing.

She looks up.

She freezes.

The chewing stops.

Her eyes get very large and very violet. Her cheeks are packed like a small pale hamster. The half-piece in her fingertips has begun, quietly, to fall apart. She has not blinked.

"...mmn." A tiny sound. She swallows painfully. There is a lot to swallow. "S-sir."

She does not know what to do with her hands. She tries to put the mochi behind her back. This does not work. She tries to slide the open box under her apron. This also does not work. She looks at the six boxes. She looks up. She looks at the six boxes.

"...s-sir, I... um... I... can explain, sir, please, i-if I may."

The silence stretches. Corin, gathering her courage, sets both hands flat on the table on either side of the box and lifts her eyes for one whole and entirely uncharacteristic second.

"They are strawberry mochi, sir."

This is offered as though it explains everything.

"F-from Minamoto's on Marylebone High Street. They are... they are the best in London, sir. They only... they only make them fresh on Sunday mornings and there are only six trays and if you do not go at nine you cannot have any and if you go at nine they are still warm and I... I went, sir, at nine. This morning. Um."

She has begun to sway very slightly on her heels. It is confession posture. Miss Rina drilled it into her in her second year.

"I used the household ledger, sir. F-for one box. Miss Rina permitted me one box out of the household ledger last Sunday because she said... she said I had done well with the silver. I... I used the ledger for one box, sir. And then I... I bought the other five with my own wages, sir. I did. I promise. But I brought them home in the household basket and I put them on the household table and if Miss Rina comes down and sees six boxes on the household table she will believe I have taken s-six boxes on the household ledger, sir, and she... she will be very disappointed, sir."

Her lower lip has begun to tremble in the entirely unfair way that only cinnamon-roll junior maids can manage.

"I... I was going to hide five of them in the pantry, sir. In the drawer where I hide the mochi. Um. Where I did not just tell you I hide the mochi. Where I have never hidden mochi. Sir."

From very far away — from three rooms up and one landing — the faintest sound of a door closing carries down through the walls of the house. It is a soft door. It is a Rina door. Corin's ears go pink and then her whole face goes pink and then a small "ehn-na-ehn-na" escapes her before she can bite it back.

"Sir. Sir. I... I know you are the master and I know I have no right to ask but... please, sir, if she comes down... if Miss Rina comes down... please, sir, can you... can you say you asked me to bring them? Please? I will do a-anything, sir, I will polish your boots for a month, I will iron every shirt, I will... please."

She is looking up with her whole wet violet-eyed heart in her face. In her fingertips, the mochi has finished falling apart quietly onto the floor.

Above, the stairs creak once.

21:47 | September 12 | Friday | Master's Bath, Eaton Square | Rain • 11°C

Rain on the sash windows. The gas fire hissing warm gold into the corner. The great claw-foot tub full of steaming water. Steam curling up the tiled walls and hanging over the bath like a low weather front.

A single sharp knock at the door.

"Y-your evening attendance, sir. C-Corin Wickes. Reporting, sir."

The door opens on the answer. Corin comes through it with a small silver tray held very carefully in both hands: two rolled hot towels, a bar of pale French-milled soap, a folded muslin cloth, a small bottle of pine oil. Her twin-tails are pinned up off her shoulders in a neat coil. Her sleeves are rolled to the elbows. Her pinafore is spotless. Her apron ribbon is tied a little too tight because she re-tied it three times outside the door.

She sees the master in the water.

She stops in the middle of the marble floor and forgets, for one entire breath, that this is a thing she is supposed to do.

"M-Miss Rina says." A small swallow. She resets. "M-Miss Rina says I am to attend the master's bath from tonight onward. Un-unsupervised, sir. She says I am ready. She says I am not to interrupt her evening with a knock on her door unless I have caused actual bodily harm. Sh-she said this three times, sir. So that I would remember."

She kneels on the small padded stool at the head of the tub and sets the tray on the marble ledge. She sets down the towels. She sets down the soap. She sets down the muslin. She sets down the pine oil. She sets them down in the wrong order and immediately re-arranges them into the correct order. She does not look at the water. She does not look at the master. She looks at her own small hands resting flat against the pale mint of her pinafore.

"Th-the protocol, sir. I have been practising the protocol. The protocol says." A small in-breath. She recites, quietly, the way a child recites a Latin verb she is afraid of losing. "Warm the cloth. Test at the wrist. Begin at the shoulders. Wash toward the elbow. Rinse. Move to the back. Move to the chest. Move to the belly. Move to..."

A small hitch. She swallows. Her ears go pink.

"M-move to below the waterline, sir. If the master indicates he would like it. Do not look above the surface unless the master addresses me directly. Do not raise the water. Do not lower the water. If the master rises, provide the towel from the left, folded seam out."

She dips the muslin into the bath.

Her small pale hand goes down into the hot water very close to the master and her breath catches in her throat with a very soft audible sound and she almost pulls the hand back out again. She does not. She holds the cloth under until it is warm through. She wrings it against the tub's rim with both hands and the water runs down her forearm to her elbow and soaks the rolled cuff of her sleeve black. She turns very slightly to bring the cloth to the master's right shoulder. Her wrist is trembling in the air. She has to steady the wrist against the porcelain rim to keep the cloth from shaking.

The muslin touches skin.

She stops breathing entirely.

"...I am w-washing the master's shoulders now, sir." A thread of a whisper against the steam. "Miss Rina said... Miss Rina said I would b-be alright. Please, sir. Please tell me if I am not doing it correctly. I... I can hear you. I... I promise I can hear you, sir."

She has not looked up from the water.

23:12 | September 14 | Monday | Master's Bedroom, Eaton Square | Rain • 10°C

Rain on the tall sash windows. The bedside lamps turned down to the second setting. The four-poster bed turned back for the night, top sheet folded down in the exact Sebastiane triangle, cornered corners, an ironed handkerchief laid on the pillow. The gas fire in the corner throwing warm amber over the rug. A crystal decanter of the good Armagnac set out on the tallboy with a single clean glass beside it. All of it done exactly as it is done every night, on Miss Rina's schedule.

What is not on the usual schedule is who is already standing in the room.

Miss Rina is beside the fire. Head tilted, hands folded low against her front, back straight as a hymn-book. She is not in the day uniform. She is in what the Sebastiane manual calls a "night attendance" set: a fitted black silk sheath cut short at the mid-thigh with the small white pinafore still tied over it in a neat bow at the back, black long-sleeves swapped for black lace ones that leave the tops of her arms bare, the white apron pared down to a filmy hip-piece with a scalloped hem. Her hair is down for the first time the master has ever seen it, a long silver-grey fall to the small of her back, and still topped with the same frilled white cap she wears in the daytime. The white thigh-high stockings are still there, ribbon-topped, one small red garter bow high on the left thigh. The silver-heeled slippers. Nothing in her hands.

She looks composed enough to be about to serve tea.

Corin is beside the bed.

Corin is beside the bed in a pale mint-green lace pinafore-slip that reaches the tops of her thighs and does not stay quite straight on her small frame. One narrow shoulder-strap has slipped an inch and she cannot decide if she is allowed to fix it. The frilled white maid cap is pinned neatly to her mint-green twin-tails. The small white apron is over the slip, tied at the back with the ends trailing. The lace ends at the top of her thighs and shows the plain white cotton knickers under it because she does not own another kind. White knee-socks are pulled up to just below her knees. The polished house shoes. Her small breasts are visible high inside the lace and her nipples have gone hard in the cool air of the room. She is pinker at the collarbones than at the face.

Her hands are folded low against her front in the Sebastiane parade rest she was taught the very first week and she has not stopped folding them tighter.

She is not looking at the door. She is looking at the corner of the rug at the foot of the bed. Her lower lip has been in her teeth for the last several minutes.

Miss Rina glances at the mantel clock, then at the door.

She smiles, the small, unhurried, private smile she uses when she has arranged something exactly right.

"Good evening, Master." Her voice is the same pleasant unhurried voice she uses to announce dinner. "The first lesson of the arrangement begins tonight. I have taken the liberty of preparing the room and the pupil. I hope the master finds the temperature suitable, and the linens as he likes them, and the pupil sufficiently... presentable. Kitten. Chin up."

Corin's chin comes up half an inch. She does not raise her eyes any further.

"...g-good evening, sir." A very small whisper. She curtsies, and the lace hem of the slip rides up half an inch when she does, and she goes pinker at the ears and swallows it down. "M-Miss Rina chose the... the outfit, sir. It is not one I have worn before. Miss Rina says it is c-correct for tonight. I am... I am at the master's service, sir. Please."

Miss Rina inclines her head one small courteous degree. Her hand smooths once across the pinafore ribbon at her waist.

"Whatever the master would like tonight, Master. You have only to say. Kitten and I are entirely at your disposal, and I am here to make sure she does it right the first time."