I pause on the landing, between a painting of a stern gentleman in a cloak and some sort of heavily sculptured potted bush, and I take a deep breath. I can already hear the voices drifting up to me from the drawing room at the bottom of the stairwell, the clinking of glass and china, the soft tinkle of polite laughter.

It’s fine, I tell myself. Drink slowly, keep your voice down, act polite and interested and for the love of all that’s holy don’t call anyone by their first name.

I take another deep breath, then wobble a little. The carpet here is deceptively deep and these heels are thinner and higher than I’m used to wearing — vintage, from the 70s, I found them two weeks ago in the basement of a resale store in the Village that was going out of business.

They’re black leather with tasteful gold trim, peep toe, to go with the little black dress I’m wearing tonight. The Winsteads have company and right now, after Monday night, I’m a little bit terrified of the whole wardrobe I brought.

“Miss Strauss, would you care to borrow a shawl?” a voice says behind me.

I jump about a mile in the air, wobble, recover, grab the plant by accident, let it go, smile.

“Apologies, Miss Strauss, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” says Eunice, the assistant housekeeper.

“Not a problem,” I say, trying to regain some composure. “I was a little lost in thought.”

“Would you like to borrow that shawl?”

I consider Eunice for a moment. Everything in Downhamshire-on-Kyne has layers of meaning, and worse, every question has a right answer. Even if it’s ‘what’s your favorite animal,’ there’s a right and a wrong and I somehow have gotten even single question thus far wrong.

Eunice knits her hands in front of herself. I bite my lip, looking over my shoulder toward the staircase leading to the drawing room.

Shawl pro: covers self, and self is probably inappropriate.

Shawl con: very easy to dip into soup; could probably trip over shawl.

“Eunice,” I finally sigh. “I need you to level with me.”

Poor Eunice tries to hide a smile, and it doesn’t really work, but I’m just glad the staff finds me entertaining.

“Do I want a shawl? Does this outfit need a shawl? If I go down there sans shawl will I be inviting scandal?” I ask bluntly.

Alistair, my fiancé who brought me into this mess, did warn me a month ago that we’d be expected to dress for dinner nightly while we visited his family estate and ancestral home of Downhamshire-on-Kyne. After I spent a good hour questioning him, I managed to learn:

1. Dressing for dinner does, in fact, mean I need to wear a dress;

2. It would be in poor taste to wear the same dress twice during a visit;

3. ‘Demure,’ ‘modest,’ and ‘tasteful’ should be guiding principles; and

4. Yes, seriously, a different dress every night for two whole weeks, more dresses than I owned at the time of the conversation.

I dress-shopped with a zeal I’d never felt before. No secondhand store, Goodwill, vintage shop, estate sale, or costume shop throwaway bin in the city of New York was safe, because I needed dresses and by God, I had a budget.

And I found them. When they didn’t fit or needed work, I fixed them, staying up late at night in my tiny Brooklyn studio with my trusty sewing machine and an iPod full of 80’s hits. By the end of the month I had fifteen dinner-appropriate dresses.

Fifteen. I had an extra.

At least, I thought they were appropriate. Turns out that what I think is a ‘dinner dress’ — red, A-line, pleated skirt, scoop neck, sleeveless, just above the knee — is ‘better suited to a tarted-up streetwalker on Tynesbury Alley than my son’s future wife.’

Lady Winstead didn’t say it to me. She said it to her daughter Elizabeth, but even though I don’t know her that well, I’m about 90% sure I was supposed to overhear her.

Only ten more days in Downhamshire-on-Kyne, and I still don’t know whether to take the shawl.

“I only ask because the drawing room can be a bit drafty, and it was quite cool already today,” Eunice says, just barely smiling. “In any case, if you’d like one, you need only ask a bit later.”

I consider this. I was fine earlier, and there are cocktails being served, so I’m only going to get warmer.

“I think I’ll skip it for now, thank you,” I tell Eunice, who just nods her head politely and walks away. I can only hope it’s the right answer, though I’ve got a feeling it wasn’t.

I shake my head to clear it a little. I pat my mass of curls, hoping that none have gone rogue since the last time I looked in the mirror, straighten my dress, wish it were an inch longer, and descend the stairs, holding onto the banister carefully.

* * *

“My God, have you heard the plan to put another ring road ‘round Leeds and bring all the London weekender traffic our way?” Lady Catherine, my future mother-in-law is saying. “It’ll be frightful. We won’t even be able to visit the house in Saltburn any more, it’ll be overrun with hoodlums and vandals.”

I take another sip of my Pimm’s Cup, because I desperately need something to do with my mouth that isn’t disagree with Alistair’s mother.

“It’s shocking,” says the woman we’re talking to. I could have sworn she was introduced as Lady Wimbledon, and I honestly have no idea if I misheard and confused her with the tennis tournament. Maybe I did, and maybe the tournament is named after her castle. Who knows.

“After all, have you been reading about the rise in violence down south?”

Her voice drops.

“All those immigrants, coming to the city and they’re not the least bit grateful for what we’ve done for them. No, they’ve got to have our tax money, our healthcare, and all they do is run about stabbing each other...”

I take a gulp of Pimm’s cup, because otherwise I might start asking Lady Wimble-something what great contributions, exactly, she’s made to British society. I’ve got a feeling the main one was ‘be born to the right parents,’ possibly followed up by ‘marry well.’

“I’ve joined the Committee for Sensible Infrastructure,” Lady Catherine offers. “You ought to sign up as well, we’re putting quite a lot of pressure on the council...”

I drain my cup. These aren’t nearly as strong as the gin and tonics they were serving before dinner Monday, so I think I can have two before dinner and not cause a scene.

“I’m going to get another drink,” I tell the two women as soon as there’s a break in the conversation. “It was wonderful to meet you.”

“Lovely to meet you too, my dear,” Lady Wimble??? says.

I can’t tell if she sounds insincere because I’m still not quite used to her accent, or if she just sounds insincere. In either case, I skirt the other small clumps of people in the room, heading for the small bar again, where one of the kitchen staff is standing politely, waiting to make more drinks.

“Ah! There she is,” Alistair’s voice cuts through the low hum of the drawing room. “Françoise, sweetheart, come meet my old friend Cyril.”

I straighten my back, put a smile on my face, and try not to mourn the emptiness of my glass as I walk toward the two of them.

Alistair and Cyril could be brothers. Hell, they probably are related, given that most of the wealthy, noble families in northern England have been drawing from the same gene pool for the last few hundred years: sandy brown hair, blue eyes, long-ish nose, ruddy complexion.

In other words, they both look really British.

“This is my lovely fiancée, Françoise Strauss,” Alistair says, putting one hand on my back as I walk up to him. “Françoise, darling, this is Lord Cyril Crowley, the man who’ll own half of Newcastle someday.”

Cyril smiles, a slight flush creeping across his cheeks, and I wonder how many Pimm’s Cups he’s had.

“Please, it’s just Cyril,” he says, taking my hand and raising my knuckles to his lips, quickly brushing them. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Strauss. Or should I call you the future Lady Winstead?”

The thought of someone seriously calling me Lady Winstead someday nearly makes me laugh out loud.

“You can just call me Frankie,” I say. “Everyone does.”

“Charming,” he says.

“Françoise dabbles in costume design,” Alistair offers. “Perhaps you ought to consult with her over the exhibition?”

I bristle instantly. I don’t dabble in costume design, I have a career in costume design, or at least I’m trying like hell. I string together barely-paying jobs and unpaid internships as much as I can, while making sure I take enough hours at my waitressing job to actually pay my bills.

Alistair keeps offering to help me out, but I can’t bring myself to accept. I don’t want to be beholden to him. Not yet, at least.

The thought is just... unpleasant, for reasons I don’t exactly know.

“Actually, I’m a working costume designer,” I point out, smiling as nicely as I can. “I sewed all the sequins onto those corsets for the Broadway production of—”

“It’s so rare to find someone who actually understands the household arts,” Cyril interrupts. “Even our housekeeper was at a loss to put an extra button on a shirt that I purchased last week.”

I force myself to keep smiling. It’s a challenge.

“It’s true,” Alistair laughs. “I’ll certainly always have my clothes properly mended.”

Keep. Smiling.

“Your children will have the best Halloween costumes around,” Cyril offers. “The local school will think you’re an angel sent to their theater department.”

“I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to keep you busy,” Alistair says to me, still laughing.

I give up smiling, because I’m fucking confused, and I just look at Alistair. I can’t tell if he’s serious about this — I’m a costume designer, I’m striving to have a career in costume design, not to mend buttons on his shirts — or if this is that dry British wit people keep telling me is funny. He’s been a little weird ever since we got here, and I’m just not sure why.

“I’m sure,” I echo, distantly, because I’m not really sure what else to say that won’t start a fight in the middle of his parents’ pre-dinner social engagement. “Listen, it’s been lovely, but I’m going to go get another cocktail before dinner—”

“Oh, darling, you should have said something,” Alistair says. “Allow me.”

For a second I think he’s going to be a gentleman and go get me another drink, but instead he raises one hand and snaps his fingers until he’s got the bartender’s attention, then holds up my empty glass.

My mouth drops open and I wish the earth would swallow me whole, though Cyril seems completely unbothered.

“It’s okay,” I manage to say weakly. “I don’t mind getting it myself.”

I can’t believe he just did that. Who does that? You can’t snap your fingers at waitstaff, they’re not trained dogs.

“Don’t be silly,” he says, nodding once at the bartender, then returning to the conversation. “Do you need one as well?” he asks Cyril.

I tune the two of them out in the buzz of total mortification, smiling and nodding dumbly until the bartender comes over and hands me another cocktail with a slight bow.

I thank him. Profusely, which all three of them seem to find somewhat amusing, and then I try to be part of the conversation again.

Except they’re now talking about something to do with horses, and I never did get that pony I asked for as a child, so I resign myself to listening quietly.

* * *

Dinner is tolerable. I have a polite conversation with Cyril, who I’m seated next to, about the trove of pre-War women's clothes he recently found in a trunk in the basement of his manor house. This time I don’t even eat the garnish on the plate.

All in all, it goes pretty well, but I’m also very glad when it’s over. It’s been three nights here and I already feel like I’ve got cabin fever. Winstead Manor may have fifty rooms, but the place is suffocating.

It feels like there’s always someone just around the next corner, waiting for me to screw up. I’m afraid to fart in an empty hallway, because I just know that the second I do, a very friendly, polite, well-meaning member of the household staff will pop up and spray air freshener on my butt.

I’m American. Sometimes I just want to fart loudly in solitude, you know?

Everyone in the countryside seems to retire early, so by nine p.m., I can excuse myself and head to my own chambers. When I first found out that Alistair and I, despite being engaged, wouldn’t be sharing a bedroom because Lady Catherine deemed it inappropriate, I was a little put off.

But now I’m glad for it. It’s the only place I can be alone. And fart.

The walk from the sitting room, where we convened for after-dinner drinks, back to my rooms, feels like it’s about a mile long, but I’m determined that I’m not taking my shoes off.

Even if no one’s going to see me. Even if it’ll be faster, and better, and everything is carpeted with these over-plush, wildly expensive carpets.

I’m walking past the dining room when I hear Lady Elizabeth’s voice, though I’m not really listening until I hear my name.

“—Telling everyone to call her Frankie,” Alistair’s sister is saying, her voice echoing in the big hall.

I stop dead in my tracks, just out of sight. If I wasn’t already eavesdropping, now I am.

“It’s a crude Americanism,” his mother, Lady Catherine, sighs. “Women always wanting what men have, even their names.”

Now the problem is my name? My parents started calling me this as when I was a kid. It’s my name.

“I nearly asked her to put on another pair of shoes,” Elizabeth goes on. “I know she’s only got that one other pair and they’re atrocious as well, but I was bowled over when she arrived at dinner in peep toes.”

“I’m sure that’s perfectly acceptable in New Jersey,” Catherine says disdainfully. “Have you seen that television program, with the Italians at the beach who color themselves orange and drink in their bathing suits until they pass out?”

I look down at my shoes, the vintage ones that I paid money I barely have to re-sole and fix up. The ones I really like, the ones I was proud of myself for finding because they’re stylish and classy without being tedious or boring.

I think I might cry.

“Hopefully she doesn’t show up tomorrow baring her midriff with some sort of piercing through her belly button,” Elizabeth goes on. “Is Alistair really going to marry her?”

Lady Catherine just sighs, and I’ve fucking had it. I need to get out of here: out of this hallway, out of this stupid house, off these stupid grounds. I feel like I’m on one of those hidden camera shows or something, and any moment now someone’s going to pop out from behind a painting and shout, “Surprise! The last three years you spent in a relationship with someone were a prank! How does that make you feel?”

I stride past the door to the dining room, not caring if they realize I was there, and I stomp all the way to my bedroom, where I throw the dress on the bed and pull on my most torn, comfiest jeans, flats, and a t-shirt.

Vengefully, I wish I’d brought flip-flops, but I didn’t.

Minutes later I’m heading down the back staircase — the servants’ stairs — and out a door into the dark, humid, chilly night.

I feel a little better, but I need to leave. Get off the grounds completely, go where I don’t feel as though I’m constantly being watched and judged by my future in-laws, so I make my way out to the garage. It’s dark, but the door’s unlocked, so I just head in and hit the lights, hoping that the keys will be on hooks or something and I can leave a note.

Problem: the cars are all nice.

Way too nice for me to drive over these one-lane, English countryside roads after dark. I’ve only driven here a handful of times, and the whole ‘on-the-left’ thing is still pretty rough.

Off to one side, a door opens, and I whirl around to see a man standing there, looking slightly surprised.

“Can I help you, Miss Strauss?” he asks.

Shit. What’s his name?

“I was wondering if I could borrow a car,” I say tentatively.

Robert. Richard. Rupert?

“Borrow a car, Miss?”

“Yes,” I say, not sure how else to explain it.

“I’d be more than happy to drive you to your destination if you allow me just a moment to dress properly.”

“Well, I don’t really have a destination,” I say, winding my fingers together and fiddling with them. “I’ve been feeling a little cooped up is all, and I was hoping to borrow a car and sort of... drive to clear my head?”

I don’t want to say get the hell out of here for a little while, because God only knows who Robert/Richard/Rupert will tell, and I don’t need that. I just need to be alone for a little while where no one can find me. Is that crazy?

He narrows his eyes slightly, squinting like he’s trying to understand.

“You want to borrow a car to drive yourself,” he says.

“Yes!” I say, getting a little too excited.

He smiles professionally, like he finally gets it.

“Apologies, it’s an unusual request,” he says. “Does Miss have a preference?”

“The cheapest one,” I say instantly.

He walks to a cabinet, unlocks it, and pulls down a set of keys. I think he’s trying not to laugh at me.

“That’ll be the Toyota that Lord George won betting on cricket last year,” he says. “He says he’s been meaning to sell it, but he’s so charmed by having won it at all that he hasn’t yet.”

I don’t even ask who the fuck wins a car betting on cricket, I just follow him to the very back of the hall, where there’s a small black Toyota sedan waiting. A regular car.

It’s perfect.

“Thank you so much,” I say.

“My pleasure, Miss Strauss,” the man says, his eyes crinkling around the corners.

I pull out of the garage, down the driveway, to the winding country road that leads here from the nearest village.

Finally, when I’m off Winstead land at last, I feel like I can breathe again.