Excerpt from Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Right  now she is sitting in the turquoise chair  by the  parlor  win­ dow, her stockinged leg planked  on the footstool, staring at the  black umbrellas wheeling about  the square below.  Her  eyes have gone dis­ tant. She says it's the painkillers. But I can tell Momma is dreaming of being  back  at  Black  Rabbit Hall, or  her old  family  farm  in  Maine, somewhere remote  and  wild  where  she can  ride  her  horses in  peace. But Maine is too far away. And  Black Rabbit Hall feels even farther.

 "Can I bring you some  more  tea, ma'am?" asks Nette, respectfully averting her gaze from  the startling bruise  on Momma's leg.

Nette is  the   new-three  months new-help.  She  has  a  lisp­ impersonation is irresistible-and has  moved  from  an old-fashioned household in Eaton  Square, "where  they're  still  pretending it's I930," Momma says. I think Nette prefers it here. I would. "Or another cushion?" 

"No, thank you, Nette. You're so thoughtful. But I'm quite  com­ fortable, and  have drunk so much  tea in the last few days that  I fear another cup  might  send  me  quite  over  the  edge."  Momma smiles, revealing the  gap  between her  two  front  teeth that  makes  her smile seem  so much  bigger  than anyone  else's.  She can stick a match  in  it. "And,  Nette, please feel free to call me Mrs.  Alton or, indeed, Nancy. No need to be formal  here, I promise."

"Yes,  rna-" Nette catches  herself,  smiles  shyly. She  picks  up  the empty teacup and  half-eaten Battenberg and  slips  them  soundlessly onto the shining silver tray. Boris beats his tail, gives her his best doggy eyes. Although she's not meant  to give the dog treats-Boris is a fatty, a glutton, and once demolished a pound of butter in one sitting, then vomited  it up on  the  stairs-I  know  Nette feeds  him  in the  kitchen when no one's looking.  I like her for this.

"Come here, you," Momma says to me, once Nette's gone. She pulls up the piano  stool beside her, pats it.

I  sit  down and  lay my  head  on  her  lap,  inhaling her  skin  tang through the lettuce-green silk of her dress. She strokes my hair. And  I feel like both  her confidante and  her baby, and  that  I could  stay here forever, or at least until  lunch.  Not  that  her lap will be mine for long: there  are too  many of us-me, Barney;  Kitty;  Daddy;  my twin, Toby, when  he's back from  boarding school.  Sometimes it feels  like  there isn't enough of her to go round. 

"Your  leg looks like a root vegetable,  Momma." "Why, thank you, honey!"

"Your  other leg is still  nice, though," I say quickly, glancing down at it, long, slim,  foot stretched, pointing like a ballerina's, the second toe intriguingly longer than the first, punching out beneath the raised stocking seam.

"One pretty leg is enough. And  the other looks a lot worse  than  it is, really." She wraps a strand of my hair  around her finger  so that  it looks like one  of the tasseled  red silk ropes that  tie back the curtains. We sit like  that  for a while,  the  carriage clock ticking, London rum­ bling outside.  'A penny for your thoughts?"

"Grandma Esme says you could have been killed." I can't stop think­ ing about  the crash. The black ballard waiting for the  black taxi. The screech  of brakes.  The  hatboxes  flying  into  the  air. Things you can't imagine  ever  happening happening.  "It   makes   me  feel ... I  don't know."

Excerpted from Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase. Copyright © 2016 by Eve Chase. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.