Page 113 of A Foolish Flirtation

“Has he gone to visit relatives?”

“No.” Jeremy cleared his throat. “He’s, er, helping out at Plumtree Cottage.”

Emmie set down her teacup. “Really?” It was the first she had heard of it.

“Well, my estate manager sent a team to clear away all the rubbish from the garden, but as I understand it a good deal of work still remains to be done. I did offer the services of one of the undergardeners, but Miss Pinson declined the offer.” Jeremy paused, sending her a fleeting glance. “She said several kind friends had rallied around and offered to help.”

“Several kind friends,” Emmie repeated. “I suppose Colfax must be one of them. Pinky does have rather a knack of collecting friends. She could not visit the bakers without striking up conversation with someone or other.” Usually, though, Emmie reflected privately, these would be genteel folk, much like Pinky herself, eminently respectable and often rather down on their luck. Altogether nothing like Colfax. Aloud she continued, “She’s much better at it than I. She has at least a dozen people she regularly corresponds with. I expect they will all be coming to stay with her, now she has two spare rooms.”

“Well, according to Teddy, one of the rooms is extremely small and only fit for a person his size.”

Emmie disregarded her stepson’s biased view. “Do you know, when I visited last week, I interrupted a singsong in her parlor. There were at least six people crowded in there, around her spinet singing ‘Barbara Allen.’ Colfax was one of their number now that I think of it,” she remembered. “He has a surprisingly good singing voice.”

“Did you join in?” Jeremy asked, buttering her a piece of toast.

“No, for they all stopped singing when I walked in and turned quiet and awkward.”

“Ah,” Jeremy said, placing the toast before her. “Well, you are lady of the manor now. No doubt some of them consider you outside of their social sphere.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Emmie agreed, trying not to sound forlorn. “Pinky leaped up at once, but I told her I had just brought along some of Hudgins’s flowers from his glass house and beat a hasty retreat. I did not like to break up her party,” she explained, playing with her teaspoon. “I—I don’t know why exactly, but the thought of Pinky and Colfax of all people is just so jarring to me.”

Jeremy looked amused. “Well, it seems they are firm friends now, so you must try to disregard your own feeling about your footman being friends with her.” Emmie started to protest it was not a matter of social status at all, but Jeremy cut through this, saying, “Do you suppose when they are alone, they are simply Hannah and Len?” He laughed. “If you could see your face. I know she acts as though she is a little old lady, but she cannot be much more than forty.”

“She isn’t,” Emmie agreed quickly. “I know that. She has always acted older because her parents had her late in life. And then she lived with a great-aunt for several years, so she had always lived with old people. The truth is, she cannot have been more than eighteen when she turned up on my doorstep to take up her role as my governess.”

“Yet to you, I suppose she always seemed an adult,” Jeremy said, removing the covers to reveal eggs, bacon, and bread rolls.

“Well, yes,” Emmie agreed lamely. She watched as his expression became thoughtful. “What are you thinking?” she asked impulsively.

“I was wondering,” he said slowly. “Do you think Teddy might grow up to have a penchant for very proper and timid maidens, like Colfax?”

“Colfax?” She couldn’t say why precisely but Emmie felt disquieted by his words.

“Yes, his tastes run decidedly in that direction when it comes to women. Surprising, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, Emmie remembered that first day she met Colfax and how intently he had stared at poor Pinky. “But I don’t think Hannah would like that at all!”

“Like what? Being the recipient of Colfax’s admiration? Why not?”

“Well, simply because!” Emmie spluttered. “Hannah hates feeling embarrassed or discomforted. She’s not, well, shy precisely, but she is never fully at ease with people until she knows them and trusts them and then they become part of her little trusted circle.”

“Has a man ever featured within that circle?”

Emmie thought fleetingly of Pinky’s friend circle, which had always been maintained largely through correspondence. “Never.”

“So, because she has never been admired by a man heretofore, you presume she would never enjoy the experience?”

Emmie frowned. “Not exactly. It’s just, Colfax seems a hundred miles away from any gentlemen Pinky has ever expressed admiration for.”

“Oh. Has she ever expressed much by way of admiration for the opposite sex?” he asked casually, lifting his coffee cup to his lips.

Emmie thought about this for a moment. “Well, she admired very much Canon Littleworth’s oration in church,” she said lamely.

Jeremy smirked. “That is an altogether different thing.”

“I suppose I imagined she never brought up such things because she had no interest in them,” Emmie admitted slowly.

“Perhaps,” he said lightly, “or perhaps it was because she never saw any likelihood of taking a suitor. You must admit that she enjoys the vicarious thrill of reading romantic novels.”