Page 4 of A Foolish Flirtation

It had been plaguing her ever since, and her stomach turned over once again as her thoughts returned queasily to the doom-laden words. Mr. Hardiman was a quiet, cautious sort and not given to exaggeration of any kind. If he was using phrases like “dire straits” in connection with her late father’s business concerns, then things must be bleak indeed.

But, if that was the case, then why on earth had Humphrey not been in touch? Even more worrying, whatever would she do for income if the business really was in trouble? The amount she received from her father’s shares had dwindled alarmingly in the past eighteen months. She and Pinky had already downgraded their lodgings in Bath twice in the past year.

“Is all well, dear?” her companion and friend, Hannah Pinson, asked timorously. She tipped her head to one side in her typically birdlike fashion. “You look quite peaky. Indeed, I have been wondering all day if you might not be a little under the weather.”

“I’m fine, Pinky dear,” Emmie assured her bracingly, and turned back to face front. Poor Pinky would be a nervous wreck if she knew they were staring potential ruin in the face. The last thing Emmie wanted to do now was heap more worries onto those narrow shoulders, not until it was strictly necessary.

“Now, have you decided in which delicacy we shall partake?” Emmie asked brightly, her eyes scanning the pastries on offer. Today was the last Friday of the month, which meant Emmie had received her banker’s draft and they always had some indulgence treat for tea.

Pinky, for that was what Emmie had called her since childhood, peered shortsightedly over the counter. “Oh dear,” she fretted. “I am sure coconut tarts did not used to be so expensive. And as for those cherry cakes, why, you used to get two for that price and I am sure they used to be twice the size!”

Emmie shot a sidelong glance at her friend. Perhaps Pinky was not so sweetly oblivious to their financial plight after all. “We can afford a little splurge on the day I receive my stipend, dear,” she said bravely, trying not to think of how small this month’s payout had been.

“Well, in that case…” Pinky hesitated. “Perhaps the iced buns?” she suggested, naming the cheapest thing available. “I have always had a decided weakness for them.”

“My favorite!” Emmie lied, feeling vastly relieved for her, even though she knew for a fact that cream horns were her friend’s true weakness. They beamed at one another reassuringly, and having procured a paper bag of iced buns, exited the shop, and proceeded cordially down the street together arm in arm.

“Did you have any books to return to the lending library?” Emmie asked, as she once again fretted over the fact she had not received a letter from Humphrey in, oh, it must be some three or four weeks now. He was not just her fiancé, but also the man running her late father’s firm, Ballentine’s Trading Company.

The profits had never soared, not once in the ten years since her father had passed. Humphrey, his able second-in-command, had always been viewed as “safe hands” rather than brilliant. Emmie suppressed a sigh now, thinking of her father’s last words. Had Father, once so instinctive about matters of business, been entirely wrong about trusting all to Humphrey?

She had clung doggedly to her father’s instruction, despite the dwindling income. She had seen it not only as a matter of loyalty to her fiancé, but also her father’s memory, but perhaps after all, she should have hired someone new for the position after the downward trend of profits in the first five years. Things had not improved as Humphrey had sworn they would if they just had faith and weathered the storm. Instead, they had gotten steadily worse.

“Emmie?” Pinky touched her sleeve, jolting her out of her gloomy reverie. “What is it? Have you—have you had bad news? Is it…Humphrey?”

“Humphrey?” Emmie was startled by the question. “Good gracious, no. I have not heard from him in weeks.” Instead of looking reassured by this confidence, her friend looked even more disturbed. Emmie took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, dear. I was woolgathering, do not pay me any heed. Now, tell me, how are you getting on with Love’s Innocence Fled and how is beleaguered Josephine faring? I’m simply itching to know.”

Josephine was the heroine in the novel Pinky was currently reading. Since they had moved from London eight years ago, their social circle had vastly reduced. As an heiress to her father’s fortune, living in a large London house, Emmie had friends and acquaintances galore. They had been invited to dinner parties, soirees, and coffee mornings every week.

A shabby gentlewoman and her companion, living in straitened circumstances in Bath, simply did not possess such a social circle. These days she and Pinky had one another to rely on. Novels were heaven-sent. They read them avidly and spoke of their plots as though they were present events in their lives, and the characters within their pages as people they actually knew. It greatly enriched their rather colorless day to day.

“Did she find her beloved Fernando at the Venice Opera House as the mysterious note intimated, or was it all a cruel ruse by that scoundrel, the count?” Emmie persisted.

Pinky brightened. “Now, how did you guess?” she marveled. “I was never so shocked as when poor Josephine took the amulet to the appointed meeting place only to find herself confronted by that wicked Count Stefano!” Pinky tutted. “I tell you, the lengths that villain will go to simply to get poor Josephine in his clutches, you would hardly credit it, my dear.”

“I daresay I would not,” Emmie murmured, thinking that her own fiancé could scarcely cobble a letter together for her these days, despite the fact she had not seen him since New Year’s. Briefly, she wondered what it might be like to be pursued by a man like Stefano, who would jump through so many hoops in pursuit of his beloved.

It was no good, she simply could not imagine it. Perhaps because she had no experience of being the fair pursued. Even in the early days of their courtship, she could never describe Humphrey as being anything other than terribly polite in his wooing.

“Alas,” Pinky sighed sadly, “poor Fernando is so unworldly, dear man, that he simply does not realize the peril Josephine faces as a beauteous and virtuous maiden quite alone in the world.” A tear sprang to Pinky’s eye. “His devotion to his art, though noble, blinds him at times to her plight.”

“Perhaps she would be better off with Stefano,” Emmie replied without thinking. “At least he is not so oblivious to her struggles and promises to drape her in all manner of luxury if she would only succumb to his wicked lures.” Emmie could not quite keep the envious note from her voice. She could do with a few worldly goods about now. She had been forced to sell her own diamond brooch three winters ago.

Pinky gasped. “Oh no, dear! That would not do at all! Count Stefano is a man quite steeped in sin with the very worst of reputations attached to his name. Indeed, no one in polite Venetian society would allow him to darken their doorstep. As his wife, Josephine would never receive any invitations to parties and routs and all those masked balls they always seem to have in that part of the world.”

“Yes, I suppose that would count against him,” Emmie replied doubtfully. “Though why should Josephine care if all of polite society bars their doors against her? Married to the count, she would have her own ballroom to dance in, and her own staff to load her dining table with delicacies, would she not?”

“Yes, but there would be no one to dine with at the dinner table, and no one to dance with, save for the wicked count himself,” Pinky pointed out with a shudder.

“True, but Stefano might be a very good dancer,” Emmie speculated. “In my experience, the Fernandos of this world tend to tread on toes.” Fleetingly, she imagined Humphrey, stolid, dependable Humphrey, in the role of Fernando. Quite ludicrous really, as Humphrey did not have an artistic bone in his body, and moreover quite despised unworldly types. He was a lamentably poor dancer though, with no sense of timing or rhythm.

Casting the role of the wicked count was distressingly easy, even after all these years. She didn’t have to think about it. The honorable, or should she say dishonorable Jeremy Vance sprang to mind immediately, in all his despicable glory. He had been such a beautiful dancer though! So graceful and…oh, Pinky was talking again. She gave her head a quick shake to dismiss her errant thoughts.

“There may be something in what you say,” Pinky was musing. “One of the rectors at my father’s church was a most proficient country dancer, and then later, it turned out that he had a dreadful weakness for gambling hells and would visit them every time he traveled to Tunbridge Wells.”

The idea of gambling hells in Tunbridge Wells sounded so incongruous that Emmie blinked. “Was this the rector who drank too much elderberry wine one Christmas, and outraged your cousin Winifred, or the one who loathed cats?” she asked.

“Oh no, dear, it was quite another one to both of those. We had dozens of rectors trooping through the doors of St. Wulstan’s,” she sighed. “Such happy times.” She dabbed a handkerchief to the corners of her eyes.