Page 49 of A Foolish Flirtation

“It was wholly due to his machinations that they were poised on that perilous rooftop in the first place!” Emmeline pointed out indignantly.

“True,” Jeremy conceded. “But he saw the light at the eleventh hour, you must admit. Moreover, I believe that Josephine rather missed him by the end of the book. I was not convinced by that closing paragraph about how much she savored the peace and quiet as Fernando’s devoted helpmeet. I suspect the atmosphere at the artist’s cottage left a lot to be desired.”

“Oh, but their cottage sounded so picturesque, surrounded as it was by jasmine and honeysuckle and lemon tree groves,” Miss Pinson rhapsodized. “I am sure that Fernando must have produced some truly wonderful paintings in surroundings so fertile to his artistic sensibilities.”

“You are fond of cottages, Miss Pinson?” Jeremy asked, immediately thinking of the scheme that had occurred to him that very morning, to offer her the vacant gamekeeper’s cottage.

“Oh yes,” she enthused. “Though in my eyes an English cottage is vastly superior to an Italianate one, with larkspurs and dianthus and perhaps a little plum tree in the garden.” Her face beamed at the pretty picture she had described.

“How fortunate,” Jeremy pronounced. Both ladies looked at him with surprise.

“Fortunate, how so?” asked Emmeline.

“Well, you see, the position of governess comes with a cottage attached,” he said smoothly. “It lies on my estate, a twenty-minute ride from the house.”

“A cottage?” breathed Miss Pinson, turning very pink. “Am—am I to understand—?” Words seemed to fail her, and she dropped her handkerchief and then fumbled with the clasp of her reticule. “Oh dear,” she mumbled, turning incoherent as she groped for her pince-nez.

“But Pinky is only occupying that position on a temporary basis, you said,” Emmie put in. “You surely do not expect her to take possession of this cottage, only to suffer the inconvenience of having to move back out again after a couple of months when Teddy goes to school?” Facing him as she did, Emmie did not see the way her friend’s face fell.

“Oh! Oh, dear me, yes, for a minute I had quite forgotten,” Miss Pinson said, turning back to face him, quite crestfallen. She assumed a brave smile, though Jeremy could see she was quite crushed by this reminder.

“But why should Miss Pinson have to vacate the cottage?” Jeremy asked. “When he is back for the holidays, Teddy will require Miss Pinson’s supervision, and, if he is anything like me, to study to re-sit the exams he fails each and every term.”

Emmeline took a deep breath. “Even if that is so, Teddy’s age would mean it was still only a temporary arrangement,” she insisted. “And as such—”

“Why temporary?” Jeremy interrupted her. “God willing, we will have more children in need of educating, and besides”—he shrugged—“it is not unusual for nannies to stick around and help out the family in other ways when the children outgrow the nursery.”

Emmeline’s eyes had grown very wide at his words, but this last point seemed to snap her out of her surprised state. “Hannah is not a nanny!” she said with dignity.

“No, but her position is just as trusted,” he countered. “It would be good for you to have her living at such close proximity to us.”

Emmeline bit her lip, though he could see she wanted very much to insist on having her friend far closer and living under the same roof.

“So, does that mean I am to have the cottage after all?” Pinky asked timidly, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap.

Jeremy saw the way Emmeline’s head turned sharply at the hopeful note in her friend’s voice. Finally, it seemed to dawn on her that Miss Pinson was neither terrified nor upset at the notion of living independently. He saw the flash of hurt in Emmeline’s eyes before she quickly recovered herself.

“You would like to take this cottage, Hannah?” she asked carefully.

“Oh yes,” Miss Pinson breathed. “A little place of my own? Why, it would—” She swallowed. “It would be like a dream come true,” she concluded in a tremulous voice.

“Well,” Emmeline said after a moment’s pause. “Then you must certainly have it, if it is truly to be yours.” She turned back to Jeremy with a slight challenge in her voice.

“Certainly, I could make it over to Miss Pinson for the duration of her days,” he answered coolly.

“So kind,” Miss Pinson said in a choked voice, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “And truly generous. Though, you must not do so, my lord, until I have completed a trial period, and you have had the opportunity to judge if my methods are agreeable to yourself and the dear child.” She cast a fearful look at Teddy’s sleeping form.

Jeremy smiled. “But I have already had adequate opportunity to judge your results, Miss Pinson,” he said, his eyes dwelling fondly on Emmie. “And it is the results that count in these matters.”

Both ladies fell silent at this point and Emmeline remained quiet for the rest of the afternoon. Miss Pinson roused herself to prattle away, pointing out place names, such as Shepton Mallet, where she believed there was a famous market, or Barton St. David, where a good friend of hers once spent the summer with friends.

Jeremy suspected that Emmeline was only too well acquainted with these tales, for though she nodded her head and smiled in encouragement, agreeing that oh yes, she remembered hearing her friend speak often of Miss West, she did not ask many questions or evince any great curiosity in these themes. As for Jeremy, he responded with the utmost civility and was rewarded for his efforts, for by the time dinnertime rolled around, Miss Pinson no longer seemed quite so nervous around him.

He proposed that they stop for an hour to dine and then press on, for Jeremy wanted to reach the coaching inn at Ilminster by nightfall. As they had started so late, he did not think they would now manage this before nightfall.

The ladies were agreeable, so they duly stopped at The George, a well-kept inn where they were led into a private dining room and served a decent meal of mulligatawny soup, followed by roast beef with redcurrant sauce and Yorkshire pudding.

Teddy was tired and fractious and ate very little of his dinner, despite coaxing from the adults, as he pushed his food around his plate. When dessert was served, it was quite a different matter. Teddy ate two helpings of syrup sponge, and then finished off Miss Pinson’s portion, which she had barely touched. None of them cared to linger over coffee, so he paid the bill and they left to resume their journey.