Page 91 of A Foolish Flirtation

“I’m walking to the door,” she said, and he heard by her voice the direction she was moving in.

“The connecting door’s locked on your side,” he reminded her hoarsely.

“Oh! Oh yes…” Her footsteps faltered.

“No one will be in the corridor at this hour,” he assured her. “Not that it would matter, if they were,” he added quietly.

Emmeline took a ragged breath, and he heard her feet turn toward the other door. It swung open and he guessed she was peering out. Then he heard her footsteps hurrying down the corridor to her own room. Jesus. Just when he had thought he could not feel any worse.

He did not head to the racing stables once he was washed and dressed, but instead saddled up Cadmus and headed for Mina and Nye’s inn, which lay just outside Penarth. It did not feel right to continue with his usual routine. Not on a day like this, when his life lay around him in ruins.

On arrival, he stabled his horse and walked straight through the inn to the back rooms where he found his half siblings at breakfast in their private parlor. They greeted him cordially and Nye bade him “pull up a chair.”

They did not offer him tea, as he never could abide the stuff, instead Mina slipped out to request a pot of coffee for him. Jeremy asked after his nephew, who, according to Nye, had screamed like a banshee till the early hours and was now giving them a moment’s respite.

“You look as though you slept worse than us, by the dark circles under your eyes,” Mina observed, sitting back at the table. “Edna will bring your coffee shortly.” Jeremy maintained a stony silence.

“Well, he is a newlywed,” Nye pointed out. When Jeremy could not return his smirk, he sat up a little straighter in his seat, and shot a look at his wife.

“Is all well up at Vance Park?” Mina asked, lowering her teacup.

Jeremy shook his head and Nye whistled. “You can’t have made a mess of things already!”

“I would not be so sure about that,” Jeremy responded gravely.

Mina opened her mouth but closed it again when the door opened, and their sour-faced maid Edna sailed in with a pot of coffee which she thumped down in front of Jeremy. “Thanking you kindly for my bit of wedding cake, milord,” she said, and Jeremy realized he was in her good graces for once.

“You’re most welcome, Edna,” Jeremy responded, and she bobbed him a curtsey.

“Will there be anything else, Mrs. Nye?”

Mina thanked her maid and assured her they had everything needed.

“Do you suppose she put it under her pillow?” Jeremy asked as soon as Edna retreated.

Mina shook her head. “Edna dreams of Crown Derby tea sets, not husbands. Corin told me she was going to put her piece under her pillow though.”

“What the devil are you two talking about?” Nye asked, helping himself to another piece of toast. Mina explained the superstition to him. “Well, why does Corin need dream about her future husband when she’s been engaged to Ed Herney for nigh on twelve months? She knows his face well enough.”

Mina rolled her eyes. “It’s just a bit of girlish fun.” She turned resolutely to Jeremy. “Now, tell us what is troubling you. It is to do with Emmeline, I take it,” she said forthrightly. “What has gone wrong precisely?”

“Nothing’s gone wrong, exactly,” Jeremy began. “I’m beginning to think I started things on entirely the wrong footing with her.” The worst of it was, he did not know where to even start with the retelling. Should he begin with his most recent disaster or that fateful season ten years ago?

It slowly dawned on him that despite seeking out his siblings, he was hardly in a position to lay his soul bare to them. He did not know if either of them would be prepared for how just how rotten it really was.

“I’ve backed myself into a corner where she is concerned,” he said instead. “And we’re, well, not at liberty to discuss things frankly.”

“Why not?” Mina asked with a frown.

What could he answer to that? Jeremy struggled for a moment. “We once had a conversation where we agreed to be frank in that moment, but then be nothing but polite to one another forever afterward.” That was true in any event.

“What the hell did you want to make a bloody stupid promise like that for?” Nye asked bluntly.

Mina gave him a speaking look and his brother folded his arms with an expression of long-suffering but otherwise held his tongue. “And the moment of frankness?” Mina asked encouragingly. “How did you spend that?”

“Errr…” Jeremy cast his mind back to that conversation in Hutton’s tea shop where he had outlined what he wanted from a wife.

“By telling her a load of lies,” Nye said damningly. “What?” he said in answer to his wife’s unspoken exasperation. “It’s written all over his face!”