10

It was past lunchtime by the time Jeremy’s carriage pulled into Winkworth Street. The ladies were ready for departure, and when he entered the hall, they were at the top of the stairs dressed in their hats and cloaks and laden down with overnight bags.

“Good morning,” Emmeline called down to him, shifting her bulky dressing case into her left arm and almost dropping her reticule.

By this point, Colfax had bounded up the stairs, and with a swift “I’ll take that, Lady Faris,” divested her of her dressing case, tucking it under his left arm, while simultaneously scooping Pinky’s walnut writing box out of her friend’s arms and tucking it under his right.

“So kind,” twittered Miss Pinson, turning on the step. “I’ll just go back up and fetch down my—”

“No need, Miss Pinson,” Jeremy called up from the foot of the stairs. “I have two burly fellows here employed to carry down your things. Please come down and join me.” He smiled up at Emmeline, who looked shy and flustered this morning, though she was trying to hide the fact.

The maid, Florrie, and even the landlady, an officious woman, seemed determined to get in the way this morning and by the time he had disentangled his bride, and managed to bundle her and her friend into the carriage, Emmeline looked both harried and apologetic.

“Will your men really be able to oversee the last of the packing?” she asked anxiously, peering out of the carriage window to where a wagon stood waiting for the last few bits of furniture.

“Undoubtedly. Do not give it another thought.”

She heaved a great sigh of relief and settled back into her seat. “Well,” she said brightly, “we have never made a move with so little fuss and botheration, have we, Hannah?”

Her friend agreed. “It was so easy that I feel almost un easy, if that makes sense,” Miss Pinson admitted, glancing over her shoulder at the disappearing view of Winkworth Street.

“Have you moved lots of times?” Teddy asked, stirring with interest from where he sat on the seat beside his father. He had not ventured into number six, and he looked pale and wan, as though yesterday’s excitement might have taken a toll on his recovering health.

“Oh yes, we’re quite old hands by this point,” Emmeline answered lightly. “Last time we had to push a handcart through the streets of Bath with our cases and trunks. Do you remember, Hannah? It was difficult to steer but fortunately we had only moved ten minutes away.”

Miss Pinson shuddered at the memory, but Teddy looked intrigued. “I bet I could have steered it,” he put in with confidence. “Have you still got it?”

Emmeline shook her head and smiled. “We only hired it for that morning’s work.”

“I have a pony and a gig of my own at Vance Park,” Teddy boasted. “I drive it all around the estate, but Papa says I cannot go down to Penarth unaccompanied, so I have to take a groom.”

“What a very lucky boy you are,” she responded. “I should have loved such a thing at your age.”

“I could take both of you for a ride, if you like,” Teddy offered generously. “It would have to be one at a time though, as the gig only fits two people.” Emmeline thanked him but Miss Pinson looked hesitant, so Jeremy assured them his son was quite proficient and could be trusted in the driver’s seat.

The next few hours passed amicably enough. Teddy was an enthusiastic conversationalist and displayed his tendency to monopolize any subject, however obscure. When he finally grew quiet, Jeremy suggested he put his feet up on the seat and a cushion behind his head, but he spiritedly refused this and grew quite fractious, insisting he was not an infant in need of such things.

Jeremy accepted this without argument, but when his son’s eyelids began to droop, he was quick to maneuver him into a prone position, unlace his boots, and drape a blanket over him. “Fast asleep,” he murmured. “I knew he would succumb before long.” Emmeline returned his smile, her eyes soft as she looked at the sleeping boy.

“His illness must have been hard on you both,” she commented.

“Yes, but he is generally moody and difficult when he is tired,” he admitted. Seeing Miss Pinson gulp, he was quick to draw her attention to Teddy’s angelic appearance in sleep.

“He is a beautiful child,” she quavered, still looking rather anxious.

“Now we can have some adult conversation at last,” he said, settling back into his seat. Emmeline shot a quick alarmed glance toward her friend, and he lifted his brows at her. “And by that, I mean that we can finally have a cozy discussion of Love’s Innocence Fled ,” he said with relish, rubbing his hands together.

“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Pinson, turning toward him excitedly. “Do not tell me that you have read it, my lord!”

“I have,” he responded gravely. “I read it avidly from cover to cover in the space of three nights.”

“Three nights!” Miss Pinson was impressed. “Enthralling, was it not? Fortunately, Emmie managed to finish it just before we had to return it to the lending library.”

“I am very glad to hear it,” he said, turning back to Emmeline. “Now tell me, what was your favorite passage?”

Emmeline regarded him suspiciously. “What was yours?” she asked, clearly doubting he had so much as cracked open the cover.

“That’s easy,” Jeremy replied at once. “It was the chapter which dealt with the thrilling escape from the count’s secret lair in the country. When Josephine was forced to masquerade as a shepherdess.”

“That was very resourceful of her,” she agreed. “I, too, liked that part, but I think I preferred when she had to rescue Fernando from the count’s dungeon and they saw the ghost.”

“Oh, that part made me suffer agonies of anxiety,” Miss Pinson said breathlessly. “I was so sure they would be caught.”

“What, then, was your favorite, Miss Pinson?” Jeremy asked politely.

“Oh, I can hardly decide,” she wavered, pushing her pince-nez further up her nose. “Perhaps when they discovered the ghost was really the count’s henchman causing mischief.” She shivered slightly. “The accounts of the spectral clanking of chains and the agonized moans of a soul in torment were quite dreadful. I vow I could hardly sleep after reading of them.”

Jeremy gave a murmur of agreement. “I am always profoundly thankful that our ghosts at Vance Park are benign.” Miss Pinson gave a little shriek.

“You have a ghost?” Emmeline asked, sounding rather thrilled.

“Two actually. Two ancestresses of mine who haunt the grounds on special occasions.”

The ladies exchanged glances. “Did some great tragedy occur?” Emmie asked, lowering her voice.

Jeremy nodded. “In Tudor times, two sisters fell in love with the same suitor. Before he could decide between them, he died of dysentery.”

“Such an unromantic disease,” Miss Pinson said sadly.

“What happened to the sisters?” Emmeline asked.

“One died of a broken heart,” Jeremy said, “and the other dwindled into spinsterhood. The trouble is it is hard to differentiate between the two. Hardly anyone can ever be sure which ghost they saw, Lady Frances or Lady Mary. They look very similar. One betokens impending misfortune, and the other matrimony. Mixing them up can be most disappointing.”

“Oh, I see…” Miss Pinson broke in excitedly. “Which one betokens good fortune? The spinster? Then bad fortune would be the one who died prematurely. After all, the spinster probably found the time to do a lot of rewarding good works.”

Jeremy shook his head. “Not a single one,” he said. “She scorned charitable works till the end of her days. She was entirely self-serving, like most Vances. It is the Lady Mary who warns of marriage.”

Miss Pinson looked taken aback. “Oh,” she said faintly.

“In any case,” Emmeline interjected, “I don’t believe the other died of a broken heart. That very rarely happens in real life as I understand it, though,” she added conscientiously, “I know it often happens in novels.”

“You think it was likely dysentery too?” Jeremy asked with interest. “I have heard it is catching.”

Seeing her friend’s horrified reaction, Emmeline hastened to change the subject. “Tell me, my lord, which character did you think had the most rewarding development over the course of the story?”

Her willingness to debate the topic pleased him more than he could say. “Which do you?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“I think perhaps Fernando,” she said after a moment’s pondering. “For Josephine was already perfection from the first page, but as a hero, Fernando had a lot of maturing to do, did he not?”

“Oh!” chimed in Miss Pinson, her enthusiasm for the subject sweeping her shyness away. “I thought Fernando’s growing disillusionment with his fellow man rather sad, but then I suppose that comes to us all in time,” she said, shaking her head.

“I disagree with you both,” Jeremy said staunchly. “I think the wicked count had the greatest journey, and quite redeemed himself in the end, by sacrificing his life to save the young lovers.”

“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.

By the time they reached their first layover, three hours later, Teddy was not the only one smothering his yawns. Both ladies looked weary, and Jeremy proposed that they shared a room, while he and Teddy bunked in together. Emmeline looked grateful for the suggestion though deep down he would have preferred her to be disappointed by such sleeping arrangements.

Still, he contented himself with the thought that once they reached Vance Park, he would have her all to himself. He would be generous and allow her these last few days with her precious companion. He slept indifferently despite the comfortable bed, and Teddy woke very early and talked his ear off until it was time for breakfast. They descended to the private parlor to find Emmeline and Miss Pinson already in residence and drinking tea.

After a good breakfast, they met Colfax and Juggins in the courtyard and the second leg of the journey was undertaken. Teddy was a good deal more cheerful, and everyone enjoyed the morning’s scenery, which included the Blackdown Hills, which Miss Pinson seemed particularly taken with.

Emmeline explained to Jeremy that her friend had artistic inclinations, something Miss Pinson blushed and protested about. She grew very flustered at Jeremy’s assertion that he would like to see her sketches someday. Teddy made sure to boast about his own skill with a pencil, and drawing lessons were discussed and settled on, which seemed to please everyone.

They took lunch at Combe Raleigh before pressing on to Exeter, where they were due to change their team of horses. The second night was spent at a coaching inn called The Lucky Hayrick, where once again, Jeremy shared his bedchamber with his son, who complained the mattress was lumpy and kicked and talked a good deal in his sleep.

Jeremy was up in the night, dosing his son with medicine, and he made sure the boy drank his tonic the next morning, disregarding Teddy’s complaints that it tasted nasty. A relapse was the last thing he wanted, especially since Nurse Jopling was no longer with them. He wondered now if he would need to hire another and could not be easy in his mind about it.

The third day was not so leisurely, for their fresh horses meant they could press on to Plymouth, so they set off at a lively pace, making good progress and stopping briefly only for luncheon where they all agreed they would delay their next meal and take a late supper once they had reached their accommodations for the night.

The ladies were very taken with the Devon scenery, but Teddy was quick to inform them that Cornwall was far superior in every way. Jeremy explained the rivalry of the neighboring counties, his son chiming in with supporting evidence, before Teddy’s eyes grew heavy-lidded, and he curled up in the seat and could scarcely be roused to eat his supper before bed.

The fourth and final day of their travels dawned fair and bright, and Jeremy woke with profound relief that they would soon be home. Teddy had slept better but still seemed flushed and a little sluggish. Jeremy felt his brow throughout the day to check he was not feverish.

After three days of being cooped up together in the carriage, everyone’s nerves seemed a little frayed. The ladies appeared jittery, though whether this was with excitement or anxiousness, it was hard to tell. They talked quickly or not at all, and there were several long periods of heavy silence, as they all fell prey to their own thoughts and distractions.

To try to allay the tension, Jeremy spoke at length of what they would find at Vance Park. He described the house, neoclassical in style and built in 1715 to replace the original Tudor seat which burned down during the reign of Edward VI. He explained that the Vance family had lived there since at least 1480, though they had not been raised to the peerage until Queen Anne’s reign.

He described his own addition to the estate, the extensive stables, and his champion racehorses. Teddy joined in here and there, and it was not until he was describing the maze and the formal gardens that he realized Emmeline was looking more intimidated than anticipatory regarding her new home.

“You will want to make changes of course,” he said swiftly. “And put your own stamp on the place. I have invited designers down to discuss the redecoration of your suite. They should start responding soon and you can start your plans.”

If anything, Emmeline’s eyes grew even wider at this. “I see,” she said doubtfully and turned to Miss Pinson as though for support. Miss Pinson, however, was deeply occupied with thoughts of her own. Jeremy suspected she was busy daydreaming about country cottages.

Noticing them both looking at her, she said distractedly, “I always think foxgloves look so charming gathered around a cottage gate.”

“Oh, I quite agree,” he responded politely, and Emmeline narrowed her eyes at him. Night was fast falling by the time they reached St. Ives. “Not long now,” he consoled Teddy, who was once again fretful and complaining. “This is the nearest town to us,” he directed at the ladies. “It has some very fine beaches and several shops.” Emmeline and Miss Pinson pressed their noses to the windows despite the failing light to appreciate what they could see of the scenery. “We are only about an hour away from home now,” he added.

“Home,” Miss Pinson echoed wistfully and gave a little sigh. Emmeline looked rather queasy, though she had not suffered from travel sickness before this point. He wished he could pull her into his lap, but one could hardly settle one’s wife on one’s knee with others present, even if they were only family. Instead, he consoled himself with the thought she would sleep under his own roof tonight.

The place was in complete darkness by the time they swept up the drive. A pity, for the long avenue of trees was particularly impressive, and he was strangely keen that she should admire her new home. As they neared the house, he saw several lighted torches and was pleased to see the household was roused and primed for their arrival.

Clearly the messages Colfax had sent on his behalf to prepare everyone for their return had been received. Still, he was surprised to see the number of staff hurrying down the steps to line up to greet their new mistress. He had not expected quite such a formal greeting.

“It looks as though Garraway has herded everyone out for your inspection,” he said, casting Emmeline a quick apologetic glance. “Garraway is our butler,” he added, seeing her blank look.

“What a lovely welcome,” Emmeline said determinedly, sitting up very straight in her seat and straightening her bonnet. “I hope you will introduce me to everyone.”

“Oh dear.” Miss Pinson faltered, looking down first at her own rather travel-worn gown, and then at Emmeline’s. “We are not looking our best for first impressions. My skirts are quite crushed.”

“They will understand,” Jeremy said, dismissing such concerns gallantly, though, privately he agreed with her. Both ladies’ faces looked tired and wan peering out of their bonnets and their drab traveling ensembles had clearly seen better days.

Springing down from the coach, he turned around to hand down first his bride, and then Miss Pinson. Finding Teddy fast asleep, he glanced around for Colfax and found his footman at his elbow. “Carry Master Teddy inside, would you, Colfax? And take him straight up to his bedroom. I will look in on him presently.”

Colfax nodded and made haste to carry the child inside.

Turning back to Emmeline, Jeremy offered her his arm. “I had thought to usher you in quietly,” he confessed, “but perhaps it would be better to get the formalities out of the way.”

Miss Pinson fell in step behind them, and they moved toward the elderly butler, who puffed out his chest. “My dear, allow me to introduce you to Garraway, who is quite an institution here at Vance.”