Page 119 of A Foolish Flirtation

It slammed shut after him, and Pinky sat with an aghast expression on her face. “Oh dear.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, he is such a dear little boy! Oh, I am convinced he did not mean anything naughty by it!”

There was much handwringing and weeping before Emmie could convince her to drink her cup of tea and nothing could induce poor Pinky to eat so much as a morsel. “Oh, if he should be whipped for it,” poor Pinky lamented, “I will never, never, never forgive myself! If you had only heard the pitiless way that Leonard, I mean, Colfax spoke about it! He said—he said—”

“He said Teddy deserved a hiding most likely,” Emmie interrupted calmly. “He must have been very indignant on your behalf. All the same, I do not think that Teddy would really hold it against him. You should hear the way he disciplines his toy soldiers.”

Pinky lifted a hand to her brow, and Emmie set about convincing her to take a lie down upstairs with the curtains closed and a damp cloth on her brow. Eventually, Mrs. Cheviot, having heard about the commotion, slipped into the room and added her entreaties to Emmie’s.

“Lawks, you must not think anyone blames you for the young master’s wildness, Miss Pinson!” she said comfortably as they climbed the stairs together. “He’s just showing his Vance blood, that’s all. Why you should have seen the tricks he pulled on that old tutor of his. Scant ceremony he showed him, you may be sure!

“Right fond of you, Master Teddy is. I’m sure he’ll have some nasty cheap bit of boiled sugar stored for you in his pocket and expect you to forgive him everything when he presents you with it!” She tutted fondly. “The wickedness of the boy! And now his lordship’s had to ride all the way to Marston and back, it’s too bad of him, really it is! And young Master Clarence and Master Freddie, the vicar’s boys, will need bringing back, too, and they’ll be in disgrace and the vicar most put out by it all!”

They saw Pinky settled comfortably in her old room and Emmie sat in a chair by her bed until her friend lay calm at last. She was on the verge of sleep when she said suddenly in a tired voice, “You’ll never guess who I bumped into last night. Walking down my lane past the duck pond.”

“Who was it, dear?”

“The Vance ghost,” she answered simply, giving Emmie quite a start. “Or one of them at least. The one that foretells misfortune.”

“Lady Frances!” Emmie said stunned accents.

Pinky nodded. “She walked right past me in her red dress. Seemed to be in quite a hurry.”

“Did she, well, say anything to you?” Emmie asked curiously.

“No. Not a word. Just nodded her head at me. I couldn’t quite take it in at the time. I was so surprised by her French hood. By the time I realized why she was dressed that way, she had already passed me, and when I turned about, there was no trace of her at all.”

“That was why I was so alarmed when the dear child did not turn up this morning. Are you quite, quite sure that there is nothing to worry about?” she asked, turning fearful eyes on Emmie. “Only, well, the heir to Vance Park has disappeared, and I saw one of the family ghosts.”

“Quite sure,” Emmie said firmly, reaching over to pat her hand. “You are thinking of our current novel, The Haunting of Jennings Hall, which features a lost heir. Don’t you remember what Jeremy said? He saw both ghosts himself as a child and nothing too dreadful occurred.” At least, she thought that was what he had said. Something about it happening on his twelfth birthday.

Pinky seemed comforted by this thought and closed her eyes again. “Yes, that is doubtless what I am thinking of,” she echoed, drifting off into an exhausted sleep, and Emmie crept out of the room to await the others.

After returning to the music room, Emmie took up her novel to distract herself, but Pinky’s strange encounter occupied her mind. She walked over to the display case of cameos and examined Lady Frances’s and Lady Mary’s miniature portraits again.

Now which one of them died young and which died a spinster? She could not remember for the moment. She felt a little jealous that both Pinky and Jeremy should have seen the family ghosts and she had not seen a trace of even one. She must ask Teddy if he ever had, though she felt sure he would have volunteered such information by now, young rascal that he was.

She hoped he did emerge from this scrape unscathed. Jeremy had looked so intractable, despite his words to her friend. Accompanied by his two companions, surely nothing too dire would have befallen the boy. She could not settle to her book, and hearing voices an hour or so later, she threw it down and jumped up as the door opened. It was Jeremy and beside him, a tearful, chastised-looking Teddy.

“Oh, Teddy!” Emmie cried, hurrying to his side. “You are not hurt? Nothing ails you?”

“No, Mama,” he sniffed, glancing up at his father. She embraced him briefly and found he was very sticky and rather dusty.

“Then he was at the fair at Marston?”

Jeremy nodded. “He was indeed. What do you have to say to your stepmother?”

“I’m sorry, Mama.” Teddy’s expression was soulful and contrite. His bottom lip quivered.

“I’m very glad to hear it, Teddy,” she responded gravely but not unkindly. “Because of your tricks, poor Pinky has blistered her heels and cried herself into a raging headache. She also fell out with a good friend of hers because she refused to believe you could be guilty of such naughtiness.”

“I bet it was Colfax,” Teddy said resentfully. “He told me I am not allowed to call her Pinky.”

“If she did not give you express permission to do so, then he is quite right,” Jeremy responded coldly.

“May I see her, Mama?” Teddy appealed.

Emmie hesitated. “She is sleeping now, Teddy,” she prevaricated.

“Then no, you may not,” Jeremy cut in sternly.