Fleur’s eyes grew bright, and she gave a little nod, the sort one made when one didn’t trust one’s voice. Finally, just when Iris was wondering if their conversation had come to a close, Fleur looked up with renewed clarity, and said, “I’ve never been to London.”

Iris blinked, confused by the sudden change of subject. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve never been to London,” Fleur repeated. “Did you know that?”

Iris shook her head. London was so crowded, so full of humanity. It seemed impossible that someone might never have stepped foot in its boundaries.

“I never really wanted to.” Fleur shrugged, looking over at Iris with a knowing expression. “I know you think I’m a thoughtless, frivolous girl, but I don’t need silks and satins and invitations to the best sorts of parties. All I want is a warm home, and good food, and a husband who can provide all that. But Marie-Claire—”

“Can go to London!” Iris blurted, her head snapping up. “Good heavens, why didn’t I think of it before?”

Fleur stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

“We’ll send Marie-Claire to my mother,” Iris said excitedly. “She can give her a season.”

“She would do that?”

Iris waved this away as the ridiculous question it was. By the time Marie-Claire was of a proper age, Daisy would be married and out of the house. Iris’s mother would be bored beyond tears without a daughter to shepherd through the marriage mart.

Yes, Marie-Claire would do nicely.

“I would have to go down with her for part of the season,” Iris said, “but that’s hardly a difficulty.”

“But surely people would gossip . . . Even in London . . . if I actually married John . . .” Fleur did not seem able to complete a sentence, but for the first time since Iris had met her, there was hope in her eyes.

“They’ll know what we tell them,” Iris said firmly. “By the time my mother is done, your Mr. Burnham will be lauded as a minor but respectable landowner, just the sort of sober and serious young man a girl like you should marry.”

And maybe he would be a landowner by then. Iris rather thought that Mill Farm would make an excellent dowry. John Burnham would go from being a tenant farmer to a yeoman, and with the former Fleur Kenworthy as his bride, he would be well on his way to the status of gentleman.

There would be a scandal, there was no getting around that. But nothing so permanent as Fleur’s giving birth to a bastard, and nothing that Marie-Claire could not weather two hundred miles away in London, with the full weight of Iris’s family behind her.

“Go tell him,” Iris urged.

“Now?”

Iris almost laughed with happiness. “Is there any reason to wait?”

“Well, no, but—” Fleur looked at her with an almost desperate expression. “Are you sure?”