Penelope had always been headstrong and Tristan had feared that she would oppose him. He could not flat out refuse her staying here, and that gave her more power to decide the conditions of her stay than he liked. But she agreed and Tristan felt slightly better.

Only slightly.

"Pippa has been ill recently and is still recovering," he explained. Technically it wasn't a lie, even if it was anything but the full truth. "If she has time and energy for it, you're free to ask her. Just make sure she doesn't stretch herself. She's rather eager to please, I daresay, and I wouldn't want her to overexert herself."

But Tristan suddenly wondered whether another young lady to talk to might not be exactly what the poor child needed. He knew that she was lonely. She had as good as admitted that it was loneliness that had driven her into the arms of that useless fisherman. As a man and her employer, Tristan could do little to alleviate her loneliness. And he doubted that the working women in the yard behind the house were suitable company for the girl. But Penelope was like the elegant and well-bred young ladies Pippa would have grown up and gone to school with.

Well, almost. Penelope was also very much her own category of 'lady'.