Britannia All at Sea, chapter 8

Britannia and Jake's mom tour the house at some length. This isn't particularly noteworthy, except that we're all treated to a bit of foreshadowing: Britannia says she would do anything, even starve, to ensure Jake's happiness. Hmm. Let's see whether anything comes of that. In the meantime, Britannia and Jake visit friends of his: Reilof and Laura, whose story is told in A Hasty Marriage.
Laura and Reilof have one of those lovely big houses just outside Amersfoort. Laura (for those who haven't read A Hasty Marriage) is a jolie laide who magically becomes pretty when she smiles. They have baby twins - a boy and a girl - and Reilof is devoted to Laura, and it's all very cosy. Apparently without irony, Betts comments that Laura and Britannia "have much in common", because Laura was also a nurse.
(If I remember correctly, she has a sister who's awful, perhaps even drugging a baby? Perhaps I'm misremembering. If so, A Hasty Marriage should be an excellent re-read.)
But back to Britannia and Jake: she's described as forthright, but apparently she is also prone to jumping to conclusions and doing almost anything to sabotage her happiness. She decides she wants to marry Jake, but insists that nothing is settled yet, even though Jake's mom and servants and, well, everyone else seem to assume they will marry. Britannia has misgivings because Jake makes arrangements to go see Madeleine the afternoon after their visit to Reilof and Laura, which makes her all too ready to believe Excellent Actress Madeleine, who comes and says that Jake regrets his brief attachment to Britannia, and that only Madeleine can make Jake happy. Her reasons don't make much sense: she claims that language will be an issue (although every main character is fluent in English, and Britannia understands enough Dutch to translate a phone call she overhears), that Britannia can't run the house (although servants abound), and that she won't know how to entertain on the scale Jake expects (which - again, servants, and Jake's mom).
Madeleine waves around a letter that she translates (because that's not suspicious), and on the strength of the greeting and ending of the letter, Britannia decides Madeleine can't possibly be lying.
So Britannia decides she needs to release Jake from whatever loose commitment he had made. He is justifiably annoyed that she does this without listening to his side of the story first, but then is too quick to agree that nothing would ever compel him to explain his side now.
Candidly, I think this would be been better as one of those five-chapter novellas Betts sometimes wrote: I think the story is only spun out because Betts needs to fill her nine chapters, but she ran out of plot some time ago.