Tremaine's True Love (20 page)

Her family was exchanging the same fleeting glances, the same half put-upon asides, the same overly cheerful conversational sallies as they had during his first meal with them.

Nita had gone off on a call her family disapproved of, and for her to miss the first meal of the day, the call had to be urgent. Lady Kirsten’s absence didn’t seem to merit any notice, suggesting she, like Lady Della, enjoyed mornings abed.

Which left…the bluestocking, Lady Susannah, settling in on Tremaine’s left with a rustle of skirts and a whiff of roses.

“My lady, good morning. Tea?”

“Please. Are you ready for the assembly, Mr. St. Michael? I’m sure word of your visit has spread more quickly than news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, and probably with an equal amount of rejoicing.”

“Are amiable gentlemen in such short supply?” Though “amiable” in Tremaine’s case was a stretch. He danced well enough.

From the head of the table, Bellefonte paused in his visual worship of his countess.

“
Eligible
, amiable gentlemen are more precious than rubies in this shire.” The earl glowered at George for a moment, then went back to peeling an orange for his lady.

“When Nicholas wed, the young ladies of the parish went into collective decline,” George observed placidly. “Then Beckman fell into parson’s mousetrap, and I became the sole, unworthy consolation of at least two dozen women. You will cause a riot, Mr. St. Michael, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The ladies will take you captive and soon be counting your figurative teeth. I hope your affairs are in order.”

“They usually are,” Tremaine said, passing Lady Susannah the teapot.

Because he did not want to spend the next twenty minutes discussing which dances he enjoyed the most—he was partial to the Scottish sword dances, come to that—Tremaine embarked on a minor riot of his own.

“Will Lady Nita join us soon? I’m of a mind to see if any more lambs have arrived to the merino herd. One lively young fellow in particular might like to renew his acquaintance with her.”

The lively fellow in Tremaine’s breeches certainly would.

Lady Susannah tapped her spoon three times on the rim of the teacup, a feminine judge of the breakfast parlor bringing her court to order.

“Disagreeable weather for such an outing,” she pronounced. “Today’s a day for reading.”

George’s comment, about Susannah needing to get off her backside, came to mind. She was pretty in a blond, blue-eyed, unremarkable way. Not as tall as Nita, nor as dramatic as Kirsten, she looked suited to—and apparently craved—a life of quiet, peaceful domesticity.

“You should come with me,” Tremaine said. “We’ll think up names for the new arrivals. Lady Nita might enjoy an outing with her sisters.”

Another glance went ricocheting around the table. The countess broke the silence when it appeared none of the Haddonfield siblings would.

“Nita was summoned to a neighbor’s early this morning on a medical matter. Kirsten apparently accompanied her. More tea, Mr. St. Michael?”

The earl stood abruptly. “If he drinks any more tea, he’ll float away to France. Why didn’t anybody tell me Nita had gone haring off again? Now she’s inveigling Kirsten into her daft behaviors? Famous.”

Bellefonte was legendarily indulgent where his womenfolk were concerned, and when Tremaine wanted to chide his lordship for high-handedness—Lady Nita was not a ewe who’d wandered from her herd—he instead felt sympathy for the earl.

“If your lordship could spare me a moment in the library?” Tremaine said, rising as well. “I’d like to discuss a matter of business.”

Bellefonte kissed his countess on the cheek, cast a censorious glance at his siblings, and stalked from the room, tossing an, “I am at your service, St. Michael,” over his shoulder.

“Be patient with him, Mr. St. Michael,” the countess said. “Nicholas means well.”

Tremaine bowed to the ladies. “Lady Nita means well too.”

For that matter, so did Tremaine.

* * *

“I’m not in the mood to discuss a lot of damned woolly sheep, St. Michael,” Nick said as soon as the door to the library was closed. He stomped to the window, assessing a leaden sky that mirrored his mood exactly.

“My two most stubborn sisters have gone off to contract cholera, dysentery, or God knows what evil,” he went on. “Bad enough I can’t contain Nita’s excesses of Christian charity, now Kirsten must thwart my authority as well.”

Leah claimed Nita was sensible, Nita would take precautions, Nita would not knowingly put herself at risk for contagion.

“Do you know where she’s gone?” St. Michael asked, joining him at the window.

Frigid air radiated from the panes of glass, though that did nothing to cool Nick’s temper.

“My own countess did not see fit to confide that information in me.”

“That bothers you?”

St. Michael was free to get and spend, to lark about the known world, to blithely amass wealth because he had neither wife nor sisters nor mother nor daughters.

For now.

“Will you take a lady to wife, expecting to indulge a penchant for falsehood on her part, Mr. St. Michael?”

“I will marry, if I marry, expecting that domestic matters will fall to my wife’s supervision, while dealing with business and greater affairs will remain my responsibility.”

“
Greater
affairs?
” Nick nearly laughed. “What
affair
is greater than maintaining harmony with the woman you love? Will you keep your wife all buttoned up in the family parlor, studying menus and reading improving tracts?”

St. Michael was a handsome devil, in a tall, dark-haired, broody sort of way. He was bright too, if Beckman’s letters were to be believed. Coin and valuable works of art accumulated at St. Michael’s bidding as if he were a financial alchemist. He controlled a substantial portion of the wool trade, and yet Nick’s question puzzled him.

“I expect my wife will study menus, as your countess does,” St. Michael replied evenly. “She’ll read whatever she pleases to read.”

Leah occasionally read an improving tract for entertainment, though in fairness to St. Michael, the countess was bedeviled by the menus.

“You’re daft, St. Michael, or perhaps trying not to give offense. What did you want to discuss?”

For no man could explain to another the complexities of sharing a meaningful life with a woman who was her own person, her own soul. St. Michael’s wife would have to educate him in that regard.

Nick wished her the joy of such a project.

St. Michael sauntered off, propping an elbow on the mantel over the fireplace. Nick stayed by the windows, where he might catch a glimpse of his errant sisters returning to the fold.

“When last we discussed the purpose for my visit,” St. Michael said, “I gained the impression that you regard your merinos as a suitable addition to Lady Susannah’s dowry.”

“Edward Nash regards them thus.” While Nick had increasing reservations about Susannah’s choice. George had expressed doubts about Edward Nash, and George’s judgment—in
most
regards—was sound.

“I am investigating the possibility that Lady Nita might be receptive to an offer of marriage from me,” St. Michael said. “I want those sheep too, and will put them to far better use than Nash could.”

Investigating
the
possibility
that Lady Nita
might
… St. Michael had probably asked Nita to save him a dance at the assembly. Nita would allow him that much out of sheer pity for a lamb sent to slaughter at the hands of the marriage-mad mamas of Haddondale.

Of which there was a sizable herd.

“I’m
investigating
the
possibility
of splitting the herd,” Nick said. “Nash needs those sheep more than you do. You simply want them.”

“I want them badly, and I do not want a half or a third of the herd, Bellefonte.”

“Nash wants them very badly.” While Nick wanted them not at all. Sheep required land and were hard on their pastures. The merinos were good breeders, which meant Nick owned too damned many of them.

St. Michael knew better than to reveal his emotions in the midst of a business discussion, but something—distaste, exasperation, Nick couldn’t tell exactly what—crossed his features.

“Then think of it this way, Bellefonte. Which sister is more urgently in need of a husband? Lady Susannah is sweet, biddable, pretty, and content to spend time in the company of the Bard. Lady Nita could at this very minute be dealing with a deadly illness, and now Lady Kirsten is accompanying her.”

Well, thank the heavenly powers St. Michael had the sense to be alarmed at that prospect.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Nick wanted to put his fist through the windowpane. “Papa told me to look after the girls. He said the boys would sort themselves out, but for the girls, my influence and support would be needed.”

Nick hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to allow exasperation and bewilderment to see the cold light of day.

“Bellefonte, I’ll give her babies, God willing. What in all of creation can compete with a woman’s own children for her attention? Married to me, Lady Nita will have no more need to haunt sickrooms or antagonize the local physician.”

Had St. Michael reached that understanding with Nita, or was he simply presuming that his household would run exactly as he envisioned it? Or was Nita so besotted with her sheep count that she’d set aside her medical activities in favor of making lambs with him?

Nick prayed it was so.

“Your proposal to Nita stands or falls on its own merit,” Nick said. “You cannot marry a woman you merely tolerate because she’s brought you financial gain. Nita deserves better than that.”

“Then I have your permission to court Lady Nita?”

St. Michael lounged against the mantel, all elegant grace in a country gentleman’s attire. Beckman had said not to underestimate him, and not to entirely trust him either.

“You have my permission,” Nick said. “I thought we’d established that much.” Beyond the window, Nita and Kirsten came marching up from the stable yard. They were arguing or discussing something with great animation in typical Haddonfield fashion.

Nick’s relief at the simple sight of them was…troubling.

“Nita loves babies,” he said, half to himself. “Kirsten’s affections are by no means as tender, but Nita…she loves all the children.” She’d been more mother to her younger siblings than sister, once the countess had fallen ill.

Why hadn’t Nick seen that sooner?

St. Michael appeared at Nick’s elbow. “And you love her. You admire her, you respect her, but you don’t know what to do with her. She’s run this household for years, and now you’ve taken that from her, and you rail against the only thing she has left that feels meaningful to her.”

All true, damn it. “What if the babies don’t arrive, St. Michael? Children appear or not as God wills, no matter how badly we want them or dread them.”

Addy Chalmers probably dreaded them, for all she seemed to do her meager best by the ones in her care.

“I have, at last count, eight separate households,” St. Michael said. “I have a niece who must see some of the world and the great capitals. I can take Lady Nita traveling all over the Continent in fine style. I have business associates who must be entertained, connections at all the royal courts. Lady Nita would be my countess when it suited her, and that position will keep her well occupied even if we are not blessed with children.”

St. Michael was not merely ignorant, he was so uninformed regarding the realities of marriage as to be
innocent
. When a woman ached to hold a child in her arms, all the royal courts in the world meant nothing.

And yet, married to St. Michael, Nita would be well cared for. She’d want for nothing, and she’d probably be transplanted to some other shire, where her mother’s legacy of medical meddling wouldn’t open the door for Nita to engage in the same folly.

“I wish you luck, then,” Nick said as the ladies stopped by the gazebo. Whatever disagreement they were having, they’d at least not brought it into the house.

“One concern yet troubles me, Bellefonte.”

The damned sheep could hang. “You’re doubtless about to inflict it on me.”

“Lady Nita deserves more than a husband who tolerates her because she brings a herd of valuable sheep to the union. We are agreed on that, though I do want those sheep.”

“So you’ve said.” Though apparently, St. Michael could buy all the merinos he wanted elsewhere, and probably buy his own county to stash them in too.

“Doesn’t Lady Susannah deserve the same consideration? If you made it clear to Nash that Lady Susannah comes without a substantial settlement, would he still seek her hand, or is he merely tolerating the lady because she arrives to his arms with a fortune in tow? I suggest you test his resolve at least.”

“Take your suggestions and go count lambs with them, St. Michael. My sisters have returned, and I must greet them.”

Nick would have made his exit, but that troubled, exasperated expression had crossed St. Michael’s features again.

“If I’m to marry Lady Nita, and these excesses of Christian charity, as you call them, will soon be curtailed, why bother castigating her for them?”

Innocent and ignorant, but not devoid of all chivalry. Nick took encouragement where he could find it.

“You are willing to marry her, St. Michael, with or without the sheep. I comprehend this and commend you for your great magnanimity or shrewdness or whatever—though I notice you’ve not mentioned true love. Despite what you might think of my dunderheaded attempts at being the earl, I am also Nita’s brother, and I love her. You are a fine, well-bred ram, and will turn all the heads at the assembly, et cetera and so forth. Nothing in our discussion, however, allows me to conclude that
Lady
Nita
will have
you
.”

Nick bowed and left, lest the consternation on St. Michael’s face inspire hearty, and not exactly hospitable, laughter.