Tremaine's True Love (21 page)

“What aren’t you telling me, Nita?” Kirsten Haddonfield was plagued with an unladylike curiosity about life in general. When it came to her older sister though, her inquisitiveness was increasingly motivated by concern.

All the way from the Chalmerses’ malodorous cottage, Nita had kept maddeningly silent. She swished along through the winter-dead garden, exuding competence and unspilled confidences.

“I do not gossip, Kirsten.”

“And I do? I sit among the good dames of the shire and spread rumor and innuendo over a pot of scandal broth? I’m not asking you to gossip. I’m asking you to talk to me.”

Nita slowed as they approached the gazebo. “I haven’t thanked you yet for coming with me.”

Kirsten drew Nita into the little structure, because privacy inside the Belle Maison manor house was nonexistent. Della lurked at keyholes, Nicholas loomed around corners, George had the knack of being everywhere at once, Leah reported everything to her dear earl, and Susannah—dissembler at large—half the time only pretended to read.

“You should thank me,” Kirsten said, taking a seat on the hard wooden bench. “I’ll never get the stench out my habit. Hell ought to include a place of honor for the first woman who realized that boiled cabbage is nominally edible.”

“When the alternative is starvation, such a woman should be canonized.”

Nita’s habit had long since passed the status of a disgrace. The hems were muddy and mended, the blue fading, rather like Nita herself.

“Nita, you are turning into a scold and a drudge, but you will please have a seat and bear me a little more company anyway. Before Mr. St. Michael started cheating at cards the other evening, I thought you’d forgotten how to laugh. It was unfair of Papa to require you at his bedside and to send the rest of us away.”

Papa had been gone for more than six months. In accordance with his wishes, the family no longer observed first mourning, but the loss of him lingered in family jokes, stray pieces of music, and his favorite quotes from Alexander Pope. In Papa’s final decline, he’d found someplace else for every one of his children to be except Nita, the de facto lady of the manor.

A privilege and, apparently, a bitter penance.

“Papa didn’t want anybody to see him grow so feeble.” Nita’s reply had the ring of an oft-repeated and unsuccessful attempt at self-comfort.

“Papa was an arrogant old boot,” Kirsten said, “and not above taking advantage of your kind heart. Belle Maison would have fallen apart without you these last years. You might remind Nicholas of that.”

Perhaps Kirsten would take that task on herself. Nicholas, like every Haddonfield, could be an idiot.

“We should go in,” Nita said, popping to her feet and clutching her bag of herbs and medicinals.

“Sit down, Nita Haddonfield. I’ve been wanting to ask you about Mr. St. Michael. Are you trifling with him?”

Nita did sit, setting her bag aside. “I would not know how or why to trifle with any man. Lest you forget, Norton Nash attempted to trifle with me. Are you interested in Mr. St. Michael?”

On the topic of Mr. St. Michael, Nita was apparently willing to converse, though her question had been carefully tendered.

“Thank you, no,” Kirsten said, though if she hadn’t given up on marriage entirely, he might have been worth a look. “Mr. St. Michael is not biddable. He’s been allowed to racket about without the guiding hand of a sensible woman for too long. He fancies you, though.”

Nita, like Susannah, was blessed with all the dishonesty Kirsten needed and didn’t have. Nita could appear calm when she was enraged or intrigued. She could be polite when she was furious, and she could also apparently pretend disinterest when she’d lost her heart—an enviable talent.

“Mr. St. Michael fancies Nicholas’s herd of Spanish sheep,” Nita said.

Though sometimes, Nita used that talent to deceive herself.

“I’ve corresponded not only with Beckman,” Kirsten said, “but with his Sara, to whom Mr. St. Michael was a brother-in-law for a time. Your Mr. St. Michael is wallowing in filthy lucre, Nita. He’d do.”

The highest praise Kirsten could offer, for she believed only the best would serve for her siblings. Edward Nash fell far short of her standards, a situation she’d yet to find a solution for.

Across the garden, the grooms had led the horses into the stables. Not another human soul was in sight, though a furry black cat trotted along the top of a stone wall bordering the knot garden.

“Mr. St. Michael has offered for me,” Nita said oh-so calmly.

“You
are
trifling with him. Nita, I am proud of you.” A light tone was hard to maintain, but to shout about good offers being rarer than handsome, eligible dukes guaranteed some sibling or servant would take notice of this discussion.

The medical calls were taking a toll on Nita, on the entire family, in fact. Nita had been plump as a younger woman, sturdy and rounded. She was nearly gaunt now, and her mouth was grim far more often than it was merry.

Addy Chalmers had an unfortunate fondness for gin. Had Nita acquired an unfortunate fondness for misery?

“I am trying not to make a mistake, Kirsten. I have made mistakes in the past. Mr. St. Michael is a good man, he’d provide well, and he’s said we could bide here in Haddondale.”

Mr. St. Michael was also a shrewd man, then. Nita would look much more favorably on the suit of a gentleman who’d offer her proximity to her family—and her patients.

“And yet you hesitate,” Kirsten said. “You are being sensible. Why can’t you be sensible about sick babies? Leave them to those professionally trained to deal with them, Nita, or to those who conceive them. Nicholas will be in a much better humor if you do.”

Kirsten would be in a better humor too, for no one would have to worry that Nita’s next sniffle could turn into her last.

“If you should fall ill, Kirsten, shall we summon Dr. Horton?”

Nita might as well have offered Kirsten a plate of boiled cabbage. “I will die before I let that old man near my sickroom.”

“
Many
do
.”

And there, in three syllables, Nita presented an argument Nicholas himself could not entirely gainsay. Horton was old-fashioned and regarded suffering, particularly the suffering of women, children, and the poor, as either God’s will or penance for past or future wickedness.

Convenient theology indeed, when a physician was at a loss for how to help.

“What does Mr. St. Michael say about your disappearing at all hours to treat the unwell and infirm?” Kirsten asked.

Nita set her bag in her lap. “He has come with me more than once on a call to the Chalmers family, and when I told him how to deal with his ailing sheep, he listened to me—and he thanked me.”

Shrewd, indeed, but diagnosing sheep or dandling a newborn presented far less risk than entering a household in the grip of influenza, which Nita had often done.

Kirsten would thrash St. Michael if he abetted Nita’s folly to that degree.

“Most self-respecting men would expect you to stay home and look after your own family, Nita. Most worthy men would consider it failing in their duty to protect you if they allowed you to deal with the sick outside your own household. Nicholas berates himself for this very shortcoming constantly.”

Nita’s calm expression faltered. “Mr. St. Michael is not most men. Did you know he’s a French comte?”

A dodge, a good dodge. Had Mr. St. Michael in fact given Nita assurances that his wife was welcome to traffic in lung fevers and wasting diseases, or had Nita simply leaped to this conclusion? Shame on any man who professed to care for Nita if he encouraged her to risk her well-being on behalf of ungrateful strangers.

“I had heard there was a French title,” Kirsten said, rather than further antagonize Nita. “Della says he’s called the Sheep Count.” A play on words for those who knew their rural lore.

“I had not foreseen marriage,” Nita said, bewilderment creeping into her tone. “Then here
he
is, quite sure of his objectives, among whom I apparently number. I rather like being one of Tremaine St. Michael’s objectives.”

Nita was arse over teakettle for the man, and about time. Based on Nita’s smile, her shepherd-boy-turned-nabob had done a bit more than cheat at cards and recite Scottish poetry.

“I would ask you for a long engagement,” Kirsten said, rising. “Once you’re Sheep Countess-ing, Nicholas will try to march me up the church aisle again, and I do not fancy reminding the local eligibles that I am indifferent to their charms.”

Nita rose as well and linked arms with Kirsten. “I haven’t made up my mind about Mr. St. Michael, but it’s Susannah I fear for. Edward Nash is not the great bargain he thinks he is. I trust you will agree with me on this?”

“I’m considering a plan,” Kirsten said, glad for somebody to share it with. “I’ll get myself compromised with Edward at the assembly, and he’ll have to offer for me if he wants those sheep. I’ll refuse him, and Suze will surely see he’s not worth her affections.”

The plan was half-serious. With the least provocation, Kirsten would set it in motion, though the idea of permitting Edward Nash liberties was distasteful in the extreme. He smoked a pipe, for pity’s sake, and was overly fond of pomade.

“I really do not fancy hearing those same old Shakespeare sonnets at every family gathering,” Nita said. “Compromising yourself seems a bit drastic though.”

Nita spoke so evenly, Kirsten took a moment to realize she was teasing—mostly. They were still giggling and plotting when they reached the house, and Kirsten realized something else.

Nita had left her medicinals out in the snowy garden, where, as far as Kirsten was concerned, they could jolly well stay.

* * *

Tremaine wanted to arrange for delivery of his letter when various nosy Haddonfields would not have a chance to inspect the address. He also wanted to assure himself that Lady Nita had no regrets about their shared intimacies.

And that she’d not contracted any dread diseases in lieu of breaking her fast.

“Mr. Haddonfield,” Tremaine said, finding his quarry in the breakfast parlor. “Will you escort me to the village?”

His Handsomeness paused with a toast point halfway to his mouth. “Now?”

Lady Susannah looked up from her book. “Of course he means now. Go, George. Be hospitable and pick me up more peppermints at the apothecary.”

George rose and set his toast on his sister’s plate. “I am your slave in all things, dearest Susannah. Don’t suppose you’ve a ton of books I’m to drop off at the lending library?”

“Half a dozen or so, on the sideboard in the front hall,” the lady said, taking a bite of the toast. “You might also ask if they have the new edition of—”

“You ask the next time you raid the library,” George said, kissing her cheek. “Your literary raptures with Mr. Dalrymple might as well be in a foreign tongue, and I’m sure Mr. St. Michael would like to be back from the village before spring.”

The exchange was cozy, good-natured, and loving in a way Tremaine didn’t understand. He and his brother hadn’t had that sort of repartee. René had suffered a spare’s envy and restlessness, compounded by absent and then dead parents and a grandfather’s stubborn notions.

George bowed to the countess and took Tremaine by the arm. “If we hurry, we can stop by the lending library before Dalrymple’s at his post. The man could have talked Caesar back across the Rubicon.”

“Who is this ‘we,’ Haddonfield? I’m off to arrange for the delivery of some letters.” Also to ambush Lady Nita. Lady Kirsten could join the outing or not, but George was a necessary chaperone.

Now.

Now that Tremaine had fixed on a marital objective, his lady deserved every public appearance of propriety, for then—as every courting couple knew—the improprieties could be more easily undertaken in private.

Tremaine was donning gloves in the back hallway—the scene of a memorable kiss—when the ladies came in from the garden on a gust of frosty air.

“I vow it’s getting colder by the hour,” Lady Kirsten said, stomping snow from her boots and shaking the same from the hem of her habit. “You gentlemen are daft if you’re riding out.”

Lady Nita was unfastening her bonnet on the far side of a hanging ham. She either would not or could not meet Tremaine’s eye.

“Mr. Haddonfield and I are off to the village for a few errands, and then I thought we’d look in on the new lambs,” Tremaine said.

“There are more?” Lady Nita asked from her side of the ham.

“The Christ Child could reappear in that sheep byre,” Lady Kirsten said, “and I’d be more interested in a hot cup of chocolate. I bid you all good day.”

The lady had a way with blaspheming, and she winked at Tremaine as she marched past him.

“Will you join us, Lady Nita?” Tremaine asked, shifting so he needn’t put his question to her around a joint of pork.

“Do come, Nita,” George said. “You can listen to Dalrymple complain of his mother’s chilblains, while St. Michael and I have a toddy at the inn.”

“Is Dalrymple a follower of Lady Susannah’s?” Tremaine asked. If so, then Nash had competition or could be made to believe he had competition.

“Alas, no,” George said, whipping a green scarf around his neck. “Dalrymple is old enough to be Susannah’s papa, and his mother accurately recounts life before the Flood. The man can talk books though. Shall we be off?”

George bustled out the door, leaving Tremaine alone with Lady Nita, despite a kitchen full of chattering servants a few yards away.

“My lady, how are you?” Nita was tired, Tremaine could see that much—also in want of kissing.

“The baby had a touch of croup. She should be well enough in a day or two.”

Tremaine honestly did not care about the baby at that moment, though somebody should care about every baby, preferably a lot of somebodies, at every moment.

He kissed Nita’s cheek.

“The child will thrive a while longer, thanks to you. Will you come with us? I’ve missed you.” Spoken like a callow swain, God help him. A sincere, smitten callow swain.