Tremaine's True Love (16 page)

When Mr. St. Michael lifted his mouth from hers, Nita’s back was to the wall, amid her sisters’ everyday cloaks, while one of the hams swung gently, as if somebody had bumped it with a shoulder.

“You started it,” Mr. St. Michael said, kissing her brow. “I’ll not apologize.”

“You ended it.” Nita kissed his chin, which was like kissing a bristly rock. “Apologize for that.”

He laughed, a hitch of his chest, while Nita tried to draw a steady breath and ended up smiling like Susannah in the presence of an original Shakespeare folio.

“You lack charm and have all the wrong accents,” Nita said, sneaking another kiss, this one to his cool cheek, “except for rendering Mr. Burns. You do his verse exceedingly well. For that and many other reasons, I’m tempted too, Mr. St. Michael.”

Nita bolted out of his embrace, into the light and warmth of the kitchen, straight up the servants’ stairs. She kept on going until she fell, laughing—laughing!—onto her bed.

* * *

“Digby should see Dr. Horton,” Elsie said when the boy had been excused from the breakfast table to learn his day’s portion of frosty Latin.

No other creature on the entire face of the earth had the ability to goad Edward as Elsie did. What could Penny have seen in her? Elsie was pretty, if a man could abide red hair, Edward would concede that much. But then, what did hair color matter in the dark?

“Pass the teapot,” Edward said, taking another bite of eggs that the kitchen could never seem to serve hot.

Elsie passed him the teapot along with a fulminating look. “A head cold can turn into lung fever, Edward, and that child is your sole heir. I’d think his health would matter to you.”

“I will overlook that remark because you are a concerned mother and your nerves are delicate. Finish your meal, Elsie.”

Her next nasty look went to the plate still sitting before Digby’s place, upon which the boy had left not a crumb of toast nor a morsel of eggs.

“I am a concerned mother. You should be a concerned uncle.”

Elsie could not help herself. Edward had come to this conclusion in the early months of her tenure at Stonebridge. Some women had no means of calling attention to themselves except by being contentious.

Morning sunlight illuminated Elsie’s pale cheek and the bruise fading around her eye. That bruise shamed them both, though she might have used a bit more powder to cover it up.

“Send for Horton if you must,” Edward said, topping up his cup of tea. “He’ll bleed the boy, prescribe a mustard plaster for his chest and feet, and send a prodigious bill after drinking some of my best brandy.”

“Thank you.”

Elsie’s thank-yous were as cold as Edward’s eggs.

“In future, madam, you will no longer pester me with your importuning. I intend to propose to Susannah on the occasion of the assembly, and as the lady of my household, she will tend to matters of health among the children and servants.”

Edward wouldn’t propose
at
the assembly, of course, but just before, so the announcement could be made to all their neighbors in traditional country fashion.

“I wish you luck, Edward. Lady Susannah is a lovely woman.”

That tone of voice, that mocking, superior tone of voice… Edward would
not
gratify such insubordination with a display of temper.

“What do you mean, Elsie? Of course Susannah is a lovely woman. Do you imply I should plight my troth with a troll?”

Elsie toyed with her eggs, her fork scraping across the plate. “I meant nothing, Edward, except a sincere wish that your proposal be accepted. Lady Susannah will be good company for me. She’s well connected and seems to suit you.”

In a manner Edward would never understand, Elsie’s demure, practical words implied something else entirely. Susannah wouldn’t speak to him thus—nobody else spoke to him thus.

“Madam, let me remind you that you and the boy are here on my charity, which I can ill afford. I must marry responsibly, as befits the succession of the baronetcy, and Susannah is my choice.”

Edward polished off the last of his eggs, determined to leave the table without shouting. Then the dratted woman muttered something behind her teacup.

“I beg your pardon, Elsie.”

Elsie closed her eyes, as if assaulted by a sudden megrim. “
Lady
Susannah. She will always be
Lady
Susannah. You show her disrespect by assuming familiar address prior to an engagement.”

The urge to strike the fool woman coursed through him. Edward’s arm actually lifted, then fell. A display of temper gratified Elsie somehow, and—the insight nearly had him smiling—this entire round of disrespect from Elsie was merely a symptom of jealousy, for she was to be displaced as the lady of the Stonebridge household.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Edward said, rising. “Digby isn’t running a fever, his throat isn’t sore. A mere cold does not necessitate a call from Dr. Horton. You may treat Digby as you please, but we’ll not incur an unnecessary bill to humor your overprotectiveness. In future, please ensure the kitchen serves only hot eggs and toast.”

“Yes, Edward.”

Elsie could put a wealth of rebellion in two words. Edward nearly admired that about her.

“Something for you to consider, Elsie Nash. This household might not have room for two ladies, particularly once the nursery includes a proper heir to the baronetcy. While I would never disrespect my brother’s memory, you’re long past first mourning. Perhaps you should think of attaching yourself to another establishment. Digby would of course remain in my care, for I owe the boy nothing less than my personal supervision in his formative years.”

That spiked Elsie’s guns neatly. She stared at the remains of her meal, her grip on her teacup turning her knuckles white.

Edward enjoyed the moment, with Elsie in a silent temper as he stood over her. This was progress for them. Nobody had shouted, nobody had been forced to a display of violence to settle the matter. His patience with her was paying off, finally.

“Have a pleasant day, my dear.”

“You as well, Edward.”

He paused outside the door of the breakfast parlor, half hoping to hear the sound of a teacup smashing—which was very bad of him. When several moments of silence had passed, he went off to the comfortable warmth of his library, to do battle once again with a ledger that would not balance.

* * *

“I may have proposed to your sister,” Tremaine St. Michael said when he’d closed the door to the Belle Maison library.

George liked listening to St. Michael talk. All manner of ancestry presented itself in his vowels and consonants, in what was dropped, elided, or rolled. George also liked looking at Mr. St. Michael, particularly when the man removed his jacket and undid his cuffs, as if in anticipation of some manual task.

Though George had recently discovered he liked looking at Elsie Nash too—a puzzle, albeit a pretty one. He’d enjoyed the company of women in the past, the same as any other fellow at university—some women, anyway.

And a few men.

“I gather Nita did not accept this matrimonial overture, or you’d know for sure whether you proposed,” George replied, replacing his volume of Mrs. Radcliffe on the library shelf where it belonged. Nita had established a system for organizing the library books, and one thwarted that system at one’s peril.

“Lady Nita neither accepted me nor rejected me,” St. Michael said, “but then, I didn’t exactly propose.”

“Nita is formidable.” George liked St. Michael, but he loved his sister. “Nonetheless, she can’t abide a suffering creature. Her rejection would be as kind as possible.”

“Also firm.” St. Michael draped his jacket over the chair behind the estate desk, sat, and took out writing implements. “My proposal was oblique at best. A lady deserves a sincere, direct proposal.”

St. Michael was unhappy with himself for his oblique proposal, or perhaps—George knew of no male who endured the emotion easily—he was bewildered.

“A gentleman deserves to know his suit will at least receive fair consideration,” George offered by way of commiseration. “I proposed to a lady once, long ago. The experience was not enjoyable.” He’d never told his siblings this, lest they get that speculative gleam in their eyes.

St. Michael produced a penknife and went to work on a goose quill. “She turned you down?”

“She laughed in my face, and I was as much in earnest as I could be at that age. I enjoyed her conversation, had no need of her dowry, and had pegged her for a practical, good-natured sort.” Who wouldn’t have minded a marriage where both partners were free to roam, provided appearances were maintained.

The notion struck George as vaguely distasteful now, sad even.

A small pile of shavings accumulated on the desk blotter. “Your expectations of the institution are modest, Mr. Haddonfield. I think your sister’s are too—as were mine.”

Past tense in any accent was worth noting. Somebody needed to take the library in hand, for it now had no less than three copies of
The
Monk.

“Your estimation of marriage has changed?” George asked. St. Michael had lovely hands—big, competent, elegant. Nita had probably had the same thought.

“Lady Nita is not a woman of modest accomplishments or modest sentiments. Have you never resumed your search for a bride, Mr. Haddonfield?”

The question was casual, while the goose feather had been pared to a perfect point. St. Michael swept the orts and leavings into the waste bin beside the desk and dusted those big palms together.

“I keep an eye out,” George said, which was true. Marriage to the right woman would solve a few problems and stop his siblings from fretting over him.

Would it be fair to the lady, though? George liked women, and even desired them on occasion, the way a fellow might desire a hot cup of tea or chocolate with a dash of cinnamon on a cold morning.

Not the way he longed for the fiery pleasure of a good brandy—stupidly, passionately, without any dignity or care for his own well-being.

“Shall we have a drink?” George asked, crossing to the sideboard.

St. Michael uncapped the ink, laid out a piece of foolscap, and began writing. He made a lovely picture at the vast desk, the white feather moving across the page with an assurance George envied.

“A bit early for me,” St. Michael said, the pen never breaking rhythm, “but don’t let that stop you. When I’ve completed this epistle, could you spare me time for a discussion of your latest German travels?”

“You’re proposing to my sister, then decamping for the Pumpernickel Courts? That will impress Nita not at all. She’ll go right back to her midwifery and tisanes, and forget you ever existed unless you turn up sick or injured.”

St. Michael dipped his pen again, let a drop of ink gather on the tip, and waited, hand immobile, until that droplet had fallen back into the bottle.

“She well might,” he said as a second drop followed the first. “Perhaps that’s for the best. Do you fancy sheep, Mr. Haddonfield?”

In a different, half-drunken context, George might have misconstrued the question.

“I like them well enough. Harmless creatures, pretty, and not given to violence.” Rather like himself.

“I’m passionate about sheep,” St. Michael said. “Your brother-the-earl would do well to recall this.”

George took a steadying sip of excellent brandy and tormented himself by sitting on the edge of the desk, close enough to catch St. Michael’s scent.

“Are you passionate about my sister?”

“Interesting question.” St. Michael did not stop writing, and abruptly, weariness pressed down on George.

St. Michael didn’t even see him, and if he did—if he somehow divined that George regarded him as potentially desirable—he’d be disgusted or, worse, amused. He would never reciprocate George’s interest, and as to that, what did George know of Tremaine St. Michael?

He was attractive, wealthy, and interested in Nita.

So George must pant after him in silent frustration? Must comport himself with all the emotional delicacy of a tomcat?

Such stirrings flattered nobody. They were for strutting, impulsive boys who had one foot planted in rebellion and the other in boredom.

“Nita is lonely,” George said, setting his glass down near the ink. “She was born immediately after her older brothers, and it’s almost as if Mama and Papa didn’t realize there’d been a change in gender. Nita tagged after us boys, rode like a demon, and tried very hard to keep up with us.”

“And you humored her,” St. Michael muttered, “which she hated.”

“Drove her nigh barmy, to be so little and dear. I don’t think it much bothers her lately.”

St. Michael glanced up from his epistle. “She’s very dear, also brave, maybe too brave.” He might have asked George to name his seconds in the same tone, so fierce was Nita’s newly acquired champion shepherd boy.

“You did propose,” George said, feeling pity for the handsome St. Michael, which was an odd relief from indiscriminate desire. “Maybe you’re lonely too, St. Michael.”

George certainly was.

Now where had that notion come from?

St. Michael appended a signature to his letter, legible but with a slight flourish to the initial capitals. Beckman had said that St. Michael dealt in fine art in addition to wool.

“The question is, Mr. Haddonfield, does the lady see any advantage in my suit. One must think practically in any negotiation.”

St. Michael would think at least in part with his breeding organs, like any other male. In this, he and George were no different. And yet loneliness was a problem the breeding organs could not solve.

A day for insights, apparently. George took another sip of his drink and recalled Elsie Nash’s invitation to share a fresh biscuit and cup of tea on a cold day.

“What does Nicholas say about your proposing to Nita?” George asked, for any Haddonfield must be mindful of the earl’s position on matters of significance. Nicholas was tolerant, patient, and practical, but also trying to step into the old earl’s shoes, a delicate and difficult task.