Tremaine's True Love (7 page)

Digby’s little shoulders heaved up and down with puerile long-suffering.

“Mama knows,” he said darkly. “She argued with Uncle about it, but nobody ever wins an argument with him. He shouts and hits and says mean things. He thinks money is more important than anything.”

Digby had his mother’s slight size in addition to her blue eyes and red hair, and the notion of anybody striking the child sat ill with George.

“Don’t provoke your uncle,” George advised as the horse negotiated the frozen ruts. “In a few years, you’ll be off to school, having jolly good fun and growing brilliant with the other scholars. They’ll envy you for how much Roman history you know, and all because you managed a chilly schoolroom for a few winters.”

Even Hannibal had grasped the value of a strategic retreat. Edward Nash was Digby’s guardian, and thus Nash’s authority over the boy—and likely the boy’s mother—was absolute.

“I’ll be cold forever,” Digby retorted. “Uncle says I’m not to go to Harrow, even though my papa wished it. We haven’t the money. Mama says Papa set the money aside, but then Uncle starts shouting. I hate it when he shouts.”

George’s parents hadn’t been exactly quiet, but they’d had the decency to air most of their differences out of the hearing of their children. Perhaps Edward Nash had set the funds aside for university instead of public school.

“Give it time, lad. Things have a way of working themselves out, even when you think you’re beyond hope.”

For little boys, in any case. For grown men, harsher truths usually applied.

“Like you gave me a ride today,” Digby said, patting the horse’s shoulder. “I was sure I’d freeze to death on my way home. I can’t feel my toes, you know. Vicar gave me a baked potato for each pocket, but I need potatoes for my boots.”

What the boy needed was a pony to trot him back and forth to Vicar’s house for these weekly Latin lessons, or brothers to tease and fight with, or a damned brazier in his schoolroom.

Or a different uncle.

“Let’s warm up a bit, shall we?” George asked. “Grab some mane, and we’ll canter.” The horse was only too happy to pick up its pace, and soon the Stonebridge stables came into view.

“Mama’s waiting for me,” Digby said with the air of a boy enduring the entire weight of a widowed mother’s anxieties. “She frets, you see.”

George brought his mount to the walk and ruffled a gloved hand over Digby’s crown, feeling a pang for the father who’d never see this boy reach adulthood.

“Mind you don’t hop down,” George warned. “Nothing is worse for frozen toes than a quick dismount.”

Elsie Nash did indeed look fretful, also half-frozen in her black wool cape.

“Digby, into the kitchen with you,” she said, marching up to the horse. “Cook has made biscuits, and you will have at least two. Mr. Haddonfield, my thanks. Will you come in to warm up for a moment?”

George swung down, though the last thing he wanted was to tarry in Elsie Nash’s company.

“Afraid I can’t stay,” he said, lifting the child from the saddle and setting him down gently. “Enjoy the biscuits, Digby, and my thanks for helping out with that ewe.”

“Thank you, Mr. Haddonfield!” The boy scampered off, having no notion of the awkwardness he left in his wake.

“Very kind of you to bring him home, Mr. Haddonfield,” Elsie said as Digby skipped up the drive. “Edward says the fresh air is good for him, but the vicarage is two miles of fresh air each way, and Digby hasn’t Edward’s size.”

“Yet,” George said. “Give the boy time. I’m the runt in my family, and I struggle along adequately, despite that burden.”

Elsie ran an appraising eye over him, though her inspection was dispassionate rather than an assessment of his masculine charms.

For Elsie Nash knew better.

“Digby’s father wasn’t particularly tall,” she said, “but I wouldn’t change a thing about my son. How are you getting along, George? Your sisters natter on about the assembly and some Scottish fellow with a French title visiting the earl, but they seldom mention you. You’ve been traveling, haven’t you?”

George stood beside his horse, trapped by manners and a nagging concern for the boy.

“Elsie, you needn’t pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“I travel on the Continent because my family finds my taste in kissing partners inconvenient.”
Dangerous
, Nicholas had said, for certain sexual behaviors, regardless of how casually undertaken or commonplace, were yet considered hanging offenses.

“George Haddonfield, if I were dismayed by every person I found kissing an inconvenient party in the garden, I should never have lasted a single Season as the colonel’s wife. You were kind to my son, and that is all that matters to me.”

Elsie glowered up at him, five entire feet—and possibly one inch—of mother love ready to trounce George if he contradicted her.

“Your son needs a brazier in his schoolroom,” George said, and Elsie’s glower disappeared like snow on hot coals.

“Digby exaggerates, George. You mustn’t mind him.”

“Digby is a good lad, and he’s lucky to have you for a mother.” While George was lucky Elsie had never breathed a word about what she’d seen in a certain earl’s moonlit garden.

God help him, it hadn’t even been much of a kiss.

“You won’t come in for a biscuit and a cup of tea in the kitchen?” Elsie asked.

Her invitation was genuine, and the day
was
beastly cold. Then too, George had enjoyed the time spent with Digby—who wouldn’t like such a lad?—so he pulled off a glove and gave a piercing whistle.

“If you could please walk my horse,” George said to the groom who came trotting out of the stables. “Up and down the barn aisle will do, and I won’t be long.”

Elsie beamed at George as if he’d announced a sighting of blooming roses.

“Perfect,” she said, slipping her arm through his. “You must tell me about this Mr. St. Michael. Your sisters seemed to think he might do for Lady Nita, and he’s rumored to be quite wealthy.”

“There you are!”

Bellefonte advanced into the library, his tone suggesting Tremaine had been hiding for days, rather than drafting correspondence in plain sight for the past hour.

“I’m writing to your brother Beckman,” Tremaine said. Beckman the Rapturously Married. “He’ll expect a full accounting of my sojourn among his siblings. Have you anything you’d like to include with my epistle?”

Bellefonte again took a position with his back to the roaring hearth. The earl was an informal sort. Tremaine’s grandfather had often assumed that very posture before more rustic hearths.

“I like the smell of a wood fire,” Bellefonte said. “Though I’d be better off selling the wood, I’m sure. You may warn Beckman I’m sending Lady Nita to him in the spring, so he’d best ensure all in his ambit are in excellent health. From there, she can visit our brother Ethan, and I’ve any number of friends who’d be delighted to host her over the summer. My grandmother, Lady Warne, loves showing my sisters off at house parties.”

Tremaine sprinkled sand over the page, for he and the Earl of Bellefonte had a few matters to clear up of a more pressing nature than social correspondence.

“Are you scolding me, Bellefonte, for accompanying your sister on an outing that you, a team of elephants, and a host of archangels could not have dissuaded her from?”

Women rallied around babies, and Tremaine had no quarrel with that. None at all. Women were supposed to be protective of the little ones, and most women were.

“You are a guest in my home, a friend to my younger brother—who has few enough friends—and you mean well,” Bellefonte said. His tone implied a list of transgressions recited at the local magistrate’s parlor session. “I’m not scolding you.”

Bellefonte made a quarter turn so he faced Tremaine without giving up proximity to the fire’s heat.

“Relieved to hear it,” Tremaine replied. “Shall we discuss your sheep, then? I might be a guest, though I’m a guest who would not be under your roof but for a desire to purchase those sheep.”

Lest any thoroughly domesticated earls develop aspirations in other directions.

Bellefonte rubbed a hand over the hip closest to the fire. “Right, my sheep. We’ll get to those. Why aren’t you married, St. Michael? Beckman said you proposed to Miss Polonaise Hunt earlier this winter.”

The list of reasons to thrash Beckman Haddonfield was growing by the hour.

“Miss Hunt turned me down,” Tremaine said. Polly was now the Marchioness of Hesketh—also head over ears in love with her grouchy, taciturn, tenderhearted marquess. “A near miss, from my perspective.”

And from the lady’s, no doubt. Tremaine hadn’t dared solicit Lord Hesketh’s opinion, lest the marquess’s sentiments be conveyed at thirty paces.

“You’re amenable to marriage in the general case?” Bellefonte asked.

“We were discussing your merino sheep, Bellefonte. The herd appears in good condition, but if you continue inbreeding, you’ll soon have a greater incidence of ill health, smaller specimens, and stillbirths.”

Bellefonte rested an elbow on the mantel, which he could do easily because of his excessive height.

“So you’ll use my sheep for outcrosses, then? Improve the wool in the local strains, improve the health of the merino offspring?”

“That would make sense.” As would selling some of the pure individuals in France, the United States, or other countries. Sheep were hardy enough to tolerate sea voyages well, under decent conditions.

“And yet you do not commit to that course,” Bellefonte mused. “Others are interested in these sheep, though I’ve only recently become aware of that.”

Tremaine remained seated at the desk and busied himself pouring the sand off his letter, capping the ink, and tossing the parings from the quill pen into the dustbin. Bellefonte was a good negotiator, but if he was as cash poor as most of the aristocracy, he was in a bad bargaining position.

“Others might be interested in your sheep, my lord, but others are not here. Others probably lack the coin I can bring to bear on the situation, and others won’t maximize the value of those sheep as I can.”

“Others will marry my sisters.”

Or maybe Bellefonte was a brilliant negotiator.

“Bellefonte, allow me to instruct you about sheep,” Tremaine said, “for I blush to inform you I am an expert on the species. Sheep move about on four legs. They grow wool, they bleat. They tend to dwell in herds, and according to some, the breeding rams have an objectionable aroma.

“Sisters, by contrast, typically move about on two legs,” Tremaine continued, approaching the hearth. “They may laugh, speak, or whine. They ordinarily do not bleat. They take great pride in their hair—which has little resemblance to wool—tend to pleasant scents, and go exactly where they please, when they please. They do not dwell in placid herds, chewing their cud until the shepherd directs them to another pasture. I am interested in the sheep, and only the sheep.”

“You want the sheep; I want my sisters happily and safely married. Beckman has spoken highly of you.”

For which Tremaine really must pummel dear Beckman when next they met. Perhaps Hesketh was due a few blows as well, for the aristocracy kept close tabs on each other, and the marquess might have had a hand in any scheme that saw Tremaine marched up the church aisle.

“The issue is not what you want, Bellefonte,” Tremaine said, “but rather what your womenfolk want. I have not detected matrimonial interest from them.” Interest, yes, the same interest with which the ewes looked over a new collie or watched a horseman canter by, but not
matrimonial
interest. Nobody was in marital rut in this household, excepting perhaps Bellefonte himself.

“Edward Nash is heir to a baronet,” Bellefonte said. “His papa and mine rode to hounds together, and our pews are situated across the aisle from each other. He owns a tidy holding not two miles distant—Stonebridge—and he quotes poetry to Susannah.”

Tremaine had ridden by that tidy holding and recalled the property because the sign naming it was anything but discreet.

“Nash offers to relieve you of a sister, while I offer you only money. What a credit to your priorities, Bellefonte.”

Bellefonte’s reputation was one of unfailing good cheer, though his blue eyes had abruptly turned colder than the skies over Kent.

“Nash offers to
make
my
sister
happy
. Susannah is retiring in the extreme. She didn’t take, and she loves her books. I love—”

Pity for the earl required that Tremaine make a study of the library’s red, blue, and cream carpets, which were wool, probably Scottish wool. The sheep suited to northern climes grew a coarse, durable product that could withstand years of trampling.

“You love your sisters, my lord, and the prospect of seeing Lady Susannah across the church aisle every Sunday is less daunting than the notion that she might catch the eye of some Italian count.”

Or, heaven defend the lady, a Scottish wool nabob?

“Nash’s sister dwells with him too,” Bellefonte said, turning another quarter, so he faced the fire. “Susannah wouldn’t be the sole female in his household. She’d have children in due course, and what woman doesn’t want children?”

Addy Chalmers, for one.

Tremaine’s own mother, possibly, though in Bellefonte’s world, women sought husbands as a necessary predicate to having children.

“Bellefonte, you must do as you see fit with your sheep. I am prepared to buy the entire herd, but
only
the entire herd. Their value decreases significantly if you send one-third down the lane as Lady Susannah’s bridal attendants and another third to sale in London. The remaining third will be in far less demand for breeding purposes if you disperse your herd, and I’ll have fewer specimens with which to improve my own stock, which is vast.”

Bellefonte wandered to the desk, where he lifted the lid off a blue ceramic bowl and brought the dish to Tremaine.

“Have a ginger biscuit,” the earl said. “Haggling on an empty stomach isn’t well advised.”

Tremaine took one. Bellefonte helped himself to three, put the dish back on the desk, and moved to the shelves lining the inside wall of the library.

“My countess likes you,” the earl said, “my brothers like you. I think Nita might like you too.”

Ah, so all that dodging about the sheep, and poor, shy Lady Susannah had been so much diversion. Tremaine took a nibble of a spicy biscuit lest he admit that
he
liked Lady Nita.

Respected her too.

“Lady Nita was simply looking in on a woman recently brought to bed with child,” Tremaine said. “I wanted to see some of your property and accomplished that aim.”

Bellefonte left off perusing a small volume bound in red leather, and considered one of his two remaining biscuits.

“You were spying on my acres?”

“Gathering information about a possible business associate. Have you broached the matter of Lady Nita’s upcoming travel with the woman herself?”

Not that Tremaine would raise the topic with her or mention it to Beckman. He hoped to be gone before Bellefonte undertook that folly.

“Nita will never forgive me if I send her away,” the earl said, “but spring can bring influenza and worse, and she has no care for what contagion could do to this household.”

Thank the celestial powers, Bellefonte at least understood the need to curb his sister’s more dangerous charitable impulses.

“You do not mention the risk that Lady Nita herself might fall ill,” Tremaine said.

English physicians interviewed patients. They did not touch them in the usual course and often didn’t even visit the sickroom. If contagion was a significant issue, then a family member might relay symptoms to the doctor, who’d prescribe nostrums from the safety of his cozy study.

Lady Nita apparently observed no such precautions.

Bellefonte snapped his book closed. “There’s no point mentioning the risk of contagion to Lady Nita, such is my sister’s disdain for common sense. Nita’s healthy as a tinker’s donkey, and nothing I say, promise, threaten, or shout makes any difference to her.”

An image sprang up in Tremaine’s mind of Lady Nita crouching by the shivering lamb, ready to do battle for its life if Tremaine had intended the little beast harm.

“Have you tried
asking
the lady to comply with your wishes, my lord?” For sooner or later, she’d fall ill, if not die, as a consequence of her kindheartedness.

Bellefonte consumed his third biscuit thoughtfully. “I haven’t tried asking. I should, though Nita can drive me to shouting more quickly than the rest of my siblings put together.”

Well, of course. Demure, sensible Lady Nita left her brother no choice but to rant and carry on like a squalling infant.

“With your sisters, as with your sheep, I’m sure you’ll do as you see fit, my lord. I’m off at week’s end to arrange travel to Germany if we can’t come to terms on your herd of merinos.”

“Talk to George, then, if you’re bound for the Continent. He’s recently returned and has good recall for which inns are clean, which of the packet captains sober. Beckman was our vagabond, but George might take up the post.”

Beckman had traveled to escape bad memories, while George Haddonfield appeared the soul of sunny charm. Interesting.

“If we cannot come to terms, I will certainly confer with George. And, Bellefonte?”

The earl dusted biscuit crumbs from his hands.

“Lady Susannah might be happy with this poetical baronet-in-waiting,” Tremaine said, “but I suggest you make a thorough study of the man’s finances before you send her into his arms. Near his manor house, all is in good repair. The surrounding tenant farms, however, have sagging fences, tumbling stone walls, weedy cornfields, and overgrown hedges. Those sheep wouldn’t be on Nash’s property for a day before they’d be loose about the shire, wreaking havoc in your neighbors’ gardens, and comporting themselves like strumpets with the local flocks.”

Tremaine ate the last bite of his ginger biscuit, retrieved his letter, and left Nicholas, Lord of Many Sisters, contemplating the remaining supply of biscuits.

* * *

Nita sought the warmth of the kitchen, for worse than being bone tired was being bone tired and hungry—which Addy Chalmers likely had been for years.

As Nita fetched the butter from the window box and unwrapped a loaf of bread, she recalled Addy mentioning Mary’s father’s family. Perhaps the unwritten etiquette of vice prohibited such a topic, for Addy had never before referred in Nita’s hearing to the fathers of her children.

If she even knew who they were.

Nita poured cider into a pot and swung it over the coals of the cooking fire. Cinnamon would have made a nice addition, also an expensive one.

“Lady Nita, I’m surprised to find you awake at such a late hour.”

Tremaine St. Michael leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his cravat missing, his shirtsleeves turned back, and his shirt open at the throat. Nita liked the look of him, his bustling energy and fine tailoring made more approachable by a touch of weariness and informality.

“Mr. St. Michael, good evening. Have you wandered below stairs in search of a posset?”

How long had he been lounging there, watching Nita putter around in her dressing gown and slippers like a scullery maid?

“I’m peckish,” he said, prowling into the room. Hungry men walked differently from the well-fed variety, as if they switched imaginary tails and twitched imaginary whiskers. “Too much time in the elements, trotting about the frozen lanes and swinging an ax.” He peered into Nita’s pot of cider. “What have you there?”

“Cider. You’re welcome to join me.” She made that offer partly out of hospitality and partly out of wistfulness. Mr. St. Michael would be leaving soon, and his company was oddly agreeable.

“You’re content with bread and butter?” he asked. “Your brother has a fondness for ginger biscuits.”

“Nicholas does. George can’t abide them. What are you looking for?” Mr. St. Michael was peering into cupboards much as Nita’s brothers did, holding up the table lamp to illuminate his plundering.