Tremaine's True Love (19 page)

“I can honor those terms,” Tremaine said, for he’d never intrude on Nita’s domestic territory, never overrule her common sense as she applied it to the nursery or household matters, never question her social instincts when moving in circles where she was welcomed and Tremaine merely tolerated.

She traced his ear, a peculiarly arousing touch, when Tremaine was already painfully aroused.

“You promise to withdraw?”

“On my honor, I promise to withdraw.”

Tremaine had enough practice at it that he could make that vow, though he had no experience with Nita, and thus he resisted the screaming imperative from his cock to plunge into her willing heat.

“Doesn’t one need to”—her caresses slowed—“that is, in order to withdraw from a location, oughtn’t one to
be
in that location in the first place?” Nita sounded curious and worried, as if trusting Tremaine were the most difficult boon he could have asked of her.

“You have the right of it,” he said, nudging forward. She would frequently have the right of a situation, and he’d learn to rely on her judgment in the years to come.

The thought of those years steadied Tremaine, gave him some purchase against lust, and allowed him to love Nita with honest affection, with a cherishing respect that was no less passionate for being of the mind as well as the body.

“I like this,” she whispered as he progressed languidly toward a complete joining. “This is better.”

Better than her soldier boy? Tremaine gathered Nita closer, hoping he could soon make their union better than her wildest imaginings.

“Am I pleasing you?” Was he making her see him as her husband?

“If you could move just a shade more—mmf.” Nita bit his earlobe as he added a hint of power to his thrusting. “Like that.”

She locked her heels at the small of Tremaine’s back, adding her undulations to his, and Tremaine was forced to think of…sheep succumbing to coe, foot rot, scours…

“Tremaine…”

His name, full of wonder and maybe a bit of terror, as Nita Haddonfield’s passion found its gratification. He drove her through it, though she hardly needed herding. Nita went after her pleasure at a pounding gallop, bucking into him, clutching at his backside with a ferocious, delightful strength.

“Gracious, merciful, never-ending…” She unhooked her ankles and purely hugged Tremaine as he went still above her. “I had no idea.”

That she’d had no idea clearly bewildered her, while her befuddlement delighted Tremaine.

He kissed her shoulder. “Then you’d best have another go, don’t you think? You can confirm your first impression, investigate the matter further.” Make a thorough study of what was on offer, because irrespective of any marriage proposals, she was owed that.

Damn her soldier boy for a selfish bumbler anyway.

“We can do that again?” she asked. “I thought you said you’d withdraw?”

“I will withdraw before I spend, but I needn’t spend just yet.” Much to Tremaine’s surprise.

He pleasured Nita again, and just when he thought she’d had her fill, she got to experimenting with angle and speed, and had a jolly good time without Tremaine having to do much besides mentally attempt the Lord’s Prayer in Latin backward.

When his lady lay panting and pleased with herself—and with him—Tremaine gently slid from her body, for she would be sore come morning.

Also engaged to be married, Tremaine hoped.

He braced himself on one arm and used his free hand to stroke himself exactly three times, before his self-control joined other valuable assets somewhere in the wilds of Oxfordshire. The pleasure was glorious, while the mess went all over Nita’s belly, for which Tremaine would apologize, just as soon as he could speak.

“You withdrew,” Nita said, petting his hair. “You said you would.”

She was relieved and pleased and capable of speech. Marriage to this woman would require great reserves of sexual stamina, God be thanked.

“Flannel?” he managed.

While Tremaine hung over Nita, breathing like a spent steeplechaser, she fished on the night table and then passed him a cloth. He tended to her, then tended to himself and tossed the cloth toward the hearth.

“Let me hold you,” Tremaine said. Nita would soon learn what he really meant was, “Would you please hold me?” For he needed her embrace, needed her sweet kisses and surprisingly affectionate nature.

Tremaine pitched onto his back and tucked Nita against his side. “You should take a soaking bath in the morning, madam.”

“Will you need a soaking bath too?” Nita was either genuinely curious, or his lovemaking had put her very much on her mettle.

“I shall. You’ve worn me to flinders.” He kissed her temple and tucked her leg across his thighs. “I will need the assistance of at least two stout footmen to get down to breakfast, I’m sure.”

Nita’s damnably inquisitive fingers toyed with his nipple, and so thoroughly had Tremaine spent his passion that her touch was only eleven times more distracting than a tickle and only fourteen times harder to ignore than a stampeding herd of cattle.

“How does one manage that breakfast table encounter?” Nita asked. “I’m accustomed to dealing with patients in extremis—you’d be surprised the curses a Quaker lady knows when delivering her first child—but this is…”

Mercifully, her fingers went still.

“This is different,” Tremaine said, as close as he could come to describing an intimacy entirely without precedent in his experience.

What fool would go haring off to Germany to buy sheep in the dead of winter when travel would mean leaving Nita Haddonfield’s side for weeks? Tremaine could take her with him, of course, but why spoil a wedding journey with commerce?

Commerce, his faithful mistress since he’d sold his first crop of wool nearly twenty years ago.

Nita patted his nipple. “We shall contrive. Nicholas and his countess manage, and they’re shamelessly besotted, not merely investigating possibilities with each other.”

If Nita had investigated Tremaine’s possibilities any more thoroughly, he’d be—

We
shall
contrive.
Together, they would in the future,
as
a
couple
, contrive. The sense of her words penetrated the lingering haze of erotic pleasure.

“What conclusion have you come to after all this dedicated inquiry, Lady Nita?”

She snuggled closer. “About?”

“About marrying me. About becoming my wife, or my countess. The title hasn’t been an asset on the Continent, so I’ve not used it, but I’m a French comte, a circumstance my grandfather delights in. I have holdings in Provence, Portugal, Wales—sheep do quite well there—Scotland, Ireland, and I’m thinking of buying land in Germany. I have residences in Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire, Paris, London, Oxfordshire, Avignon, Florence, Venice—I like art; have I mentioned that?—and York.”

Tremaine liked
her
, liked her exceedingly, and she apparently liked him rather a lot too. The pleasure of that happy coincidence warmed him from the inside out.

“Some of my properties are modest,” he went on, “mere town houses, but my holdings in the Midlands are considerable, and I’m more than happy to purchase you a dower property in the vicinity of Haddondale.”

He probably didn’t need to remind her of that.

Tremaine paused to kiss Nita’s temple, wondering what else he had to offer his intended. Her hand on his chest was a slack weight over his heart, her breathing even.

“We’ll live wherever you please,” he said. “The Oxford estate is commodious, a good place to bring up children, and not that far from your family. Summers there are wonderful.”

Tremaine fell asleep amid a vision of Nita organizing a family picnic for their brood of children. Sheep would dot the nearby meadow, the children would enjoy the chance to gambol out-of-doors. Tremaine’s wife would love him and their family, and forget she’d ever been reduced to dealing with the unfortunate, the unwell, and the injured.

“Nita, wake up.” A determined hand shook Nita from dreams of minty kisses. “I’ll dash you with water if you don’t rouse yourself this instant.”

“Kirsten?”

“You were expecting somebody else?” Kirsten dove under the covers on the far side of Nita’s bed. “I hate winter. I hate being cold. I hate pretending frigid air is invigorating. Addy Chalmers’s daughter is in the kitchen asking for you. I had the child fed, but I fear she wants you to accompany her home.”

The last warm, dreamy cobwebs of memory were scoured away by a cold blast of dread.

“Mary came for me?”

“She’s well enough. I didn’t inquire about the baby. If you want to send Horton to them, I’ll pay for it out of my pin money.” Kirsten drew the covers up to her chin, bouncing the bed all about.

“Horton won’t show up until the day’s half gone,” Nita said, “if he bothers at all, and then he’ll merely look at the child, mutter about weak lungs, and suggest the surgeon should bleed her.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to bleed the little ones.”

Nita swung the covers aside. “In more enlightened environs, the practice is held in low esteem. Thank you for fetching me.”

“You’re going, aren’t you?” Kirsten groused from the depths of the bed. “The sun isn’t even properly up, it’s cold as Lucifer’s backside out there, and away you must go. I’d admire you if you didn’t make me feel so guilty.”

Nita opened the wardrobe, where her much worn habit was always kept in readiness. Guilt was not in evidence this morning, not about resenting Mary’s summons, not about time shared with Mr. St.—with Tremaine.

“You could come with me,” Nita said, taking out her habit. “At some point you will be the lady of a household, and you might want to know basic care for the ill and injured.”

Kirsten’s honesty about her own shortcomings should not have surprised Nita—Kirsten was relentlessly honest—but Nita had made the suggestion as a dare. Sisters who interrupted dreams of Mr. St. Michael’s kisses were not entitled to a cordial reception.

“Very well,” Kirsten said, slogging out of the bed. “I had the boot boy alert the stable that you’ll need Atlas. I can go along with you and spare myself Della’s attempts to flirt with Mr. St. Michael at breakfast.”

Kirsten flounced out, muttering about daft sisters and tiresome winter weather, and Nita used the reprieve to send up a prayer. Addy’s last child had not lived past the first few weeks. The weather was miserable, and the mother fond of gin. Mary would not have come at such an hour for anything less than an emergency.

Nita did not want to go, did not want to find another small, lifeless body cradled in Addy’s thin arms, did not want to face the other children, solemn beyond their years and more afraid than any child should be.

Nita did not want to go, but she must go, as always.

By the time Nita and Kirsten arrived to the cottage, the sun had made a grudging appearance just above the horizon, though a low overcast meant a single slice of dawn illumination soon disappeared as the sun rose into the clouds.

“How do you do this?” Kirsten asked as they clomped onto the porch. “These people can’t pay you, they’re all likely to die of consumption anyway, and you risk your own health every time you heed their summons.”

The woodpile was diminished, and from inside the cottage, Nita heard not a sound. Not a crying baby, which would have been the case if colic were the problem, not the children stirring about.

Nothing.

Nita stood facing the door when what she wanted to do was leap onto her horse and never return.

“When Papa was dying,” Nita said, “should I have left him alone in his bed for weeks, no one but the servants to change his linens and cajole him into taking some beef tea? He was not long for the world. Nothing I did changed that, nor would he have wanted me to alter matters if I could. Should I have turned my back on him? Addy has no one, these children have no one.”

“I’m sorry,” Kirsten said, pacing away from the door. “I haven’t your moral fortitude, Nita. Sometimes I wonder if I have a single virtue worthy of note. Maybe you’d best leave me out here to freeze.”

Honesty was a virtue, and Kirsten had that in abundance.

“You’re with me now,” Nita said, “and you remembered to raid the larder too.” While Nita had brought only her herbs and medicinals, which wouldn’t feed hungry children, nor had she brought Mr. St. Michael’s gift of coin. “Breathe through your mouth for the first few minutes, and you’ll manage.”

This, oddly, provoked Kirsten to smiling. “Onward, dear Sister. Sooner begun is sooner done.”

Nita knocked softly and opened the door, the familiar stench of soiled nappies, boiled cabbage, and unwashed bodies hitting her harder than usual. Mr. St. Michael had told her to take a soaking bath this morning, and she’d intended to use Kirsten’s soap on every inch of her skin and her hair too.

“Addy, what’s amiss?” Nita asked.

Addy sat before the hearth, where a meager fire smoldered. The children were nowhere to be seen, probably tucked up in the sleeping alcove trying to stay warm, while the baby was cradled against Addy’s shoulder.

“She’s got the croup,” Addy said, despair in every syllable. “Poor wee girl has about coughed herself to death.”

Two impressions registered, one positive, one ominous: Addy was sober, and the baby was wheezing with each inhalation. The wheezing was a weak rattle, barely audible.

“How long has she been like this?” Nita asked, setting down her bag and unfastening her cloak.

“Since right after your last visit. I didn’t want to bother you. She worsened in the night.”

When Nita might have howled with frustration—what mattered bothering when dying was the alternative?—Kirsten touched her arm.

“What can I do?”

If Mr. St. Michael were with her, Nita would have him chopping a batch of kindling, because a roaring fire was necessary and sooner rather than later.

“Bring in the driest of the firewood, then we’ll need water. There’s a cistern out back, though you’ll have to break the ice. When that’s done, the children need breakfast.”

Somebody should do another batch of laundry, sweep out the ashes spilling from the hearth, start a pot of soup, and otherwise set the place to rights.

“Has the baby taken any sustenance?” Nita asked.

“She’s fussy,” Addy said, tucking the blanket around the child. “I can’t tell if she’s hungry or hurting or miserable or all three.”

“Offer her the breast,” Nita said. “Repeatedly. Her throat is uncomfortable from coughing, and she’s tired, so she can’t take as much at once, but she needs to keep up her strength.”

I
hate
this, I hate this, I hate this.
Babies died so easily, healthy one day, gone the next, sometimes without even a sign of illness. Nita was swamped with a longing for Mr. St. Michael’s brisk competence with a splitting ax—and with a hug.

Horton, who hates me.
Hated the stink, the despair, the weariness, the uncertainty, the death, and the death, and the death.

Addy took the only rocker and put the baby to her breast. The poor little child latched on with desperate greed, though she was soon fussing, her breathing interrupted by an odd, barking cough.

“Is she supposed to sound like that?” Kirsten asked, putting a load of kindling down before the hearth.

“She is not,” Nita said. “That’s the primary symptom of croup, though she’s very young to be so afflicted.” And very small, and the birth had not been easy.

What birth was?

“She won’t take any more,” Addy said a few minutes later. “She didn’t even finish on one side.”

“You must offer more frequently,” Nita said. “And keep your consumption of fluids copious, lest the supply be lacking when the demand resumes.”

Nita filled the kettle on the pot-swing with water, dribbled in some peppermint oil, and added the dry wood to the fire.

“We try not to waste wood,” Addy muttered, putting the baby to her shoulder.

“We need to create steam,” Nita retorted, “to ease the child’s breathing.”

“That smells good,” Addy said, patting the child’s back gently. “We have half a field of peppermint behind the garden.”

“Have the children pick it, and you can sell it. Peppermint has many uses.”

Tooth powders often featured peppermint, for example.

When the kettle was bubbling and the scent of peppermint thick in the air, Nita set the steaming pot on the table and used her cloak to fashion a tent over it. She took the baby from Addy, draping the cloak over her own head and the baby’s.

“My mother did that once for my sister,” Addy said. “I’d forgotten.”

Outside the dark cocoon of the steam tent, Nita heard quiet voices asking about the baby.

Not Mary. She would remain at Belle Maison until the grooms brought her back in the dogcart. The boys were stirring, and they were worried about their small sister.

The baby’s breathing eased somewhat, while Nita’s eyes watered and her nose threatened to run. She lifted her cloak, swaddled the baby in it, and headed for the door.

“Reheat that water. Lady Kirsten brought bread, butter, and eggs for breakfast, also a flask of milk and a jar of preserves.”

Nita opened the door and took the well-wrapped infant out to the frigid air of the porch.

“Lady Nita!” Addy was on her heels. “Whatever are you about?”

“Cold air helps,” Nita said. “You’re fortunate the illness has occurred in winter, because it’s just as likely to hit in summer.”

“But the child will catch her death! I’ll not lose another baby, not as long as I have breath in my body. I can’t lose her! You’re not a physician, to be subjecting her to the bitter wind like this. Dr. Horton—”

Horton, who hates me.
“Horton would not come unless you sent payment when you summoned him, and then he’d bleed Annie to death and tell you it was God’s will.”

That slowed Addy down for the space of exactly one indrawn breath.

“Give me back my baby!” Hysteria laced the demand. Addy reached for the child, while Nita turned away, the baby cradled against her shoulder.

Kirsten came stomping around the corner of the cottage, a wooden bucket in her hand.

“Will shouting help the child?” Kirsten asked, her tone merely curious. “If so, I’m happy to add to the din.”

Addy stopped trying to snatch the baby from Nita’s arms. “Lady Nita means well,” Addy said, “but every mother knows a baby should not be subjected to the winter weather. It’s madness, and I’ve lost too many children to allow daft practices to cost me another.”

“If Lady Nita is daft, then why did you send for her?” Kirsten asked, climbing the porch stairs and setting the bucket down. “Her ladyship was warm and cozy in her bed when I woke her to tell her Mary was shivering in the kitchen. Even if you paid Horton, he’d not likely show up before noon. Besides, the baby—which Nita delivered you of safely enough—sounds much better.”

Kirsten’s matter-of-fact recitation had ended on the only observation that mattered: Annie’s breathing was back to normal, and the child was drowsing contentedly on Nita’s shoulder.

“I’ll slice the children some bread,” Kirsten said, taking up her bucket. “You should both be wearing your cloaks or Annie won’t be the only one falling ill.”

Silence descended, the impenetrable quiet of an early morning in winter. The baby let out a sigh—a normal, quiet baby sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Addy said. “I’ve haven’t slept, we’ve barely any food. I hate to send the boys out for wood again so soon, and if we’re not to starve, I should go back to—”

To the tavern, where she plied her trade, unless the proprietor was in a righteous mood, in which case Addy hung about the livery, given the occasional coin for tending the horses but mostly keeping warm between customers.

“Go inside,” Nita said. “Kirsten is right. We can’t have you falling ill too.”

Not the most comforting reply, but Addy’s tirade had torn at Nita’s composure. A baby’s life was more important than a soaking bath, but had Addy no respect for Nita? Would Addy rather Horton killed her child with his condescension and ignorance?

The door scraped open, and Addy went inside while Kirsten came back out to the porch.

“A plague of locusts could not devour that bread any more quickly than those children. I saved some for Mary and Addy and started a pot of tea brewing.”

“My thanks.”

“Here.” Kirsten took off her own cloak and draped it around Nita’s shoulders. “If you must brave the elements, at least do so properly clothed.”

Having delivered her scold, Kirsten went inside while Nita remained on the porch, the baby sleeping against her shoulder.

How would Tremaine St. Michael react when his wife was roused from slumber to tend a sick baby? Considering that he intended to travel for weeks or even months at a time, his husbandly patience ought not to be tried very far if Nita heeded the occasional summons from a neighbor.

He’d promised they could bide in the area, Nita recalled that much of their discussion the previous night. She’d fallen asleep, exhausted, enlightened, enthralled, and also curiously unsatisfied.

Tremaine St. Michael had assessed Nita’s strengths and shortcomings with dispassionate accuracy and presented himself without airs or graces. As a lover, he possessed magnificent stores of consideration, unplumbed reserves of humor, and all the manly competence a lady could hope for.

But as he’d prosed on about his properties and his enjoyment of art, Nita hadn’t been able to connect the handsome suitor in her bed with the man who’d taught the children their letters among the ashes. She was attracted to the wealthy sheep trader, but she
liked
the other fellow.

Liked him exceedingly.

“Come along, miss,” she said to the baby. “Enough fresh air for the nonce. I am in need of a soaking bath, and you must finish breaking your fast before joining your mama in a much-needed nap.”

* * *

Tremaine dawdled over his eggs, lingered over his toast, and swilled enough tea to float a man-o’-war. He was about to inquire of his hostess if he might escort the ladies to the sheep byre to visit the latest additions to the herd—a newborn lamb or three would surely draw his intended out of hiding—when he realized that Nita wasn’t coming down to breakfast.