Tremaine's True Love (31 page)

“Croup can kill a newborn,” she said. “They’re not even supposed to have croup, but Addy Chalmers lives in straitened circumstances, and Evan has ever been sickly. Had I not responded when Mary sought my aid, wee Annie could be dead.”

Inside Tremaine, something did die. He didn’t give it a name, but it was a close relative of hope and healing, the very gifts Nita spread before any who sought them from her.

“You are telling me that even when we marry, even when your own children fill our nursery, you will continue to tend any and all who have need of you.” Tremaine had called upon negotiating skills to offer that summary, upon the ability to restate in the clearest terms an opponent’s position, usually before he annihilated that position.

Nita left off studying the small blaze lighting the hearth and turned to regard Tremaine. Her braid was ratty, her shoulders bare, and her cheek bore a crease from wrinkled sheets.

“I have a gift, Tremaine St. Michael. I can save lives. I can reduce and eliminate suffering. I’ve worked hard to acquire these skills, and planning your dinner parties or picking out wallpaper for your nursery is not more important than wee Annie’s life. Addy is at the end of her tether. Losing one more child will see the others on the parish and Addy in a pauper’s grave. I can’t have that on my conscience.”

Tremaine climbed out of the bed, barely keeping his voice below a shout. “Has it occurred to you that
you
are perhaps the reason Evan remains in poor health?”

His question was desperate, but Nita’s life was arguably in the balance along with Tremaine’s sanity and most of his honor. How had he not seen this? How had he not realized that Nita’s sense of responsibility had defined her for too long to be trumped by a recent attraction to a mere husband?

“I haven’t treated Evan,” she said, drawing the covers up under her arms.

“You treated Digby Nash, and he’s ill. Then you lark into the Chalmerses’ household, dispensing sweetness, light, and very likely contagion.”

Tremaine’s reasoning was cruel,
also
entirely
valid
.

“I take precautions,” Nita said, reaching for the blue robe draped across the foot of the bed. She couldn’t grab that robe and keep the covers under her chin, so Tremaine tossed it to her.

“You cannot take precautions in a cottage that lacks washing water and strong soap,” he said, yanking his shirt over his head. “You cannot take precautions against the foul miasmas you breathe in. You cannot ever take precautions that will render you as safe as you’d be if you resigned your post as ministering angel to all in need.”

“I cannot and will not let children die when I can help, Tremaine. I cannot allow women to suffer a complaint of the privy parts because they’re too ashamed to seek Horton’s dubious counsel. Where is your Christianity?”

Tremaine jerked on his breeches. “Where is your sense? I don’t begrudge any woman the assistance of a midwife, and I don’t object to your brewing tisanes or mixing powders to ease suffering, but is wee Evan’s runny nose more important than the lives of your own children? I warned you I would not willingly allow my wife to risk her safety, and every sickroom you visit is a battleground, Nita Haddonfield.”

Why hadn’t he seen this issue for the tragedy it was? Nita Haddonfield would likely go on for years saving the lives of neighbors who neither paid her nor respected her for her skill, until one of them afflicted her with an illness even her formidable constitution couldn’t survive.

“I have no children of my own,” she said, “and it appears that will always be the case.”

“That is largely your decision.” Tremaine wanted to snatch up his boots and stomp out of the room, but Nita’s stubbornness was only a small part on her own behalf. “I don’t fault your kindness, my lady, but I cannot abide the notion that you repeatedly put yourself and your loved ones at risk merely for the asking.
You
risk
your
life
, Nita, for anybody who asks it of you. I offer you happiness and a husband’s rightful protection, and you disdain my suit.”

This was the real tragedy. That Nita Haddonfield would die unnecessarily soon, of consumption, cholera, or typhus. The world—and Tremaine and any children she might have—needed her alive.

“I never foresaw that I might marry,” Nita wailed softly. “Matrimony wasn’t in my plans.”

Tremaine took a seat beside her on the bed, heart breaking, pride in tatters. “Nor in mine. Who will tend you when you fall ill? Dr. Horton?”

Nita apparently hadn’t foreseen this eventuality either, and Tremaine nearly howled with frustration. A heart this pure and determined was a danger to itself, and yet Nita would not allow him to protect her.

“My sisters will look after me.” A desperate hope, based on her uncertain tone.

“They’ll have husbands and children of their own,” Tremaine said, looping an arm around Nita’s shoulders. “I cannot change your mind, can I?”

For to change Nita’s mind would mean he’d changed her heart, and behind all the poise and practicality, Nita Haddonfield was cursed with a tender, generous heart.

Which Tremaine treasured.

A man who seized opportunities when more cautious souls hesitated was also a fellow who occasionally blundered badly.

“Can you provide my neighbors with good health?” Nita asked, her head on his shoulder. “Can you make Horton wash his instruments when he doesn’t even bother to wash his hands? We do not know exactly what causes disease, but Horton cheerfully attributes illness to moral lapses, and suffering to moral atonement. He’s a medical barbarian, and all they have.”

Truly, Nita faced a formidable enemy, as did Tremaine.

“Are you rejecting my offer of marriage, Nita Haddonfield?”

“Are you rejecting my calling as a healer, Tremaine St. Michael?”

Was he? Tremaine stroked a hand down the frayed golden rope of her braid and tried to find an answer that was at least honest.

“I am in want of courage, Nita Haddonfield. As a small boy, I watched the lady who meant everything to me sail away, never to return. Every time you visit a patient suffering from contagious illness, you take that same risk. I lack the fortitude to send you on such voyages at any hour of the day or night, particularly when I know your journeys might bring death home to your own children.”

Or to her husband, though Tremaine wasn’t worried about that fool.

Nita leaned against him more heavily. “You ask an impossible choice of me.”

“The situation we face is not impossible,” Tremaine said, “but simply sad.” Very sad, and while a part of him wanted to argue and rail and do violence to the breakables, another part of him noticed what the small boy had not wanted to admit:

The lady was in tears as she made her choice—bitter, heartrending tears.

Nick regarded his guest, soon to be his brother-in-law. “You’re up early considering half the unmarried women in the shire were chasing you about the dance floor last night.”

“May we take our meal to the library?” St. Michael asked, though his breakfast consisted of two pieces of buttered toast.

Nick picked up a plate of eggs, toast, and ham. “By all means. My sisters will soon wander in, and no battle has ever been dissected as thoroughly as they can dissect a country assembly over their morning tea.”

St. Michael was a handsome bastard, but he was a tired handsome bastard. Some of the starch had been danced out of him, or perhaps the rotten punch had served him ill. He and Nick trundled along quiet corridors into the warmth of the library, putting Nick in mind of their first meeting, only days ago.

St. Michael took a seat opposite Nick’s desk while Nick occupied the same chair his late father had used behind the desk.

“Do we have a reason for hiding from the women, other than sheer male cowardice?” Nick asked around a mouthful of eggs.

“Well, no, actually. I’ll be leaving later today, assuming the weather cooperates. Lady Nita has declined my offer of marriage.”

St. Michael munched at his toast as if he’d reported a slight dip in the value of some shares he held on the Exchange.

“You are nominally related to me, St. Michael, and I mostly like you,” Nick said. “If you’ve broken my sister’s heart, you had best have your affairs in order, nonetheless. Nita’s besotted with you—my own countess has confirmed my opinion on the matter.”

Leah usually confirmed Nick’s opinions, except when he was dead wrong on a matter of importance, and Nita’s engagement was a matter of utmost importance.

“I am besotted with her as well,” St. Michael said in that same pass-the-butter tone of voice, “though you do the lady no favors if you bring that up in her hearing. She has stated terms I cannot accept, so I’m leaving the field. You will not chastise her, you will not bully her, you will barely notice my absence, Bellefonte, or
your
affairs had best be in order.”

The earldom was seven kinds of a mess, but Nick’s marriage was in order and that was what mattered most. St. Michael stared at his toast as if he’d no idea how it had arrived to his hand.

Nita truly had turned the poor sod down, and St. Michael hadn’t seen that coming.

“St. Michael, Nita adores you, and she is not a woman prone to adoration. What happened?”

A simple question shifted the discussion from a tense negotiation to a session of shared male bewilderment. St. Michael returned his toast to its plate and helped himself to a ginger biscuit from the crock on the desk.

“I didn’t pay attention to what matters,” he said. “I know better. I paid attention to Nita’s sweet smiles, brandished my own version of same, made a few ringing pronouncements about guarding my wife’s welfare, and congratulated myself on being a shrewd, bold, lucky fellow. But the devil’s in the details, right? Except a woman’s passion is not a detail.”

Nick nudged the biscuit crock closer to his guest. “I am Oxford educated and a belted earl. If you speak slowly and try again, this time you might make sense.”

A biscuit went down to defeat at the hands of St. Michael’s limited vocabulary.

“Lady Nita’s passion is healing,” he said, dusting his palms. “I thought I was her passion, or marriage to me and a family of her own. I was wrong.”

Those last three words were painful to hear.

Nick chewed a strip of bacon into oblivion. “I’m frequently wrong. One survives the indignity somehow. Have another biscuit.”

St. Michael took the lid off the crock and peered at the contents. “I thought it reasonable to expect that a mother would keep her children safe from illness—and herself too, of course.”

Nick quite agreed, but he was Nita’s older brother and the head of her family. Nita had scoffed at his pretensions to authority for years.

“Maybe a marriage needs to be built on more than reason?” Nick pushed his plate away and took a biscuit.

“Duty, certainly, should play a role,” St. Michael replied. “I tend to my business because I’ll not follow in my father’s footsteps, living off my ancestors’ wealth and a rank I did nothing to gain. A man must guard his honor as he sees fit, and for me that means commercial industry.”

Nick silently admitted to having been wrong himself: Tremaine St. Michael was not greedy, not amassing coin for the power it afforded him. He worked because it was all he knew to do, just as Nita needed her bilious spinsters and colicky babies to give her life meaning.

“I’m sorry, St. Michael. My door will always be open to you. Women have been known to change their minds.”

Though not Nita Haddonfield. She was a female monument to dearly held convictions, and her stubbornness alone had probably routed death more than once.

“I don’t know how to convey this without inspiring you to violence,” St. Michael said, “but your sister might find herself forced to wed me.”

No wonder the miserable blighter looked as if he’d had too much punch.

“Nita is a Haddonfield, and allowances must be made,” Nick said. “I have reason to believe—”

“If you say I was not her first, I shall kill you, Bellefonte. Nita’s decisions are not subject to your judgment.” St. Michael broke a biscuit in half and offered Nick the larger portion, which, being a prudent older brother and a belted earl—also a man who’d known heartbreak—Nick accepted.

“I have reason to believe,” Nick went on, “Nita has tisanes and potions that will prevent any untoward consequences of your visit here.”

St. Michael’s expression went from fierce to stricken, and his half of the biscuit hit the desk, leaving crumbs all about. “Am I to thank you for that disclosure, Bellefonte?”

Nick swept the crumbs into his palm and deposited them in the dustbin. “I suppose not. What will you do?”

What was Nick to do with the sheep he’d intended to provide St. Michael as a wedding gift? Bloody beasts were eating a prodigious amount of good hay, and old Difty Kinser said a record crop of lambs was on the way.

“I will travel on,” St. Michael said, getting to his feet. “George passed along some useful information regarding German hostelries, and I’ve connections with most of the Pumpernickel Courts.”

St. Michael spoke as if he were planning the funeral of a loved one.

“Shall I send George with you?” For the weather was again threatening a reprise of winter when spring really ought to be nudging winter aside.

St. Michael put the lid back on the biscuit crock. “No, you shall not. Mr. George Haddonfield has all the earmarks of a fine shepherd and man of business. You will transfer the sheep to Mr. Edward Nash in anticipation of his offer for Lady Susannah. First, however, you will put the fear of a sound thrashing in Nash should his temper threaten to turn violent.”

Nick took a bite of cold, buttered toast. “Are you daft? I don’t want Susannah marrying that buffoon. If I had any doubt of it, the way he went swimming in the punch bowl last night confirms that he’s not a suitable
parti
. I cannot stop Susannah from accepting his suit, but if I withhold the sheep, I won’t hasten her doom either.”

St. Michael ran a hand through neatly combed dark hair. “Bellefonte, please attend me. I will be leaving shortly and I’m in no mood to humor earls with poor hearing. You will transfer the sheep to Nash, today if possible, whether Lady Susannah marries the fool or not, because Elsie Nash and her boy are trapped in that household.”

Trapped. On the way home from the assembly, Leah had described Elsie’s situation with the same word.

“My men of business made Nash a delicately worded, conditional, and lucrative offer for those sheep through the post yesterday afternoon,” St. Michael said. “A condition buried in the convoluted text requires that Nash turn over guardianship of the boy, Digby, to you or the guardian of your choice. Nash will sell me the sheep at a significant profit to him. I’ll transfer them to your brother George in exchange for his willingness to serve as my factor in France from time to time. If you need funds for the boy, I’ll provide them.”

The toast went down reluctantly. “Why will you provide Nash the funds he needs to put Stonebridge to rights?”

“Lady Susannah is Nita’s sister. If Susannah is not happy, Nita cannot be happy, and many men drink to excess only when their fortunes sink. With Lady Susannah’s help, coin in hand, and you and George to keep an eye on matters, Nash’s worst tendencies can be curbed, particularly if the boy and his mother are not a financial drain. It’s a compromise, my lord, as many bargains must be. Lady Susannah deserves better, but a gentleman does not argue with a lady.”

Did Nita realize the caliber of man she was rejecting? “That is a significant investment based on hope, St. Michael.”

“On prediction, your lordship. I’m no longer in the business of hoping.”

St. Michael’s scheme bore a hint of intrigue, and yet Nick couldn’t find a flaw with it. “You’ll be out considerable coin, and George might not want the sheep.”

“You underestimate your brother, my lord. He’s nobody’s fool, not afraid of hard work, and he listens more than he talks. He also loves his sisters as dearly as you do, and his good qualities are far more numerous than his few trivial shortcomings. Rent him pasture if you must, but if he has sense, he’ll soon have his own establishment.”

Nick took a swallow of tea to ease the lump in his throat caused by cold toast, but the tea had grown cold too.

“I underestimated you, St. Michael,” Nick said. “Nita will regret refusing your suit, and when she does, I hope your affections are not otherwise engaged. One question, though. You have land in France and probably relatives there too. Why hire George to oversee those holdings?”

St. Michael stalked off in the direction of the door. “Because I am sick to death of travel, and the time has come to put my memories of France behind me. You will offer my farewells to your countess and your siblings.”

Then he was gone, leaving Nick with a sister to console—and lecture.

* * *

“I have means,” George said. “A great-aunt on my mother’s side decided that because I was neither heir nor spare, nor handsome by-blow, I ought to have a start in life. I also have some luck with investments. You and Digby would want for nothing.”

The Stonebridge kitchen was warm because the morning’s bread had just come out of the oven. The fresh-baked fragrance competed with the stink of tallow though, a scent George associated with student lodgings and cheap inns. If he didn’t propose to Elsie here, though, sitting with her at the kitchen table, he’d likely never have another opportunity.

“Digby was resting quietly when you brought me home,” Elsie said, “and if it weren’t for him…”

Some of George’s proposal was because of the boy, but not all. By no means all.

“Elsie, I’m the son of an earl. Nicholas will support my request to become Digby’s guardian if we’re married. Edward will not quibble at allowing me to assume the boy’s expenses, and in a few years, Digby will be off to public school in any case.”

The weak light filtering through the windows showed the fatigue around Elsie’s eyes, but also the beauty of her features. She was small and weary, and yet she had lovely eyes, an elegant profile, and a mouth—

That mouth had the power to wake a man up, to reveal to him choices he could make, paths he could choose.

“You pity me,” Elsie said, “and yet I’m tempted anyway, George Haddonfield. Digby likes you, and you’d be a wonderful father.”

George took her hand, a hand that shouldn’t have calluses. “I will make you a wonderful husband, Elsie, or give it my best try.”

“I should not have kissed you.”

That’s all they’d done—kiss, albeit with startling passion—and on the short drive to Stonebridge, they’d snuggled under the lap robes necessary when traveling by sleigh, as any couple might have snuggled.

“Why shouldn’t you have kissed me?”

Elsie’s expression said George’s question had surprised her, but George was in earnest, and a Haddonfield bent on an objective was not deterred by a little resistance.

“You will think me wanton,” she said, “and then Edward’s low opinion of me will be justified.”

“You are no more wanton than I am.” George kept his voice down, for the Stonebridge household was not yet awake. He’d ridden over before first light and was intent on bringing good news home with him.

“You’re a man—” Elsie began, as if the entire species need not fret over anybody’s good opinion.

“I am a man, one who has found himself occasionally attracted to members of his own gender. I probably will in the future as well, but here’s what matters, Elsie Nash: I like you exceedingly and I’m attracted to you. You’re tolerant, kind, fair-minded, and a devoted mother. My regard for a passing handsome or even pretty face is eclipsed by the loyalty those characteristics inspire.”

He hoped. George’s hope was based on several solid realities. First, his involvement with men had never gone beyond the casual or the physical. Men were a lot of bother, in George’s experience, full of strut and blather, every bit as capable of drama as the blushing debutantes filling any ballroom.

Second, his regard for Elsie included a fat dose of physical attraction, but finer emotions as well. He respected her, he enjoyed her company, he
liked
her. He liked her a lot, always had.

Third, there was the boy. Digby needed a father, somebody to stand between him and Edward Nash. George could hardly be that father if he spent his evenings larking about London, bored, randy, and causing his family worry.

Elsie got up and used the bunched fabric of her apron to protect her hands as she turned the cooling loaves of bread out of their pans. Steam rose from the turned loaves, one, two, three. She watched the steam as if it held the mystery of eternal happiness.

“I’ll want more children, George. If you can’t—that is—Digby needs brothers and sisters. When I’m gone, I don’t want him to be alone. So if you seek a white marriage, then, much as it pains me, I’ll have to decline.”