Tremaine's True Love (5 page)

Nick added coal to the brazier, because his shop was at the back of the stables, where warmth was at a premium. Leah worked with fingerless gloves, the same as any shopgirl might have when totting up the day’s custom.

She sat on a high stool, but Nick was tall enough to peer over her shoulder.

“As my countess wishes, but, lovey-lamb, why are you hiding here?” Nick certainly hid here from time to time, and only Leah would disturb him when he did.

She tossed down a pencil and leaned against him. “You are so marvelously warm. Where is your coat, Nicholas?”

“My countess will keep me warm. You’re working on menus.”

The Countess of Bellefonte nuzzled her husband’s chest. “I hate menus. I hate mutton, I hate soup, I hate fish, I hate that Cook expects me to remember which we ate Tuesday last and in what order, and I hate most of all that, for some reason, one must never serve trifle at the same meal as lobster.”

This was old business, this jockeying between Leah and the staff she’d inherited upon becoming Nick’s wife. She’d won over the maids and footmen, and Hanford was devoted, but Cook was temperamental and contrary.

“Shall I have a word with Cook?” Nick dreaded the prospect, though Leah had taken Cook on more than once.

The countess straightened and tidied her stack of papers. “You shall not. Household matters are not your domain, Nicholas, though I appreciate your willingness to entertain Vicar when he comes snuffling around.”

His Holiness had a prosperous figure for a man of the cloth, because Nick supported the living generously. Nick put Leah’s menus aside, turned, and hiked himself up onto the bench, so he faced his wife.

“What was Vicar going on about,” Nick asked, “with all that ‘the Lord will provide for the less fortunate according to their deserts,’ and ‘the laborer is worthy of his wage’?”

Leah rested her head on Nick’s knee, a rare gesture of weariness.

“He was referring to Addy Chalmers,” she said. “Nita likely prevailed upon the vicarage for some charity. Addy has a number of children and her family turned their backs on her years ago.”

“Five children now. Five living,” Nick said, for Nita had reminded him of the total rather pointedly. According to Nita’s clipped recitation, the oldest was eleven, an age at which Nick had been haring all over the shire on his pony, his half brother Ethan at his side, and nothing more pressing on his mind than whether to put a toad in the tutor’s boot or in his bed.

“Five children,” Leah said, “and winter is only half over. I’ll send a basket. I should have sent one by now. Children must eat, despite the sins of the mother or the father. I, of all people, know this.”

More old business, for prior to their marriage, Leah had endured her share of scandal and heartbreak. Nick had his spies in the stables though, and knew Nita had already seen to the basket.

“Addy Chalmers doesn’t sin in solitude,” he said. “My most enthusiastic sinning was ever undertaken in company. To the extent that Nita’s charitable, she has my admiration, but she has no regard for her station.”

Leah patted his thigh, then straightened, which was prudent of her. A man married less than a year was prone to certain thoughts when private with his wife, particularly when that dear lady was in need of comfort, the door was locked, and the brazier giving off a cozy warmth.

Alas, Leah had also recently become a mother, and restraint was still the marital order of the day.

And the night.

“I have endless admiration for Nita,” Leah said. “She’s been very helpful acquainting me with the household matters, but, Nicholas, I don’t think galloping off at all hours to tend to the sick and the dying is making Nita happy.”

“It’s not making her married, you mean. Perhaps she can find a younger son who’s turned up medical.”

Though where Nick would find one of those for Nita, he did not know. This medical younger son would have to be a forward-thinking chap with some means. Nita needed somebody with a light heart too, not full of death or Scripture, and it wouldn’t hurt if the fellow were inclined to have a large family.

Nicholas’s father had maintained that women with large families were too busy managing their own broods to wander into mischief. Nita didn’t wander into mischief, she charged at it headlong.

“Come spring, we’ll open a campaign to see Nita settled,” Leah said. “Kirsten, Susannah, and Della will abet us. I think Della has taken an interest in Mr. St. Michael.”

Of all the burdens Nick shared with his dear wife, the burden of being head of his family was the one he most appreciated her counsel about—even when she was wrong.

“Della isn’t out yet, lovey. She shouldn’t be noticing any gentlemen.” Besides, Nick had St. Michael in mind for Kirsten, who, like St. Michael, suffered no fools and didn’t put on airs. “Why do you think Della is considering St. Michael?”

Leah hopped off her stool and took her stack of papers to the brazier. One at a time, she fed her menus to the flames.

“When was the last time Della stirred from her rooms before late morning, Nicholas?”

Well, damn. “When your handsome, desirable, and ever-so-widowed brother Trenton came to call over the summer.”

“Your strategy to have the family breakfast together isn’t working, you know.”

Denying the Haddonfield siblings breakfast trays in the hope they’d at least start their day from the same table had been Nick’s strategy, and Leah had been against it. She’d given the staff the appropriate orders, however, and thus she bore the brunt of the family’s disgruntlement.

“Then deny them even tea trays,” Nick said, for the situation was vexing his countess and stern measures were in order.

Leah balled up half a sheet of paper and tossed it into the fire. Probably lobster and trifle on Tuesday night.

“Will you forgo your morning chocolate too, Nicholas? Will you make me give up mine? Your siblings are not sheep, to be herded together for the convenience of their shepherd.”

The only full-time shepherd Nick employed had a fondness for the bottle.

“Damned sheep,” Nick grumbled. “My sympathy for the challenges Papa faced as the earl grows daily. I ran into Edward Nash at the apothecary yesterday. He hinted strongly that the very herds St. Michael wants to buy would make a lovely dowry for Susannah.”

Another half sheet went hurtling into the conflagration. “Mr. Nash is presuming.”

Mr. Nash was hinting and dithering, while poor Susannah likely went to bed each night praying for a ring from the man. Nick could not afford a large cash settlement for each sister, and Nash’s hints hadn’t been entirely unwelcome.

“We own an embarrassment of sheep, lovey mine, maybe even enough to entice two handsome bachelors to the altar, but what aren’t you telling me?”

Two pieces of paper remained. These Leah folded and stuffed into a pocket of her cape. “The moon was bright last night, Nicholas.”

Nick hopped down and wrapped his arms around his wife, for he could hear voices beyond the door and what Leah had to say was for Nick’s ears only. Her shape had changed since she’d become a mother, and she fit against him more comfortably than ever, though her logic eluded him.

He nuzzled her ear. “The moon was bright and…?”

“And when Nita came in from her errand last night, she must have come upon Mr. St. Michael in the stables.”

“I threatened to fire Jacobs for leaving Nita at that woman’s cottage, but hurling lordly thunderbolts is pointless. The staff is in the habit of doing as Nita tells them.”

Fortunately, Nita had told them to heed the countess’s direction in all things, or a delicate situation would have grown impossible, for in her way, Leah was as stubborn as Nita.

“You’re all in the habit of doing as Nita tells you,” Leah said, “and that is not her fault. She and Mr. St. Michael tarried in the gazebo.”

Nick left off kissing his wife’s chin, for a gazebo on a midwinter night was nowhere to tarry for mere conversation.

“Last night was colder than the ninth circle of hell,” Nick muttered. Complete with a ring around the moon portending snow.

Leah rested her cheek against his chest while, beyond the door, somebody called for Atlas and the Scottish gent’s gelding to be saddled.

“Exactly, Nicholas. Despite the cold and darkness, despite having no prior acquaintance with the man, Nita tarried in the gazebo with Mr. St. Michael, and, Nicholas?”

He was becoming aroused, and his dear lady was happily tucking herself closer to him. Whenever Nick held his wife for more than a moment, desire flared, and he wondered why, in the name of all that was sweet, young men avoided holy matrimony.

To bargain over sheep, for God’s sake?

“Lovey?”

“Nita blew out the lamp, and still, Mr. St. Michael remained in the gazebo with her.”

“Mr. St. Michael, I assure you, you need not accompany me.”

Lady Nita headed for the stables at a pace the King’s mail would have envied, though Tremaine’s longer legs allowed him to keep up easily.

“You’ll ride across frozen ground alone, then?” Tremaine asked pleasantly. “Risk your mount slipping on a patch of ice? End up in a ditch, there to freeze while hoping for an early spring?”

Her ladyship came to an abrupt halt beside the gazebo where they’d spent a few chilly moments the previous evening. Lady Nita’s skirts swished about her boots in a susurration any grown man would hear as indignant.

“My plans are not your affair, sir.”

She apparently wished they were nobody’s affair save her own. Alas, Tremaine could not indulge her ladyship’s wishes.

“If I remain in that house,” he said, leaning closer, “Lady Kirsten will discuss the financial pages with me, Lady Della will want gossip from Town she’s too innocent to comprehend, and Lady Susannah will ask for more poetry recited in my
charming
accent
.”

While George’s interest likely careened toward territory Tremaine would not discuss with the man’s sister.

In the midst of Tremaine’s tirade, Lady Nita smoothed a gloved hand over his shoulder, though his coat had been thoroughly brushed since their morning outing.

“You do have a charming accent, particularly when in the grip of strong emotion.”

“You are laughing at me.” Being made an object of ridicule could justify murder among some of Tremaine’s Highland relations, though amusing Lady Nita was a different proposition entirely. She was accustomed to her older brother raising his voice to her and provoking her to slamming doors. Her reaction to Tremaine’s complaining was altogether more interesting than a slammed door.

Lady Nita had the decency not to smile, but her blue eyes danced an entire set of waltzes at the expense of his dignity.

“Is it really such an imposition to prose on for a few verses about a mouse, Mr. St. Michael?”

Two thoughts collided in Tremaine’s awareness and tangled with Lady Nita’s sweet, lemony fragrance.

First, she had not been present when he’d trotted out his meager store of Mr. Burns’s verse for the delectation of the ladies. She’d collected a report about the matter, which was intriguing. Second, for the space of this small discussion—skirmish, altercation, or argument—Lady Nita had forgotten whatever mission propelled her back out into the elements on a cold winter day.

“The poem is not simply about a plowman overturning a mouse’s nest,” Tremaine said. “Burns was writing about the tenuousness of life, the ease with which we can inadvertently cause mortal peril to one another, and how the same peril can find us despite our best-laid plans and our innocence of any wrongdoing.”

Tremaine might have launched into an explanation of Burns’s precarious existence as a Scottish farmer, the poet’s tender regard for nature, or some other blather, but the lady was once again about her business.

“Exactly, Mr. St. Michael,” she said, striding off. “Innocents among us are not responsible for the harm befalling them. You may spend your afternoon aiding my sister Della in her efforts to master the waltz, so that no missteps befall her in the ballrooms of London this spring. The gossips can be unmercifully critical, and Della is too tenderhearted for her own good.”

So tenderhearted that Lady Della was closeted with
Debrett’s
, doubtless making a list of eligible dukes, while Lady Nita risked lung fever in her haste to ensure the well-being of a newborn.

Did none of the Haddonfield menfolk regard themselves as responsible for her welfare? Had she turned them all into bleating sheep with her brisk pronouncements and swishing hems?

“Spend the afternoon waltzing?” Tremaine said, resuming his place beside her. “Not on your life, my lady. I’ll start off twirling about with Lady Della, all in the name of gentlemanly charity. While the countess smiles at us from the piano, Lady Susannah will come next, and then, when I’m winded from my exertions and all unsuspecting, Lady Kirsten will take a turn with me, until they’ve counted my very teeth and reported my prospects to Bellefonte in detail.”

“They already know you’re wealthy,” Lady Nita said, her tone…pitying? “Nicholas need not have invited you to his home purely for business purposes, though. He transacts most of his business in the City, or at least sees to it when he’s in Town.”

Her ladyship’s honesty was not so endearing in the cold light of day.

“You confirm my darkest suspicions, Lady Nita, and thus you owe it to me to tolerate my company when you call on that baby. You will take either me or a groom, and the groom will report your activities to your brother.”

She stopped outside the stables, the embodiment of feminine frustration. “I am merely after a refreshing hack, Mr. St. Michael.”

From which she might well return with more bloodstains on her cuffs, or worse. Based on her brothers’ mutterings, Tremaine suspected Lady Nita of planning other medical calls, perhaps even to households afflicted with contagion.

Such behavior for an earl’s unmarried daughter was insupportable in an age blessed with trained medical men in nearly every shire.

“I’ll be gone in another few days,” Tremaine said. “Surely you can endure my company until then? ‘Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, timorous beastie’ that I am.”

Her ladyship’s sense of humor plagued her again. Tremaine divined this by how severely she glowered at his boots.

“You are not a mouse, Mr. St. Michael.”

“I’m not an overbearing older brother either,” he said gently, for the grooms were hollering to each other in the barn and some conversations were private. “Somebody should ensure the child still lives and the mother isn’t feverish. I understand that.”

Lady Nita’s gaze shifted to the gray clouds brooding over the Downs to the southwest.

“If she’s feverish, there’s little enough I can do, except try to keep her comfortable and hope a wet nurse will take the child.”

“We are agreed then. You will spare me waltzes, and I will spare you awkward questions from your well-meaning family.”

The grooms led the horses out, Atlas sporting bulging sacks slung over his withers.
A
refreshing
hack, indeed.

“I’ll be gone in three days’ time,” Tremaine said, for Bellefonte would either part with his sheep for a reasonable price or he wouldn’t. “‘Nae man can tether time nor tide,’” Tremaine quoted. “And no ten men can stop the press of business for one such as I. If your brother won’t sell me his sheep, then I’m off to Germany in search of other herds. Humor me just this once, madam, and I’ll not trouble you again.”

Lady Nita accepted Atlas’s reins from the groom, and gave the boy a look such that he hustled back into the barn with a muttered, “G’day, yer ladyship.”

Tremaine bid William to stand, which the beast would do until spring if need be.

“You may accompany me,” Lady Nita said, “but I want to hear that poem about the mouse and life’s precariousness. Susannah was quite taken with it.”

Tremaine boosted Lady Nita onto her unprepossessing gelding, surprised at her request.

Also pleased.

* * *

Nita approached the Chalmerses’ cottage purposefully, though dread dragged at her heels, given what she’d found on other visits here. Did Mr. St. Michael oblige her by remaining on his horse, looking handsome and substantial in his winter finery?

No, he did not.

He swung down and tethered their horses to the porch railing, then clomped up the sagging steps right behind her.

“This is not necessary, Mr. St. Michael. You will embarrass the mother and make my errand here more awkward.”

He rapped on the door with a gloved fist. “This mother will not embarrass so easily as that.”

The cottage stank, as Nita had known it would, of boiled cabbage, unwashed bodies, dirty linen, and despair.

“Lady Nita!” Mary’s greeting was enthusiastic but quiet, and her younger brothers said nothing at all.

“Hello, Mary. Mr. St. Michael and I thought to see how you’re getting on.” The cheer in Nita’s voice was mostly sincere, for Mary held a small bundle in her arms, and the baby’s blanket was still clean.

“Mama’s resting,” Mary said, the baby tucked securely against her middle. “Wee Annie is thriving.”

“You lot,” Mr. St. Michael said to Mary’s younger brothers. “Outside with me now. Two horses need walking and somebody must show me where the woodpile is.” His tone of voice was positively glacial, and the boys dove for their coats and scarves.

“Evan, you stay inside,” Nita said, for the smallest of the three boys had weak lungs and likely no shoes.

“He can gather up the soiled linens,” Mr. St. Michael said. “There’s laundry in need of boiling.”

Well, yes. Any household with a new baby boasted a deal of laundry.

Within minutes, Nita heard the rhythmic sound of an ax falling, and Evan was scurrying about, making a great heap of dirty clothing, bedding, and linen by the cottage door.

Nita used the relative privacy to fold back the curtain over the sleeping alcove, where Addy slumbered on as if she were the worse for drink.

“She hasn’t had any gin,” Mary whispered. “Not since wee Annie was born. Mama has slept and slept. I bring her the baby, like you told me to.”

The back of Nita’s hand to Addy’s forehead verified the absence of fever.

“Having a baby can be tiring,” Nita said softly. Childbirth could also be fatal, and then what would these children do? Nick allowed them to forage in the home wood for deadfall, and Nita had her suspicions about where the occasional hare in the stew pot came from.

“Annie’s awake,” Mary said, peering at her sister. “She’s hardly ever awake.”

The very old and the very young often drifted in a benevolent twilight. When Nita’s father had dwelled in that twilight continuously, she’d known his end approached.

“Let’s have a look at her,” Nita said, closing the curtain and taking the baby from Mary’s arms.

Annie Elizabeth felt solid, reassuringly so, and Mary had kept the baby clean. A clout had been tied about the infant’s small form, one of many Nita had made from old shifts and sheets.

The door opened and fresh, chilly air gusted through the cottage.

Tremaine St. Michael dumped a load of split wood into the empty wood box.

“So that’s the new arrival?” he asked, peering at the baby in Nita’s arms. “Pretty little thing. Ladies of that size always look so innocent.”

In this household, the child’s innocence was doomed.

“Her name’s Annie,” Mary volunteered. Behind the curtained alcove, Addy stirred in her sleep, then fell silent.

“And you’re Mary,” Mr. St. Michael said, dropping to his haunches. “Your brothers are quite in awe of you. They say you can cook and clean, and should go for a maid in a fancy lord’s house because you work ever so hard the livelong day.”

Mary’s brows drew down at this flattery, though Mr. St. Michael’s words were true enough. The cottage was tidy—the dirt floor swept, the baby’s linens folded in a short stack on the table, the hearth free of excess ashes. Most of the sausage Nita had brought last time hung from the crossbeam between sheaves of herbs and a rope of onions.

“I couldn’t leave our Annie,” Mary said. “The boys want me earning coin. They wouldn’t know how to help with Annie, though.”

Mr. St. Michael rose, his expression displeased.

“Give me that baby, my lady,” he said, plucking Annie from Nita’s arms. “Mary needs a spot of fresh air, you’re dying to fill that stew pot, and the water for the laundry will take some time to heat.”

“Ma said we weren’t to do laundry,” Mary murmured, passing Mr. St. Michael the baby’s blanket. “We need the wood for heat.”

“Get your coat on,” Tremaine told the girl as he wrapped Annie snugly in the blanket and put the baby to his shoulder. “One of your brothers is gathering more wood as we speak, to keep the fire under the laundry tub going; the other is walking the horses one at a time. If you can figure out how to climb onto my gelding, you’re welcome to walk him out for me.”

Mary sent Nita one glance, the merest brush of elated disbelief, then dashed for her cloak and was out the door.

“You’re spoiled here in the south,” Mr. St. Michael said, stroking the baby’s back gently. “You have hours and hours of sunshine, regardless of the season. If the sun’s out, those children should be catching a glimpse of it.”

He wasn’t exactly wrong, and he moved around the cottage with that child affixed to his shoulder as if…

“You
like
babies?” Nita asked as Mr. St. Michael took down the length of sausage.

“Who wouldn’t like a baby, for God’s sake?” Next he took down the onions, and from a basket near the hearth, he selected a fat turnip, all one-handed. “This will be sharper than anything you can find here,” he said, passing Nita a folding knife.

He could have put the child down, of course, but Nita didn’t suggest this. Tremaine St. Michael had offered his warmth to a mere lamb. Surely Annie would know she was safe in his arms?

“I liked your poem,” Nita said, starting on the sausage. Small pieces, because the children would bolt their stew rather than chew it, and of course, the meat had to last as long as possible.

“Mr. Burns’s poem,” Mr. St. Michael retorted. Outside, some child shrieked with laughter. “Mary will come to grief if she tries to trot, and then her brothers will take a turn. Every child should know how to sit a horse, and William loves children.”

William
loved children?

“My new friend remains fast asleep,” he went on, “a testament to my limitless charms. Shall I tuck her in with the mother?”

Nita’s knife came down decisively, beheading a turnip. “Absolutely not. That box by the fire is for the baby.”

Mr. St. Michael laid the child in the box and arranged her blankets around her. “I thought this box was for kindling.”