Tremaine's True Love (8 page)

“I’m looking for spices. Cider wants—there it is.” He set the lamp down and brought a small jar to the hearth, sprinkling something into the cider. The scent of cinnamon rose as he returned the jar to the cupboard. “I suspect if I looked long enough, I could find the ginger biscuits too.”

Ginger biscuits dipped in mulled cider turned a late-night snack into something altogether more delectable.

“Biscuits are in that crock near the window.”

Mr. St. Michael brought the entire crock to the raised hearth and pulled up a low stool before the fire.

“Does Lady Susannah truly fancy that literary squire?” he asked.

Nita swung the steaming cider off the coals. “I hope not.” She prayed not. “Why do you ask?”

“The earl would have me believe that yonder squire will pluck up his courage to make an offer for Lady Susannah if her dowry includes a lot of valuable sheep. If this is so, the squire is stupid and your brother not much brighter.”

Nita liked that Mr. St. Michael was blunt, for that allowed her to be blunt too.

“The squire is arrogant, Mr. St. Michael, and Nicholas has too much on his mind. Why do you insult them?”

Nita poured cider into mugs, set those on the hearth, then fetched the bread and butter and a cold, red apple. A feast, by the lights of many.

By her lights too. She settled in on the hearth, where heat lingered in the stones from the day’s cooking.

“Sheep are generally regarded as simple animals,” Mr. St. Michael said, “easily panicked, without much sense. They are deemed thus by the man who curses them when they find the single weakness in any fence or wall, when they do as they jolly well please despite the collie barking and racing about, or when they’re solving a problem—such as a lack of fodder—their owner has ignored.”

He took a sip of cider while the scents of cinnamon and apples filled the kitchen. The hearth was warm, the cider delicious, and Mr. St. Michael’s odd accent—at once rough and plush—absolutely appropriate for his chosen topic.

“The squire’s fences are a disgrace,” he went on. “I doubt he has a decent sheep dog, and his fields are all in want of marling, from what I could see. He cannot possibly provide adequate care for one of the most valuable herds in England. These biscuits are excellent.”

Nita dipped a ginger biscuit in cider and took a bite. Spicy, sweet, warm, and as comforting as the company of a man who didn’t mince words and who did care about his sheep.

“Quite lovely,” Nita murmured.

“You could sort out the squire in short order, Nita Haddonfield, and yet you disdain marriage. I wonder why.”

Nita liked this about Mr. St. Michael too. Liked that his mind was restless and curious, that he tackled real questions and left platitudes about the weather to the less stalwart.

“You’ve apparently disdained marriage yourself,” she said.

He cradled his mug in both hands, as if warmth—any warmth—must not be squandered.

“I’m skeptical of the institution’s virtues,” he said, “and well aware of its limitations. My parents’ union was not cordial, particularly for my mother, and yet she didn’t even try to extricate herself when she had the opportunity. Your brother seems happy with his countess.”

A tactful, if enormous, understatement.

“Nicholas and Leah are besotted. For them, marriage makes sense. I’ve already been the lady of the manor and did not have to submit to a husband’s dominion to obtain that status. My mother died, my brothers went off on various quests, and my father grew to rely on me. The staff answered to me, the tenants looked to me for guidance, and I developed a taste for independence.”

Rather like Nita was developing a taste for ginger biscuits and cider.

Mr. St. Michael dipped his biscuit too, his third. “Independence appeals to many of us. Have you a strategy for maintaining this happy state?”

No, Nita did not, other than sheer determination. “Have you?”

He passed her a slice of buttered bread. “I am in trade, my dear. Notably lacking in address, and in possession of both Scottish and French ancestry. For the nonce, I’m safe.”

No, Mr. St. Michael was not
safe
. He dealt easily with children, had a well-hidden streak of practical charity, and looked altogether too appealing over a crock of ginger biscuits. He wasn’t precisely handsome, though. Nita liked that too.

“Have a care, Mr. St. Michael. You’re wealthy, well traveled, and you can spout poetry. Best not relax your guard. Will you share this apple?”

He produced a knife, the folding knife with the sharp, sharp edge, and set about quartering and coring the apple.

Nita was about to ask him why marriage—an arrangement that heavily favored the male of the species—had earned his skepticism when the back door opened on a gust of frigid air.

Her first thought was that Addy or her baby was in distress, followed by a fear that Elsie Nash might have summoned her. Twice before, Nita had silently hurried up the servants’ stairs at Stonebridge to attend Elsie when the rest of the household had been abed.

Belle Maison’s head groom, a venerable Welshman named Alfrydd, stomped snow from his boots.

“Evening, Lady Nita, guv’nor. Rider out from Town has brought the gentleman a letter.”

Alfrydd withdrew a sealed note from his pocket, and only now, when a trusted retainer of long-standing studied the bunches of herbs and onions hanging from the rafters, did Nita worry about her appearance.

About
the
appearances, and she should be beyond that in her own—in
her
brother’s
—kitchen.

Mr. St. Michael tore open the note, scanned it, and cursed in what sounded like Gaelic. “My tups are sickening. Can somebody saddle my horse?”

Alfrydd abruptly left off inspecting the rafters. “It be damned midnight, begging my lady’s pardon. Aye, there’s a moon, but there’s clouds too, and the wind is murderous.”

Nita’s sentiments weren’t half so polite. “You won’t do your sheep any good if you end up freezing to death in a ditch, Mr. St. Michael, or if you come down with lung fever. Alfrydd, have you room for this rider in the grooms’ quarter?”

“Aye, and a pot of tea to offer the fellow.”

Nita wrapped up the remains of the bread loaf in a towel and handed Alfrydd a crock of butter as well.

“Thank Mr. St. Michael’s rider for his heroic efforts” she said, “and be ready for Mr. St. Michael to leave at first light.”

“But my tups are the most valuable—” Mr. St. Michael began, speaking in the loudest—and most Scottish—tones Nita had heard from him.

“Alfrydd, our thanks,” Nita said.

Alfrydd swept Nita with a look that encompassed her slippers, her upset guest, and her hair, hanging over her shoulder in a single braid. “G’night, my lady. Sir.”

Nita planted herself directly before Mr. St. Michael, between him and the door. “What did the note say?”

“It’s the damned weather,” he muttered, his gaze on the door Alfrydd had pulled stoutly closed. “Winter hasn’t been bad until these past few weeks, and then we had two snowstorms back-to-back, and some truly bitter temperatures. The water freezes, or is so cold the silly sheep won’t drink it, and if they—my lady, I must go.”

So he could risk his neck for some adolescent rams?

“Mr. St. Michael, tell me what the note said.” Nita used the same tone on patients who hadn’t yet realized the seriousness of an injury. Also on her siblings.

He took the paper from his pocket and shoved it at her. “They’re sick, some of them are down, and that’s a very bad sign. These are my best lads, the ones I had in mind for breeding to your merinos. These fellows don’t get sick, they’re great, strapping youngsters in excellent health, and I
must
go.”

His accent had traveled farther north the longer he spoke, his
r
’s strewn along the Great North Road, his
t
’s sharpening into verbal weaponry as they crossed the River Tweed.

Nita’s reactions to the note both pleased and disquieted her. Mr. St. Michael took the welfare of his flock seriously, and not out of simple duty or commercial concern. He cared for these smelly, woolly, bleating creatures. Their suffering mattered to him.

Which insight was at variance with the gruff, businesslike demeanor Mr. St. Michael showed the world.

Nita’s second reaction was more of an unwelcome possibility: Was this how Nita reacted to word that some child had fallen ill or some grandmother was at her last prayers? St. Michael’s sheep had shepherds as well as the sheep equivalent of stable boys, and yet he trusted no one to deal with the situation but himself.

Grandmothers had grandchildren. Children had mothers and fathers, yet never once had Nita questioned that she herself must hare off to attend any who summoned her.

In this weather, at this hour, she’d permit no haring off. “Mr. St. Michael, please sit.”

“I don’t want to blasted
sit
. When I’ve taken every precaution, fed them extra rations, added hot water to their icy buckets at considerable effort on the part of—”

Nita took Mr. St. Michael by the shoulders and turned him toward the hearth, which was rather like persuading Atlas away from his hay.

“Listen to me,” Nita said, when he’d finally acquiesced to her prodding and resumed his seat. “My brother has pigeons. Your sheep are in Oxfordshire?”

“This herd is.”

Nita put a biscuit in Mr. St. Michael’s hand. “We have pigeons in the dovecote from Mr. Belmont’s estate in Oxfordshire. Are these extra rations from the same hay you normally feed?”

Mr. St. Michael stared at the biscuit. Nita could see him trying to make himself focus, the way she had to focus when deciding what supplies to grab when somebody was badly injured. Catgut, scissors, poultices mostly, and a prayer that Dr. Horton hadn’t already been consulted regarding the course of treatment.

“I had the steward buy some particularly good hay,” Mr. St. Michael informed his biscuit. “We’ve saved it back to feed on the coldest nights. That hay is beautiful, soft, green. It’s quite dear, but worth the expense.”

“Send a pigeon in the morning,” Nita said. “Tell your men to switch back to your usual hay.”

Mr. St. Michael half rose, then sat back down heavily, as if an excess of strong spirits had caught up with him.

“Pretty hay isn’t always the best quality,” he murmured. “Noxious weeds can spring up in any field.”

In other words, Nita’s theory had merit, and she hadn’t even had to raise her voice or slam a door. Reason had joined them in the kitchen, a far more agreeable companion than panic. Mr. St. Michael broke the biscuit in half and offered Nita the larger portion.

“Unless you’ve moved your herd or recently added to it,” she said, “a sudden illness affecting many of the flock isn’t likely. If it’s not contagion, then a problem with their fodder is the next most likely culprit.”

Mr. St. Michael dispatched his sweet in silence, though as Nita took a place beside him before the fire, she sent up a prayer the problem was as simple as a noxious weed. Diagnosis was equal parts science and instinct, with common sense mediating between the two.

“May we send the pigeon tonight, Lady Nita?” Worry and the Aberdeenshire hills still laced Mr. St. Michael’s voice.

“Certainly. A good bird will be in Oxfordshire before your lads are at their morning chores. Alfrydd manages the dovecote.”

The apple went next, in a few crunchy bites, while Mr. St. Michael remained quiet, and Nita’s feet grew chilly.

“The grooms sleep above the carriage house?” Mr. St. Michael asked.

“Alfrydd among them. You might take them some biscuits.” For nobody would get any rest until Mr. St. Michael had done something to ensure the welfare of his sheep.

While Nicholas thought to send the merinos
and
Susannah
to Edward Nash?

“You truly think it’s the hay?” Mr. St. Michael asked, rising. He took his mug to the sink, tossed the apple core into the slop bucket, and wiped his hands on the towel kept for that purpose near the bread box.

“I’m nearly sure of it,” Nita said, though no medical situation was ever certain. “You’ll also want to scrub out the water buckets. If all you’re doing is adding hot water to icy buckets, then the buckets haven’t been truly cleaned for some time. Start fresh, and see if the sheep aren’t more interested.”

“Excellent advice,” he said, draping the towel over its hook exactly as he’d found it. “I might have come to the same conclusions by the time I reached London—provided I hadn’t landed on my arse in the ditch at the foot of your lane.”

Mr. St. Michael offered Nita his hand, and without thinking, Nita let him draw her to her feet. They were in the kitchen, she was wearing two thicknesses of wool stockings, and front parlor manners were the farthest thing from her—

Tremaine St. Michael hugged her. The sensation was rather like being enveloped in a blanket left to warm on a brass fender, all comfort and ease, a hint of heather and lavender, and an irresistible temptation to relax.

To relax everything. Nita’s mind, her body, her worries, her
heart
, yielded to the pleasure of Tremaine St. Michael’s embrace.

“I worry over those young fellows,” he murmured. “I am in your debt, my lady.”

Tremaine St. Michael’s debts were patiently repaid. He made no move to march off to the stable. Nita rested her head on his shoulder—so few men were tall enough to afford her that comfort.

She offered him the words nobody offered her.

“You’re good to worry for them, Mr. St. Michael. They count on you to look after them, to keep them healthy, and your people were right to bring this problem to you. A few days of proper rations, a nap in the sun, and your tups will recover. Keep them in your prayers, and this time next week, they’ll be good as new.”

Mr. St. Michael stroked Nita’s hair, another invitation to relax, to be safe and warm. “One doesn’t admit to praying for sheep.”

One
just had, perhaps even two.