Tremaine's True Love (10 page)

Mr. St. Michael took Nita’s hand and resumed walking. They hadn’t bothered with gloves, and his grip was warm.

“Mr. Burns had rather a lot of dearies,” he said, his burr once again more in evidence.

While Nita had no one dear, other than her family. A gust of bitter wind blew down from the north, snowflakes slanting along it.

“Must you go, Mr. St. Michael?”

“I don’t like the look of those clouds either,” he said as they approached the stables, “but I’ll probably make London before the weather does anything serious. Will you grant me a favor, my lady?”

“Yes.” Nobody asked Nita for favors. They asked her to set bones, deliver babies, listen to their coughs, poultice their wounds, or—in the case of Nicholas—they ordered her to sit at home and stitch samplers.

“You don’t know what I’m about to ask,” Mr. St. Michael said.

“I know you. You wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.” Nita also knew she’d miss Mr. St. Michael. He was not friendly, but he had somehow become her friend.

“Please see that this gets to the Chalmers household.” He passed Nita coins, a good ten pounds, a fortune to Addy and her children. “I’m not sure whether the best approach is to give it to the mother, so she knows she need not immediately return to her trade, or to give it to the child, Mary, so it won’t be wasted on gin. I’m delegating that decision to you.”

Nita slipped the coins into the pocket of her cape. “Some would say you’re condoning sin.” While Nita wanted to hug him.

“If feeding children and preventing them from freezing to death is sin, then I condemned myself to eternal hellfire ages ago, simply through the number of youths I employ to tend my flocks. My parents were quite wealthy, but they chose to guard their wealth rather than remain with their sons. Addy has not abandoned her offspring, though her children are one storm away from either death or the poorhouse, and I know not which is worse.”

“Thank you, regardless of the theology or your motivations.” Mr. St. Michael was kind, though he would not want that put into words.

He dropped Nita’s hand and signaled the groom to bring William out. “May I make a farewell to your Atlas, my lady?”

“Of course.” Despite her heavy cloak, Nita was chilled, and the barn would be relatively warm.

They walked into the stables, out of the wind but into near darkness. In warmer months, the hay port doors, windows, and cupola would be opened to let in light and air, but in winter, warmth was more important than light.

Atlas lifted his head over the half door, a mouthful of hay munched to oblivion as Nita and Mr. St. Michael approached.

“You need a more elegant mount, my lady,” Mr. St. Michael said. “Just as you need a silly evening of cards, a waltz or two, and more poetry. I had hoped to give you that.”

Nita
needed
to kiss him. Tremaine St. Michael had offered her a rare glimpse of how male understanding could comfort and please, he’d offered her poetry, and he was leaving.

“Good-bye, Mr. St. Michael.”

Nita didn’t have to go up on her toes to kiss him, but she did have to stand tall. Despite the bitter wind outside, despite his lack of hat, scarf, or gloves, Mr. St. Michael’s lips were warm.

He tasted of peppermint with a hint of ginger biscuit. Nita hadn’t planned more than to press her lips to his, but Mr. St. Michael was apparently willing to indulge her beyond those essentials.

His hands landed on her shoulders, gently but firmly, as he tucked her between himself and the wall of Atlas’s stall. He slid a hand into her hair, cradling the back of her head against his palm.

Soon, he’d gallop off to Oxford, but the way he held Nita said, for the moment,
she
wasn’t going anywhere.

Well, neither would he. Nita wrapped an arm around Mr. St. Michael’s waist—blast all winter clothing to perdition—and sank a hand into his dark locks.

“I’ll miss—” she managed before his mouth settled over hers, and Nita’s worldly cares, her disgruntlement with her family, her concern for the Chalmers children, all went quite…tapsalteerie-o.

Kissing Mr. St. Michael bore a resemblance to the onset of a fever. Weakness assailed Nita, from her middle outward, through her limbs, and then heat welled in its wake. He held her snugly—she would not fall—but she felt as if she were falling.

Tremaine St. Michael’s kiss was a marvel of contradictions: solid male strength all around Nita and feather-soft caresses to her lips; dark frustration to be limited to a kiss and soaring satisfaction to have a kiss that transcended mere friendliness; utter glee to find that her advances were enthusiastically returned and plummeting sorrow because Mr. St. Michael’s horse awaited him in the stable yard.

He cupped Nita’s jaw as he traced kisses over her eyebrows, nose, and cheeks.

“You deserve more than a stolen kiss in the stable,” he whispered. “But if a stolen kiss is what you’ll take, then I hope this one was memorable.”

This one kiss, this one series of kisses had, in less than a minute, banished winter from Nita’s little corner of Kent.

She rested against him, as she had for a moment in the kitchen late at night. “You’ll let us know when you’ve arrived safely to Oxford.” She was repeating herself.

“I’ll let
you
know, and, Nita?”

Not Lady Nita, but plain Nita. How that warmed her too. “Tremaine?”

She felt the pleasure of her familiar address reverberate through him, because he kissed her ear as he held her in the gloom of the stables.

“Please be careful. Your brother isn’t wrong to worry about you. Tending to the sick is noble but perilous. I would not want harm to befall you.”

Nita added two more feelings to the bittersweet confusion in her heart. Tremaine St. Michael cared for her, and yet he sounded as if he nearly agreed with Nicholas: the Earl of Bellefonte’s oldest sister ought to spend her afternoons stitching samplers, indifferent to the suffering of others.

“I’ll be careful,” Nita said. “You avoid the ditches.”

“I generally do, though I wish—” Mr. St. Michael stayed where he was a moment longer, peering down at Nita as a heathery fragrance sneaked beneath the stable scents to tease at Nita’s nose.

Nita was penned in by the wall, the horse, and Mr. St. Michael, so she turned her face away, from him, from his wishes.

“Safe journey, Mr. St. Michael.”

He stepped back, and as he tugged his gloves on, Nita could see his focus withdraw from her and affix itself to his sheep, to the journey he undertook to ensure their safety.

Nobody had
ever
tormented him with orders to stitch samplers while a child suffered influenza or a maiden aunt endured a female complaint in mortified silence.

Nita was the first to move toward the stable yard, lest Mr. St. Michael ruin a delightful kiss with parting sermons and scolds.

William waited outside, a groom leading him in a plodding circle. Snowflakes graced a brisk breeze beneath a leaden sky, and Nita’s resentment receded to its taproot: worry, for Mr. St. Michael, for the infirm whom she tended.

And a little worry for herself too.

“I have enjoyed my stay at Belle Maison,” Mr. St. Michael said, taking the reins from the groom. “Every bit of it.”

He led William to the mounting block, the first few steps of a distance that must widen and widen between him and Nita. She wanted to throw herself into his embrace just once more, but instead spared the sullen sky a glance.

Mr. St. Michael swung up as a flutter of white caught Nita’s eye, followed by a thin, tinkling peal from the bell in the dovecote.

* * *

Elsinore Mayhew Nash was a furious woman, also a mother devoted to her son. When her brother-by-marriage summoned her to his library, she took off her apron, slapped a vapid smile on her face, and hastened to Edward’s side.

“You wanted to see me, Edward?” Elsie’s tone imparted eager, if timid, good cheer. The only eagerness she’d felt in the past year had been to wallop Edward with a poker in locations chosen to ensure he never became a father.

“Elsie, a moment.”

So, of course, she must remain standing while Edward pretended to pore over a column of figures. Elsie could relax, though, because his complexion assured her he’d not yet begun to drink.

The Stonebridge “library” had once been the housekeeper’s sitting room. Now that Edward had appropriated it, the library was the warmest room in the house.

Also home to fewer than a hundred books, the rest having been sold.

Little did Edward know, but Elsie’s ball gowns had been sold too. She’d taken care of that before leaving London to join Edward’s household, a brilliant precaution quietly suggested by another lady who’d buried not one but three husbands.

“Please have a seat, my dear,” Edward said, returning his pen to its stand. “You’re looking well.”

Elsie’s guard went up. Not only was Edward sober, but he was also on his good behavior—for now.

“Thank you, Edward,” she said, perching on the edge of a straight-backed chair. “We’re making pies, which I enjoy. Apple is your favorite, isn’t it?”

More eager good cheer. Elsie had considered poisoning Edward, but how would Digby manage if his mother swung for murder? What little money she had hidden wouldn’t last long at all. Edward’s aging great-uncle, the baronet, was the sole relation left to provide for the boy, and the baronet might be worse than Edward.

“I do favor an apple pie,” Edward said. “I do not, however, favor George Haddonfield in any proximity to my nephew.”

Eager good cheer gave way to feminine confusion. Elsie had mastered the transition by her second week under Edward’s roof.

“George Haddonfield? Surely we’d remain on friendly terms with Lady Susannah’s brother? He brought Digby home from his tutoring session merely as a kindness on a frigid day.”

Edward retrieved his quill pen and brushed it over his fingertips. “The situation is delicate. Friendly terms with Susannah’s siblings for now is a prudent course, but George Haddonfield in particular is to be avoided.”

Susannah, not
Lady
Susannah, because Edward had already appropriated the privileges of a fiancé.

Edward had systematically decided that most of the ladies with whom Elsie corresponded were not quite the thing, a less-than-ideal association, or better suited to friendship with a woman not bereaved.

In other words, he was choking off Elsie’s friendships, one after the other, lest somebody get wind that Edward Nash was rolled up, a sot, and desperate to marry well.

If only those were the worst of Edward’s shortcomings.

“Does George have excessive debts?” Elsie asked. He did not. The Haddonfields as a family were free of the vices Edward assiduously failed to acknowledge in himself.

“He well might,” Edward said, stroking the feather against his chin. “The Haddonfields don’t hesitate to put their unsavory family members on remittance, and George looks to be taking Beckman’s place in that regard.”

“Don’t many gentlemen live in hock to their tailors?” Questions were risky, but Edward was not yet imbibing, so Elsie could venture a few inquiries in the interests of understanding his latest queer start.

More twiddling of the feather while Elsie remained on the edge of her chair and resisted the urge to crack a window, so stuffy did Edward keep this one room.

“George’s situation is not as innocent as a few overdue bills among the merchants, Elsie. He has tastes I would not expect a woman of your refinement to comprehend, but they place him among the least appropriate associations you or my nephew could form.”

In a family of large, loud, dramatic men and headstrong, outspoken sisters, George Haddonfield had a quiet independence that appealed strongly to a widow under the thumb of an in-law she abhorred.

So what if George hadn’t shed the habits many fellows developed in the best public school dormitories? Elsie had followed the drum for two years and had become difficult to shock.

“I’ll tell Digby to avoid Mr. Haddonfield’s company,” Elsie said. “Do I maintain a distance from him at the assembly?”

Edward thrived on instructing Elsie, the maids, Digby, and their man of all work, whom Edward insisted on referring to as a footman. Edward probably instructed his horses and hounds, who were at least free to bite and kick him.

Though they’d regret such displays sorely.

“In public, you will show Mr. Haddonfield every courtesy,” Edward said, twiddling the feather between his palms. “Dance with him, make small talk, inquire after his health. Bellefonte is protective of his siblings, and I cannot have it said we were less than gracious to any of Susannah’s family. Other than the civilities, though, you will avoid him. I offer you this guidance, because I know Pendleton would expect it of me.”

Elsie blinked a few times in rapid succession, as if mention of her late husband still had the power to move her to tears. She had Penny to thank for landing her in this hell, and for handing over Digby’s funds to a mean, intemperate wastrel.

“I owe you so much, Edward,” Elsie said, rising. “I am very grateful for your guidance. Was there more you wanted to say, or shall I get back to those pies?”

Because making pies was doubtless the acme of every gentlewoman’s ambitions, in Edward’s view.

“Don’t let me keep you, but please have the kitchen send up a tray. These endless figures make a man peckish. A toddy or two as well. Something to ward off the chill, and some comestibles to fortify me until my next meal.”

He came around the desk and held the door for Elsie, doing his impersonation of a blond, handsome exponent of good manners and faultless breeding. Edward would have been better served by fewer manners, more common sense, and a dash of self-restraint.

When the door had closed behind her, Elsie paused in the corridor long enough to let the chilly air wash over her.

Of the three Nash offspring, Penny had been the sensible middle brother, not as pretty as Edward, but willing to work to earn his bread, less concerned with appearances, and genuinely devoted to his son. He’d not been the brightest of officers, but he’d worked hard and had had a streak of gruff kindness that had made his sternness bearable.