Tremaine's True Love (30 page)

“Let’s to bed,” he said, rising and extending his hand to her. “We must talk about the ideal home in which to raise our family.”

Tremaine was no expert on women, but such a topic ought to catch Nita’s interest. She rose from her perch and went to the vanity, then sat and began plaiting her hair.

“I gather you anticipate getting many offspring with me?” she asked, whipping her hair into three skeins.

Tremaine unknotted his cravat and undid his sleeve buttons. “God willing, it shall be my privilege to give you babies, my lady. I’m not particular about the gender either. A French title is a business convenience, not who I am, so don’t you dare think our daughters will matter less than our sons.”

Nita winced, as if she’d found a knot among her tresses. “Very democratic of you.”

Tremaine sat on the bed to get after his boots, which by rights ought to have been left in the kitchen for a good oiling.

“Very paternal of me. I’m also of the Continental opinion a woman ought to nurse her own children, though I’ll accede to your wishes in this regard.”

Nita turned on her dressing stool. “Did you know the Duchess of Kent refused to use a wet nurse for her little Princess Alexandrina?”

Finally, a spark of interest.

“And you approve, suggesting we’ve found an area of parental agreement even before we’re wed. Did you enjoy the assembly?”

Nita turned back to face her vanity. “One endures the assemblies, for the most part.”

Such was Nita Haddonfield’s lack of guile that she hadn’t accounted for Tremaine being able to read her expression in the vanity’s mirror. Something or someone had upset her badly.

Tremaine pulled his shirt over his head, peeled out of his breeches, and stalked up behind the lady.

He took the ribbon from her fingers and lashed it around the tail of her braid. “You are tired, and in need of cosseting, my lady. Come to bed and pick out names with me. I’m told people in our situation are entitled to silly behavior.” Also lusty behavior, which, according to every shepherd Tremaine had shared a fire with, could cure all manner of megrims and melancholia.

Nita rose when Tremaine would have begun that cosseting with a gentle hug.

“I’ll get the candles if you’ll bank the fire,” she said, starting with a branch on her mantel. One by one she blew out each flame, the shadows in the room gradually converging into darkness.

Tremaine locked the door, scooped coals into the warmer, banked the fire, and ran the warmer over the sheets. He hoped—a dangerous undertaking, hoping—this was the start of a routine they’d share for the next five decades, but Nita’s mood was off, and he still had no idea why.

Maybe that was also part of married life?

Nita unbelted her robe, then drew her nightgown over her head. For a procession of instants, Tremaine beheld his intended by the flickering light of the fading fire. Long, graceful limbs, pale skin, rosy breasts, full hips gently curving into a feminine waist, a thatch of reddish gold curls at the juncture of her thighs.

“I am marrying a beautiful woman.” Inside and out, beautiful in her heart, in her body, in her restless, vigorous mind.

“While you are handsome,” Nita said, climbing onto the mattress, “and deserving of some cosseting yourself. Have your tups continued to recover?”

Tremaine joined her under the covers and she cuddled up along his side, a quietly perfect moment.

“I heard from my man today, and, yes, every one of them is up and about, swilling water like a sailor at his grog and nibbling all the grass hay we leave out for them.”

This time next year, those lads would all be anticipating their first lambs, and perhaps Tremaine would be too.

“Kiss me, Nita Haddonfield. Will you like becoming Nita St. Michael?”

Nita kissed him, a slow, nearly reverent tasting that fueled the desire simmering whenever Tremaine thought of his lady.

“We’ll not get much cuddling done if you keep that up,” he muttered, arranging himself over her and kissing her back. “Though I suppose we can always cuddle later.”

* * *

They
could
not
always
cuddle
later.

Nita ran her hands over the elegant musculature of Tremaine’s shoulders and back, smoothed her fingers over his fundament, and tried not to cry.

She could not marry a man who dismissed her ability to heal others. Tremaine of all people ought to understand that a meaningful life involved doing what needed to be done, not simply what one was pleased to do.

He was protective of others. Nita admired that about him, admired so much about him, but he would not allow her to be protective too.

“Make love with me, Tremaine.”

He’d once granted her a boon, to be redeemed at the time and place of her choosing. Nita seized this moment, knowing Tremaine might despise her for her selfishness come morning. She was being greedy and probably stupid, but she’d have decades to regret this impulse and to treasure the memory of her foolishness.

Tremaine was a gifted kisser, but at Nita’s words, he moved lower, applying his mouth to her breasts.

“I can’t breathe when you do that,” she whispered, cradling him closer. “I can’t think. I can’t—”

He desisted, and she would have yanked him back to his post, but the sensation of his tongue tracing her ribs skittered along paths already illuminated by desire. His next destination exceeded even what Nita had imagined a man could do with his mouth.

“Do you like this?” he asked, nuzzling her low on her belly. “You taste of flowers even here, you know. Meadow flowers”—he took a wet, slow swipe at her sex—“and lavender”—another swipe, while Nita clutched at the pillows with both fists—“and a hint of honeysuckle.”

A hint of madness, as if Tremaine were trying to change Nita’s mind with pleasures dark and dear.

“Tremaine, you needn’t—”

“Hush, love.” His mouth affixed to a part of her person Nita could name only in Italian. God in heaven, no wonder Nicholas and Leah were stupid with desire and affection for each other.

That was Nita’s last coherent thought before Tremaine drove her through ecstasies undreamed of even in her anatomically enlightened imagination. Fireworks of pleasure lit her up from within, sensation upon sensation followed by emotions without names in any language she knew.

When Tremaine had finished working his mischief, he pillowed his cheek on Nita’s breast.

“Have I pleased you, my lady?”

He’d shocked her with the intimacy and generosity of his attentions.

“You’ve undone me, in so many ways. I hadn’t known… One overhears one’s brothers being crude, but—”

Tremaine traced a finger over Nita’s lips. “There’s more, you know. You can put your mouth on me, use your hands on me. You can ride me, we can mate like sheep, on our knees. I expect this is the purpose of the wedding journey, to see all the sights and wonders lurking between the sheets while the great capitals and courts are thoroughly ignored.”

Oh, Nita would miss him. Miss his dry humor, his lusty male body, his everything.

“Will you make love with me now, Tremaine? As a man makes love with a woman?”

As a husband makes love with his wife?

“You need not ask, you know,” he said. “The two shall become as one flesh, and that means I’m yours for the having. I grow aroused simply watching you braid your hair.”

He was aroused now. Nita could feel him, hard, warm, and unapologetic against her hip. More than physical pleasure, more than an erotic education, what he gave Nita now was a form of marital trust she did not deserve.

“I’m asking, Tremaine. Make love with me.”

The wrongness of what Nita demanded of him blended with the arousal simmering through her to create a combustible mixture of longing and heartbreak. When Tremaine joined their bodies with one slow, deep thrust, Nita came apart again, more intensely than before.

“You just missed Copenhagen,” he teased, subsiding to a slow, rocking rhythm. “Next, we can love our way through Paris and on to Bonn. I do love you, you know. Very much.”

Nita would miss him for the rest of her life. “Enough chatter or we’ll ignore Berlin.”

“Can’t miss Berlin, Geneva, or Rome…”

Tremaine loved Nita until she’d lost every part of her heart, and most of her wits, until she was sore and aching and an entirely different woman from the lady who’d thought to snatch a memory from a soon-to-be-former lover.

“Tremaine, please. Now.”

He understood. He hitched himself over Nita as she pressed her face to his shoulder and endured pleasure that had acquired an edge of hurt exactly fitted to the emotions wracking her.

“Hold me,” Tremaine rasped. “Never let go, not ever.”

He spoke not only as a lover, but also as a man who’d trusted Nita with his heart. When he spent his seed this time, Nita felt the warmth of it deep inside, and she held him as if she’d never let him go.

* * *

Dawn came late in winter, but hunger could wake a man when sunshine was in short supply. Tremaine remained curled around his beloved, sated in ways that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with a special license.

“You’re awake,” Nita murmured, rolling over. “Shall you go?”

Did she want him to go? The door was locked, the maids and footmen not yet stirring.

Tremaine rearranged himself so his arm was around Nita’s shoulders and the glorious warm length of her tucked against his side.

“We never did decide what sort of house we’re to raise all those children in, my lady. Or shall I call you
comtesse
?” After the night they’d shared, Tremaine was at risk for referring to his intended as lovey, lambie, and even lambie-love. “While you ponder your answer, I’ll tend to the fire.”

The room was chilly, but nothing like the shepherd’s crofts Tremaine had known as a boy. Glorified windbreaks, most of them, with a chimney, the better to lose the fire’s warmth to the howling night air.

Nita watched him stir the ashes, toss on some kindling and then a few coals. Despite the chill, Tremaine hadn’t bothered with clothing, it being a wife’s privilege to admire her spouse’s unclad form as much as she pleased.

And a husband’s privilege to be admired, though Nita’s gaze held anxiety.

“Shall I love you again?” Tremaine asked, rejoining her under the covers. “Whisk you past the pleasures of Athens?”

Nita bundled up next to him. “You shall not. I’m in need of at least three soaking baths. I doubt you’re in much better condition.”

Tremaine was in excellent condition, though a bit sore. “I can be a gentle lover, you know.”

Nita turned her face to his shoulder, as if he’d offered not a tease but a taunt.

“Nita, was I too rough? Be honest.”

She bit him gently. “You were nearly perfect. You even taste good.”

Tremaine heard the
nearly
, and unease prowled past a morning’s normal complement of desire.

“We never did talk about a house, my lady.”

Again, that lure did not seem to catch Nita’s fancy. She tucked a leg across Tremaine’s thighs and brushed a thumb over his nipple.

“Very well, we shall talk about this house you’re so fascinated with.”

Nita should be fascinated with the dwelling she’d make her own, any woman should be. Tremaine caught her hand in his and kissed her knuckles.

“I prefer comfort to fashion,” he said, “though the two can be found together. I have an extensive collection of art and sculpture, which can go in a gallery rather than a family wing. I also favor spotless kitchens and a comfortable servants’ parlor. As hard as they work, the help should at least have a cozy place to take their tea.”

Nita twitched, a peculiar hitch of her shoulders. “All fine priorities in a family home, but for me, the herbal is the most important room. I like the herbal near the laundry, so I have fresh water. An herbal must also be ventilated and have excellent light. I need enough space that I can have visitors there too, and I need shelves to store recipes and references. I’m very particular about my herbal.”

Unease grew inside Tremaine, because his prospective wife hadn’t mentioned her nursery or her private parlor.

“Why would you need room for people to visit you in your herbal, Nita? You’ll have formal parlors, informal parlors, and very likely your own personal sitting room.”

Not to be confused with the sitting room they’d share, adjacent to their bedroom.

She rolled to her back, her gaze on the blank expanse of ceiling above them.

“Tremaine, when people seek my healing abilities, they are seldom comfortable doing so in a parlor. Particularly if I’m to examine them, the herbal serves better.”

“What are you saying?” An old-fashioned lady of the manor might tend her own family, even her own servants, but not friends or strangers outside the household. Even servants were more properly the responsibility of the housekeeper rather than the lady.

“I danced with Harrison Goodenough at last night’s assembly, Tremaine.”

“The name means nothing.” Panic started flinging fears at Tremaine’s composure: Did Nita’s intended mean nothing to her?

“He’s getting on, but last summer, he had a mishap with his gun and shot himself in the foot.”

That one. “Then he’s a fool, and a lucky fool.”

“He was nearly a dead fool. Dr. Horton wanted to amputate the foot, though the bullet had only grazed the side of it. A great mess and a nasty wound, but no damage to the bones. I saved that foot. I saved a man’s ability to walk unassisted across his own acres, to dance with a woman less than half his age. I very likely saved his life.”

Tremaine’s imagination saw fluttering handkerchiefs, but he kept his tone agreeable.

“You’re proud of that, rightly so, my lady. What does that bit of poulticing and stitching have to do with our household?”

Nita sat up, taking away her warmth and about half of Tremaine’s patience. They’d had a wonderful night, and now she was off on some female flight that made no sense.