Page 109 of Tremaine's True Love
“Dueling is a stupid, reckless, violent exercise in lunacy,” he said, “but it can sort out a man’s priorities. As I marched off the steps in that clearing, I did not think about commerce. I did not consider how to market merino wool most profitably. I did not wish I’d written one last letter to my factors in the Midlands.”
Nita slid her hand inside Tremaine’s dressing gown, needing to feel the beat of his heart beneath her palm. “I hope you paid attention to the counting, sir.”
“More than Nash did, apparently, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that memories of you and hope for a future with you filled my heart and my mind as I paced toward my fate. You, Nita Haddonfield. You matter more to me than my fears that you’ll be carried off by some dread disease. If I could have five years with you, or five minutes with you,why would I deny myself that joy?”
“Because you’re not a fool,” she said, kissing his wrist. “I’ve had a change in perspective, Tremaine.”
“As long as you remain in my arms, you may explain this change in perspective.”
“Addy Chalmers brought us word of the duel. Ladies aren’t supposed to know of such things, but we often do. I had my bag in hand and was on my way to the woods when George brought you home.”
“I recall aposse comitatusof your sisters, the countess, and Addy. They wouldn’t have let you go alone.”
“I understand that now,” Nita said. “They want to protect me. My siblings aren’t angry at me for tending others; they arefrightenedfor me. When Addy told us you were to face Nash over a pair of pistols, I was terrified. I could not think; I could not move. I could not even pray, Tremaine.You could have died.”
Nita had been terrified, paralyzed, mute, and horrified, even as she’d silently bargained with the Almighty.Please, keep the man I love safe.How did soldiers’ families deal with that terror day after day, year after year?
How had Nita’s family dealt with it?
“What could possibly daunt your bottomless courage?” Tremaine asked. Was he growing tired?
“I haven’t much courage,” Nita said. “Nicholas says I’m honorable because I help where I can, but I’m not brave, Tremaine. Much about medicine scares me or disgusts me. I can admit that now.”
To him.
“You never appear scared or disgusted. You appear determined and capable. You’re also very pretty.”
He truly was on the mend, thank heavens. “Have you been drinking your tea?”
“No, love. Not after your brother told me you spike it. Tell me more about being afraid, Nita.”
Yes, tell him. Tell him that too, because it made all the difference. “When I snatch up my bag and march off to a sickroom, you areterrifiedfor me. I see that now. Not annoyed, not affronted. I grab my medicinals the way you fellows take up your dueling pistols, and I march off against an opponent who doesn’t wait for the count, who observes no protocol, who kills entire families without even alluding to concepts of honor or reason. You are not being pigheaded or backward or narrow-minded when you ask me to give up seeing patients; you are as frightened as I am.”
As frightened as Nita had been for years.
Tremaine passed Nita a handkerchief. She’d soon have a collection with his initials embroidered on them.
“I love you,” he said, kissing her ear. “I love your kisses and your passion, your polite reserve, your humor, stubbornness, and courage. I want very much to marry you, Nita Haddonfield. If that means I send you off to do battle with the plague itself, I still want to marry you.”
“Idon’twant to do battle with the plague,” Nita wailed softly. “I want to marry you, to have great, fat, healthy babies with you, to scold you for letting our children spoil their supper with ginger biscuits.
“But people know I’ll help,” she went on, “or try to help, and Mama told them all I have a gift. So they call upon me when there’s illness or injury in the house, and if I don’t go, who will? Horton is backward and bumbling, and even he senses that his knowledge is badly out-of-date. I can’t leave people to suffer or die when I might help, but I won’t lose you, Tremaine. I cannot.”
Nita fell silent when she wanted to rant. She could have lost him to Edward Nash’s pride, stubbornness, and shortsightedness. She could not bear it if she lost him to her own.
* * *
Nita was a sweet, warm, tired—andupsetweight against Tremaine’s side. Every time he’d surfaced from his laudanum dreams, she’d been by his bed. Often he’d found her hand in his, and sometimes she’d fallen asleep like that—curled over in her chair by his bed, her hand wrapped around his.
“I quizzed Lord Fairly as he thumped and poked at me.” Tremaine had had commercial dealings with Fairly several years back without ever learning of the man’s medical abilities.
“About sheep?”
“Not about sheep. No titled Englishman knows more about sheep than I do.” Tremaine had amused her. God willing, he’d amuse Nita often in the coming years.
“Go on, Tremaine. Would you like a ginger biscuit?”
“Please God, not another ginger biscuit. Fairly is something of an expert on the export of medical treatises and instruments.”
