Page 15 of Tremaine's True Love
“You’ll ride across frozen ground alone, then?” he 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 doubtless 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 mycharming 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.”
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, Mr. St. Michael, to prose on for a few verses about a mouse?”
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 apparently collected a report about his recitation, 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 withDebrett’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 planned 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.”
