Page 2 of Tremaine's True Love
Commerce, Tremaine comprehended, and even gloried in.
Sisters had no part in commerce, but the lively variety could apparently transform an imposing family seat into a home. Bellefonte’s sisters inspired slammed doors, fraternal grumbling, and even laughter, and in this, Belle Maison was a departure from Tremaine’s usual experience with titled English families.
“I know you intend to stay for only a few days,” Bellefonte said, gesturing to a pair of chairs beneath a tall window, “but my countess declares that will not do. You are to visit for at least two weeks, so the neighbors may come by and inspect you. Don’t worry. I’ll warn you which ones have marriageable daughters—which is most of them—and my brother George will distract the young ladies.”
After the winter journey from Town, the cozy library and plush armchair were exquisitely comfortable. To Tremaine, who had vivid memories of Highland winters, comfortable was never a bad thing.
“A few days might be all the time I can spare, my lord,” Tremaine said, seating himself in cushioned luxury. “The press of business waits for no man, and wasted time is often wasted money.”
“Protest is futile, no matter how sensible your arguments,” Bellefonte countered, folding his length into the second chair. “My countess has spoken, and my sisters will abet her. You are an eligible bachelor and therefore a doomed man.”
The earl crossed long legs at the ankle, the picture of a fellow to whomdoomwas a merry concept. “Her ladyship will ply you with delicacies at every meal,” he went on. “Kirsten will interrogate you about your business ventures, Susannah will discuss that Scottish poet fellow with you, and Della will catch you up on all the Town gossip. George will be glad you’re on hand to distract our sisters. The Haddonfield womenfolk are like faeries. A man falls into their clutches and time ceases to have meaning.”
Avoid faeries as if your life depends on it. Tremaine’s Scottish grandfather had smacked that lesson into his hard little head before Tremaine had been breeched.
“What about your sister Lady Bernita?” Tremaine asked. The sister putting the worry and exasperation in her brother’s eyes and inspiring the earl to raise his voice.
Tremaine would never approach an objective without reconnoitering first. Knowing who got on with whom often made the difference between closing a deal or watching the profits waltz into some other fellow’s pocket.
“Oh, her.” Bellefonte’s gaze went to the window, which looked out over terraced gardens in all their winter solemnity. Rosebushes were pruned back to knee height, so that only canes of thorny bracken remained. The shadows of the hedges harbored dirty snow, and not a single bird enlivened the scene.
A tall, blond woman marched off toward the stables along a walk of crushed white shells. She wore a riding habit of dark blue and a man’s riding jacket—no clever hat or pheasant feather cocked over her ear—and her briskly swishing hems were muddy.
Bellefonte’s gaze followed the woman, his expression forlorn. “Lady Nita is very dear to me. She will be the death of us all.”
* * *
The baby was small and vigorously alive, two points in her favor—possibly the only two.
“Your mother is resting,” Nita said to the infant’s oldest sibling, “and this is your new sister. Does she have a name?”
Eleven-year-old Mary took the bundle from Nita’s arms. “Ma said a girl would be Annie Elizabeth. Ma wanted a boy though. Boys can do more work.”
“Boys also eat more, make more noise, and run off to become soldiers or worse,” Nita said. Boys became young wastrels who disported with the local soiled dove, heedless of the innocent life resulting from their pleasures, heedless that the soiled dove was a baronet’s granddaughter and a squire’s daughter. “Have you had anything to eat today, Mary?”
“Bread.”
Thin, freckled, and wearing a dress that likely hadn’t been washed in weeks, Mary looked younger than her eleven years—also much, much older.
“Your mother will need more than bread to recover from this birth,” Nita said. “I’ve brought butter, sausage, jam, sugar, boiled eggs, and tea in the sack on the table.”
Nita would have milk sent over too. She’d been distracted by her altercation with Nicholas, and in her haste to reach Addy Chalmers’s side, she’d neglected the most obvious need.
Mary pressed a kiss to Annie’s brow. “She’s ever so dear.”
Would that the child’s mother viewed the baby similarly. Nita went down to her haunches, the better to impress on young Mary what must be said.
“When Annie fusses, you bring her to your mother to nurse. When Annie’s had her fill, you burp her and take her back to her blankets. She’ll sleep a lot at first, but she needs to sleep where it’s quiet, warm, and safe.” Though the little cottage wouldn’t be warm again until summer.
Mary cradled the newborn closer. “I’ll watch out for her, Lady Nita. Ma won’t have any custom for weeks, and that means no gin. Wee Annie will grow up strong.”
Mary was an astute child, of necessity.
Nita rose, feeling the cold and the lateness of the hour in every joint and muscle. “I’ll send the vicar’s wife by next week, and she’ll have more food for you and your brothers, and maybe even some coal.” The vicar’s maid of all work would, in any case. “You store the food where nobody can steal it, and here…” Nita withdrew five shillings from a pocket. “Don’t tell anybody you have this. Not your mother, not your brothers, not even wee Annie. This is for bread and butter, not for gin.”
“Thank you, Lady Nita.”
“I’ll come back next week to check on your mother,” Nita said, shrugging into one of George’s cast-off coats. “If she runs a fever or if the baby is doing poorly, come for me or send one of your brothers.”
