Page 23 of Tremaine's True Love
Ah, so all that dodging about the sheep, and shy, bookish Lady Susannah had been so much diversion. Tremaine took a nibble of a spicy biscuit lest he admit thatheliked Lady Nita.
Respected her too. “Lady Nita was simply looking in on a woman recently brought to bed with child,” Tremaine said. “I wanted to see some of your property and accomplished that aim.”
Bellefonte left off perusing a small volume bound in red leather, and considered one of his two remaining biscuits.
“You were spying on my acres?”
“Gathering information about a possible business associate. Have you broached the matter of Lady Nita’s upcoming travel with the woman herself?”
Not that Tremaine would raise the topic with her or mention it to Beckman. He hoped to be gone before Bellefonte undertook that folly.
“Nita will never forgive me if I send her away,” the earl said, “but spring can bring influenza and worse, and she has no care for what contagion could do to this household.”
Thank the celestial powers, Bellefonte at least understood the need to curb his sister’s more dangerous charitable impulses.
“You do not mention the risk that Lady Nita herself might fall ill,” Tremaine said.
English physicians interviewed patients. They did not touch them in the usual course and often didn’t even visit the sickroom. If contagion was a significant issue, then a family member might relay symptoms to the doctor, who’d prescribe nostrums from the safety of his cozy study.
Lady Nita apparently observed no such precautions.
Bellefonte snapped his book closed. “There’s no point mentioning the risk of contagion to Lady Nita, such is my sister’s disdain for common sense. Nita’s healthy as a tinker’s donkey, and nothing I say, promise, threaten, or shout makes any difference to her.”
An image sprang up in Tremaine’s mind of Lady Nita crouching by the shivering lamb, ready to do battle for its life if Tremaine had intended the little beast harm.
“Have you triedaskingthe lady to comply with your wishes, my lord?” Sooner or later, she’d fall ill, if not die, as a consequence of her kindheartedness.
Bellefonte consumed his third biscuit thoughtfully. “I haven’t tried asking. I should, though Nita can drive me to shouting more quickly than the rest of my siblings put together.”
Well, of course. Demure, sensible Lady Nita left her brother no choice but to rant and carry on like a squalling infant.
“With your sisters, as with your sheep, I’m sure you’ll do as you see fit, my lord. I’m off at week’s end to arrange travel to Germany if we can’t come to terms on your herd of merinos.”
“Talk to George, then, if you’re bound for the Continent. He’s recently returned and has good recall for which inns are clean, which of the packet captains sober. Beckman was our vagabond, but George might take up the post.”
Beckman had traveled to escape bad memories, while George Haddonfield appeared to be the soul of sunny charm.
Interesting. “If we cannot come to terms, I will certainly confer with George. And, Bellefonte?”
The earl dusted biscuit crumbs from his hands.
“Lady Susannah might be happy with this poetical baronet-in-waiting,” Tremaine said, “but I suggest you make a thorough study of the man’s finances before you send her into his arms. Near his manor house, all is in good repair. The surrounding tenant farms, however, have sagging fences, tumbling stone walls, weedy cornfields, and overgrown hedges. Those sheep wouldn’t be on Nash’s property for a day before they’d be loose about the shire, wreaking havoc in your neighbors’ gardens, and comporting themselves like strumpets with the local flocks.”
Tremaine ate the last bite of his ginger biscuit, retrieved his letter, and left Nicholas, Lord Many Sisters, contemplating the remaining supply of biscuits.
* * *
Nita sought the warmth of the kitchen, because worse than being bone tired was being bone tiredandhungry—which Addy Chalmers likely had been for years.
As Nita fetched the butter from the window box and unwrapped a loaf of bread, she recalled Addy mentioning Mary’s father’s family. Perhaps the unwritten etiquette of vice prohibited such a topic. Addy had certainly never before referred in Nita’s hearing to the fathers of her children.
If she even knew who they were.
Nita poured cider into a pot and swung it over the coals of the cooking fire. Cinnamon would have made a nice addition, also an expensive one.
“Lady Nita, I’m surprised to find you awake at such a late hour.”
Tremaine St. Michael leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his cravat missing, his shirtsleeves turned back, and his shirt open at the throat. Nita liked the look of him, his bustling energy and fine tailoring made more approachable by a touch of weariness and informality.
