Page 28 of Tremaine's True Love
The ladies were doomed then, all but Lady Nita. Tremaine’s money was on her to thwart her brother, and yet she needed marrying. Needed somebody to share biscuits with her late at night, appreciate her curves, and give her children of her own, lest she waste her days wiping the noses of other people’s offspring and brewing tisanes for other people’s uncles.
Tremaine tucked a sleeve button through the buttonhole on his cuff. “If Bellefonte won’t sell me his merinos, then I’m for Germany. The earl has some notion that he can lead Mr. Nash to the altar by parading the sheep before him.”
The sleeve button wasn’t cooperating, or perhaps Tremaine was in a hurry to get down to breakfast.
“Let me do that.” George captured Tremaine’s wrist and tended to each sleeve button, left then right, with the practiced efficiency of a valet. “I’d not like to see those sheep go to Nash.”
“Neither would I,” Tremaine said, “but my interest is mercantile, while yours is—what?”
George Haddonfield was a pattern card of male beauty, and yet what made his appearance interesting was a quality of self-containment, a guardedness his older brother Nicholas lacked. George had spent time on the Continent too, a sad and weary place in the wake of the Corsican’s republican violence.
“Nash is guardian to his nephew,” George said, straightening a fold of Tremaine’s cravat. “I don’t think the boy is happy. I know he’s not, in fact. Neither is his mother. How a man treats his dependents says a lot about him. No one is more dependent than a wife, and Susannah has no wickedness, no instinct for self-preservation. Managing Nash will take sharp wits and nimble self-interest.”
Business instincts, in other words.
“Have you shared your sentiments with your titled brother?” Tremaine asked. He wanted those sheep, wanted them badly, but his question had more to do with keeping them from the wrong hands than putting them into his own. As for Lady Susannah…
Lady Nita didn’t think much of this Nash fellow.
George held the bedroom door open. “Bellefonte wouldn’t be interested in my opinion regarding a possible match for Susannah. He and I manage the civilities, but we’re not close.”
As Beckman hadn’t been close with his brothers, and a fourth brother, Ethan Grey, had apparently been estranged from them all until recently. Another brother bided at Cambridge in some scientific capacity.
No wonder Bellefonte fretted over his siblings. A scattered flock was at the greatest risk for predation.
“I had only the one brother,” Tremaine said as he and George traveled the carpeted corridor. In memory of that late brother, a lazy scoundrel with too much charm, no honor, and little sense, Tremaine would meddle, just a bit.
“I didn’t always like my brother,” he went on, “and I often didn’t respect him, but he’s dead, and even the civilities are lost to us. Talk to the earl, Mr. Haddonfield. Bellefonte is a reasonable man. If Lady Susannah must marry, the union should have at least a chance of happiness.”
Though if Susannah Haddonfield was determined to wed her poetical squire, Tremaine suspected little anybody could say, do, or threaten would stop her. She had Lady Nita’s firm and misguided example to follow, after all.
* * *
Nita managed breakfast without falling asleep at the table, though she hadn’t rested well through the night.
“What have you planned for today, Nita?” Nicholas’s expression was mere brotherly interest, but if Nita said she wanted to check on wee Annie, he’d set aside his teacup and cast a look down the table to his countess that boded ill for the King’s peace.
And Nita didn’t dare mention persistent coughs, sore throats, or head colds, though they were on her mind. “I’m inclined to practice the pianoforte today,” she replied. “Some pieces that might allow the musicians a break at the assembly.”Thenshe’d check on Annie.
“Thoughtful of you,” Leah said, and to Nita’s surprise, a look went the opposite direction, up the table, from countess to earl.
“Mr. St. Michael,” Nita said, “have you plans for today?”
He would say nothing of their shared biscuits and cider, of that Nita was certain. Did he know she’d nearly kissed him, nearly turned a sweet, friendly embrace into something sweet, friendly, and improper?
Why hadn’t she?Mr. St. Michael had an even dimmer view of marriage than Nita did. He wouldn’t have followed a stolen kiss with awkward declarations or lewd presumptions.
“As it turns out, I’m off for London later today,” he said. “Word came last night that one of my flocks has taken sick. Bellefonte, your man Alfrydd was good enough to send a pigeon for me to Oxfordshire, but in the absence of encouraging news this morning, I must go.”
Another look went winging around the table, this time from Kirsten to Susannah to Della—and what was Della doing at the breakfast table twice in one week?
“A pity that anybody should have to attempt the King’s Highway at this time of year,” the countess said. “Nicholas, please pass the teapot to our guest.”
Nita ate something—eggs, possibly bacon, buttered toast—then excused herself. As Mr. St. Michael had recited his plans for the day, he’d done Nita the courtesy of keeping his gaze elsewhere, and yet, would a hint of regret have been so inappropriate?
Rather than seek him out and ask such a brazen question, Nita applied herself for the next hour to country-dances at the pianoforte.
“If you hit those keys any harder, the poor instrument will lose its tuning.”
