Page 31 of Tremaine's True Love
This one kiss, this one series of kisses, had banished winter from Nita’s little corner of Kent in less than a minute.
She rested against him, as she had for a moment in the kitchen late at night. “You’ll let us know when you’ve arrived safely to Oxford.” She was repeating herself.
“I’ll letyouknow, and, Nita?”
Not Lady Nita, but plain Nita. How that warmed her too. “Tremaine?”
She felt the pleasure of her familiar address reverberate through him, because he kissed her ear as he held her in the gloom of the stable.
“Please be careful. Your brother is right to worry about you. Tending to the sick is noble but perilous. I would not want harm to befall you.”
Nita added two more feelings to the bittersweet confusion in her heart. Tremaine St. Michael cared for her, and yet he sounded as if he nearly agreed with Nicholas: the Earl of Bellefonte’s oldest sister ought to spend her afternoons stitching samplers, indifferent to the suffering of others.
“I’ll be careful,” Nita said. “You avoid the ditches.”
“I generally do, though I wish—” Mr. St. Michael stayed where he was a moment longer, peering down at Nita as a heathery fragrance sneaked beneath the stable scents to tease at Nita’s nose.
She was hemmed in by the wall, the horse, and Mr. St. Michael, so she turned her face away, from him, and from his wishes.
“Safe journey, Mr. St. Michael.”
He stepped back, and as he tugged his gloves on, Nita could see his focus withdraw from her and affix itself to his sheep, to the journey he undertook to ensure their safety.
Nobody hadevertormented him with orders to stitch samplers while a child suffered influenza or a maiden aunt endured a female complaint in mortified silence. Nita was the first to move toward the stable yard, lest Mr. St. Michael ruin a delightful kiss with parting sermons and scolds.
William waited outside, a groom leading him in a plodding circle. Snowflakes graced a brisk breeze beneath a leaden sky, and Nita’s resentment receded to its taproot: worry, for Mr. St. Michael, for the infirm whom she tended.
And a little worry for herself, too.
“I have enjoyed my stay at Belle Maison,” Mr. St. Michael said, taking the reins from the groom. “Every bit of it.”
He led William to the mounting block, the first few steps of a distance that must widen and widen between him and Nita. She wanted to throw herself into his embrace just once more, but instead spared the sullen sky a glance.
Mr. St. Michael swung up as a flutter of white caught Nita’s eye, followed by a thin, tinkling peal from the bell in the dovecote.
* * *
Elsinore Mayhew Nash was a furious woman, also a mother devoted to her son. When her brother-by-marriage summoned her to his library, she took off her apron, slapped a vapid smile on her face, and hastened to Edward’s side.
“You wanted to see me?” Elsie’s tone imparted eager, if timid, good cheer. The only eagerness she’d felt in the past year had been to wallop Edward with a poker in locations chosen to ensure he never became a father.
“Elsie, a moment.”
So, of course, she must remain standing while Edward pretended to pore over a column of figures. Elsie could relax, though, because his complexion assured her he’d not yet begun to drink. The Stonebridge “library” had once been the housekeeper’s sitting room. Now that Edward had appropriated it, the library was the warmest room in the house.
Also home to fewer than a hundred books, the rest having been sold.
Little did Edward know, but Elsie’s ball gowns had been sold too. She’d taken care of that before leaving London to join Edward’s household, a brilliant precaution quietly suggested by another lady who’d buried not one but three husbands.
“Please have a seat, my dear,” Edward said, returning his pen to its stand. “You’re looking well.”
Elsie’s guard went up. Not only was Edward sober, but he was also on his good behavior—for now.
“Thank you,” she said, perching on the edge of a straight-backed chair. “We’re making pies, which I enjoy. Apple is your favorite, isn’t it?”
More eager good cheer. Elsie had considered poisoning Edward, but how would Digby manage if his mother swung for murder? What little money she had hidden wouldn’t last long. Edward’s aging great-uncle, the baronet, was the sole relation left to provide for the boy in Edward’s absence, and the baronet might be worse than Edward.
“I do favor an apple pie,” Edward said. “I do not, however, favor George Haddonfield in any proximity to my nephew.”
