Page 4 of Tremaine's True Love
Her younger sisters would have turned Tremaine’s question into a joke or a flirtation. The Haddonfields seemed much given to joking and flirtation, with the exception of present company.
“Please do not be offended if I say your presence is a matter of indifference to me now,” her ladyship informed him as they left the stable for the chilly air of a winter night. “Not so very long ago, I was the one who would have made sure your room was prepared, a bath waiting for you, refreshment and cut flowers in the chamber I’d selected for you.”
Tremaine appreciated honesty more than he did the laughter and banter of the Haddonfield dinner table.
“I do not presume to know you, but arranging flowers and ordering a tea tray could not be much of a challenge for you.”
His observation pleased her ladyship enough that a hint of a smile flitted across her features, while somewhere in the distance, a dog commenced barking. In the manner of winter nights, the sound carried, lonely and annoying.
Lady Nita moved along the garden path far more slowly than she had hours earlier. Either she was exhausted, or she wasn’t looking forward to returning to her home.
“I’d like to sit for a moment,” she said as they approached a gazebo. “Seek your bed, if you wish. I’ll be fine alone.”
She believed this, despite the cold, despite the hour, despite her obvious fatigue. Tremaine took a seat beside her, ignoring the siren call of his quilts and pillows because, in another sense, she was not fine.
Lady Nita was quite alone, however, and Tremaine knew how that felt. A half-moon hung above the horizon, stars shone in frosty abundance, and the dog had gone silent.
“The child lived,” she said. “I want to wake up each and every member of my family and inform them of that. The mother was also resting comfortably when I took my leave of her.”
“You attended a birth.” The only acceptable reason for bloodstains on a lady’s attire.
“The midwife can only attend one birth at a time,” Lady Nita said. “The babies are rude though. They do not appear one at a time. I have explained this to my brother repeatedly. In fact, when the weather changes, the babies conspire to arrive all at once, and the midwife, understandably, will go where her services are remunerated. The women with the least consequence deliver with the least support, and yet they need the most help.”
Despite Lady Nita’s calm and euphemistic summary, she was all in a lather. Her emotional fists were raised, and she would make her blows count.
Though she wouldn’t rain them down on Tremaine. “You are a reproach to your family, then,” he concluded.
The lantern sat on the bench opposite them, casting little light because the wick was low. Even so, Tremaine had the sense his words earned him the first smidgen of genuine regard from the lady beside him.
“I am a reproach, Mr. St. Michael? They’ve certainly become free with chides and scolds aimed in my direction.”
Nowthey were. Now that she’d been deposed as lady of the manor. Bellefonte probably hadn’t the first inkling of the hurt he’d done Lady Nita when he’d acquired a countess.
Tremaine’s backside ached from hours in a cold saddle, and yet he remained on the equally cold bench a moment longer. He withdrew the lady’s gloves from the oversized pocket in which she’d jammed them and passed them to her.
“A great debate ensued after the fish course, my lady, as to whether country assemblies should permit the waltz when so few know how to dance it properly. While this inanity held the company’s entire attention, you helped a new life get a start in the world. Yes, you are a reproach to your family, and to all who think Christian charity is a matter of Sunday finery and Boxing Day benevolence.”
A great sigh went out of her ladyship, interrupted by a sneeze. She leaned her head back against a support and closed her eyes. She hadn’t put on her gloves.
“You’re Scottish,” she observed.
What Tremaine was, was cold. He put his handkerchief on the bench between them, in case the sneezing, tired, honest lady had need of it. Despite Lady Nita’s willingness to wrestle demons on behalf of the newborn parish poor, she was attractive.
The local beauties would refer to her as “handsome” in an effort to denigrate her features politely, but she was lovely nonetheless. Her brows were the perfect graceful complement to wide, intelligent eyes; her eyes, nose, and mouth were assembled into a face that deserved excellent portraiture and needed no cosmetics.
The beauty of her features was such that even weariness became her.
“I can sound Scottish,” Tremaine said, “particularly when in the grip of strong sentiment. My mother was born in Aberdeenshire.” He could hold a grudge like a Scot too, and endure cold and handle strong drink.
“And your father?” She had a good ear, did Lady Nita. Also pretty ears.
“French.” Tremaine waited for her to put more questions to him, but she instead turned the lamp wick down until the light extinguished.
“We were wasting oil,” she said.
“The hour is late and the night cold. We should go in. If you’d like to linger here in solitude, I’ll bid you good evening,” Tremaine said, rising. To be found alone with him in the dark would cause greater problems for the lady than to be found alone with her discontents.
He bowed over her bare, cold, elegant hand. “A pleasure to have made your acquaintance, my lady.”
