Page 41 of Tremaine's True Love
“Stonebridge isn’t the best patch of ground in the shire to start with,” Kirsten observed, which anybody riding past its somewhat ramshackle home farm might conclude. “I’d think Edward’s land better suited to cattle, cabbages, or potatoes. Potatoes grow anywhere.”
Papa had never expected to inherit an earldom, nor Mama to become a countess. They had been gentry at heart, and Susannah was her parents’ daughter.
She had ideas for Stonebridge, ideas she’d discussed casually with George and Nicholas.
Stonebridge was close enough to London that vegetable crops could be profitable, laying hens were always in demand, and even certain breeds of dog could be raised as pets for aristocratic families.
“You have that distracted look.” Kirsten tossed the pink pillow across the room to land gently in Susannah’s lap. “Are you composing a sonnet to your sheep farmer before he’s even acquired a herd?”
“Edward would not like to be called a sheep farmer.” Nor was he Susannah’s, not yet, which was a problem. Would he like to be called her husband?
Kirsten folded her hands behind her head, looking much like Nicholas or George at their leisure. “Edward wouldliketo be called Baronet, though he hasn’t acquired that title yet either.”
Kirsten’s judgment of her fellow man was severe, but her loyalty to family unwavering. If Susannah married Edward, she need not abandon Kirsten entirely to spinsterhood, nor George to perpetual bachelorhood.
“I know you don’t particularly care for Edward.” Nita cared for him even less, though Susannah wasn’t certain why. Edward wasn’t awful. “He’s not as loud as our brothers, not as outspoken or direct. I like that about him. His company is restful and he sings well.”
Kirsten sat up, one lithe, restless, feline movement. “You are too sweet. Edward rides out with his hounds but doesn’t see to his own acres. George says the pond near the Bletchings’ farm is silting up, and it’s the only water on the west side of Edward’s property. How will he irrigate if he doesn’t dredge that pond?”
Dredging the pond went on Susannah’s list of improvements her dowry would make possible at Stonebridge. Even Papa had muttered about only a bad farmer neglecting to manage his water, and the Stonebridge home farm was on the west side of the property.
“You don’t care about a silted up pond, Kirsten. This is England and we’ve water aplenty. What is it you came here to say?”
To bother Susannah about, because Kirsten lived to bother and agitate, which was her way of showing familial concern.
Kirsten shoved off the bed, leaving the quilt wrinkled. “It’s cold in here,” she said, joining Susannah by the fire. “Suze, have you noticed that Stonebridge is always cold?”
Yes, Susannah had. That was on her list too, because any household that included a small child needed a modicum of warmth throughout. Elsie Nash was Digby’s mother, and she ought to see to something as simple as keeping the boy warm. Elsie had been married to a military man, though, and probably took economies seriously.
“Kirsten, you are an astute woman. Winter is upon us, winter is cold.”
When Kirsten was stomping about, casting dark looks at all and sundry, arguing radical Whig politics simply to bait Nicholas, then a certain element of Haddonfield family functioning was as it should be.
When Kirsten’s gaze became pitying, Susannah worried.
“Do youloveEdward?” Kirsten asked, oddly serious. “Do you even know Edward well enough to say if you love him, or have you fallen for a few sonnets and melting glances? We’re not that old, and Nita certainly seems to manage well enough without a man.”
Nita was dying of loneliness, and many women considered twenty too old to be single.
Susannah rose and faced the fire so she did not have to meet Kirsten’s gaze. “I esteem Edward greatly,” she recited, for this too was part of her nightly fretting. “I’ve known him all my life, and I see his strengths as well as those areas where the right wife would be a help to him and his family. While I appreciate your concern, I do not share it.”
Any other sister, any normal sister, would have flounced out of the room, nose in the air. Kirsten patted Susannah’s shoulder.
“I love it when you’re fierce. One forgets you can be fierce. Nothing for it, then. If you want Edward Nash, then we must see that you have him. That leaves us with a puzzle regarding Nita and Mr. St. Michael though, doesn’t it? Both men want all those sheep, and Nicholas seems to be telling them they need to marry one of his sisters to get them.”
This amused Kirsten, and Susannah manufactured a smile as well—one of her few confirmed skills.
And yet, as Kirsten blathered on about plots and schemes and conjectures regarding the upcoming assembly, Susannah became increasingly discontent.
She was vexed that Edward would attempt to negotiate settlements before securing her explicit consent to a properly tendered offer of marriage.
Exceedinglyvexed.
* * *
Why would a competent physician, established in his profession and cordial with his neighbors, hate Nita Haddonfield? For Dr. Horton’s gaze on Nita’s retreating figure had been far from friendly.
Tremaine took a contemplative sip of rich winter ale while the good, if hateful, doctor put away a prodigious quantity of cottage pie. Horton kept an eye on the cinnamon biscuits as well, as if they might skip off to another table when he wasn’t looking.
