Page 52 of Tremaine's True Love
“I believe I did just open that topic. Allow me to elaborate on my thesis: Lady Bernita Haddonfield, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? I believe we would suit, and I can promise you would know no want in my care.”
A proper swain would have been on his damn bended knee, the lady’s hand in his. Lady Nita would probably laugh herself to tears if Tremaine attempted that nonsense. He’d seen her laugh that hard earlier in the evening, over Lady Kirsten’s rendition of the parson’s sermon on women keeping silent in the church.
Lady Nita picked up her pamphlet, which Tremaine could now see was written in German. “Why, Mr. St. Michael?”
“I beg your pardon?” Tremaine was about to pitch the damned pamphlet into the fire, until he recalled that Nita Haddonfield excelled at obscuring her stronger emotions.
“Why should you marry me, Tremaine St. Michael? Why should I marry you? I’ve had other offers; you’ve made other offers. You haven’t known me long enough to form an opinion of my character beyond the superficial.”
This ability to take a situation apart, into causes, effects, symptoms, and prognosis, was part of why she was successful as a healer. Tremaine applied the same tendencies to commercial situations, and thus he didn’t dismiss her questions as dithering or manipulation.
Neither was she rejecting him.
“My appraisal of your character goes beyond the superficial, my dear. You can be shy, but you haven’t a coy bone in your body,” he said, propping his feet beside hers on the brass fender. “Your heart is inconveniently tender, but you are so fierce and so disciplined, few suspect this about you. I do not pretend my offer is that of a passionate young swain for a lady he has long loved, but I will guard your heart with my life.”
She folded the pamphlet but didn’t set it aside. “Will you entrust your heart into my keeping?”
Did Tremaine even have a heart to entrust? His parents had shown him the folly of allowing that organ to overstep its biological functions, and yet he liked Nita Haddonfield, he desired her, and her regard for him mattered very much.
“I will entrust my heart to no other.” Tremaine could give her that assurance. He sealed his promise with a kiss to her knuckles and kept her hand in his.
“Interesting reply, Mr. St. Michael. I’m happy with my life as it is, though. Marriage has always struck me as a poor bargain for the lady. She ceases to enjoy any sort of independence and must endure her husband’s pawings and beatings without recourse to the church or the law. She risks her life in childbirth, repeatedly, and should her husband die, she’s best advised to get another as soon as possible.”
Lady Nita’s objection was to marriage in theory, not to Tremaine personally. He took courage from that.
“You are slow to trust,” he said. “I’m not exactly atremble with confidence in the institution myself. Marriage means my wife’s entire health, happiness, and safety lie exclusively in my hands, and all my wit, my meager store of charm, my plowman’s poetry, and my coin may be inadequate to keep her safe from the foxes and wolves.”
Tremaine should probably not have likened a husband’s responsibilities to those of a shepherd, but the sentiments were similar. Nita would be his exclusive responsibility.
“I like kissing you,” she said, regarding their joined hands. “Will you come to bed with me?”
Tremaine’s breeding organs offered an immediate, unequivocal yes. The stakes were too high to indulge in such folly, however.
“Why, my lady? Are you anticipating vows with me?”
“I’m making up my mind,” she said. “I like you, Mr. St. Michael, but I would not be a biddable or easy wife any more than you’ll be a biddable or doting husband. We both must be very sure of this decision.”
Lady Nita would be a loyal wife, one who never compromised Tremaine’s interests or countermanded his decisions—not the important ones. As for the doting, a man could learn new skills when sufficiently motivated. Tremaine had ever enjoyed a worthy challenge, after all.
“Would it help to know I’ll happily purchase a house here in Kent?” he asked, a bid in the direction of doting such as he understood it. “There are several possibilities in this vicinity—I’ve inquired—and I’d happily make our Kent property an addition to your dowry portion.”
Some part of Tremaine—the prudent businessman or possibly the awkward suitor—did not want to join Lady Nita in bed unless and until she’d accepted him as a spouse.
“You are thorough about your campaign, Mr. St. Michael, but I cannot take a house to bed. I cannot, with any hope of enjoyment, kiss a house or hold its hand. I cannot fall asleep with the arms of a house about me, and a house cannot recite Scottish poetry about a shepherd boy’s heart breaking because he’s been banished for loving his shepherd girl.”
The “Broom O’ the Cowdenknowes.” Earlier in the evening, Tremaine had offered up a simple lament as an antidote to the indecipherable subtlety of old Shakespeare.
Tremaine’s heart would not break were he banished from Lady Nita’s boudoir, and that pragmatism was part of why he could offer the lady marriage.
And yet…what she wanted was understandable. “I can be those things you ask for, Lady Nita. I can be the man who holds you as you sleep, who gives you all the kisses you want, who indulges your appreciation for poetry, and whose hand is always yours to hold.”
He had her attention now. The pamphlet lay forgotten in her lap, so Tremaine gathered his courage and leaped. “I can be the man who takes you to bed and indulges your every intimate passion as often and as wantonly as you please.”
* * *
Tremaine St. Michael had traveled the Continent in times of war, he moved nimbly between cultures, rattled off poetry in broad ScotsandFrench, taught letters to children among the ashes, and turned pages for Kirsten as she raced through Scarlatti at the pianoforte.
Such a man commanded hordes and warehouses of aplomb—Nita’s bold proposition had failed utterly to scare him away—and yet something was off.
