Page 77 of Tremaine's True Love
Apparently more than enough, if Della’s mutterings were to be believed. “I am angry at my father,” Nick said, dragging a second stool up beside St. Michael’s. “I’m frequently angry at the late earl, which he likely considers repayment of consideration long overdue.”
The cat’s scratchy tongue swiped across the top of Nick’s ear. The little beast had remarkably foul breath.
“My rage at my parents lasted years after their deaths,” St. Michael said. “My father’s willingness to die amid his wealth, I could understand—France was his home—but my mother had a choice. She could have remained in Scotland and raised her sons or returned to the greater comfort of my father’s holdings in France. She chose the luxury, despite the peril, and my grandfather, who might have stopped her, deferred to her husband’s authority. Lady Nita would choose her children. She’s a reliable partner, and she and I will get on well enough.”
Kirsten, George, and Della had each assured Nick that Mr. St. Michael was getting on with Nitafamously.
At all hours, and in the privacy of her ladyship’s bedroom.
“You underestimate my sister,” Nick said, sitting forward, out of range of cat kisses. Let St. Michael deal with overly affectionate felines.
“Most men underestimate most women, and perhaps the ladies like it that way,” St. Michael said, dragging the cat off Nick’s sketchbook and holding the creature up like a feline rag doll. “Have you no respect, cat? Bellefonte is not one of your pantry strumpets to endure your overtures.”
The cat was still purring, even dangling at St. Michael’s eye level.
“He can’t hear you,” Nick said. “Poor blighter’s deaf as a dowager duchess. I’ve a physician friend who pointed it out to me.”
“You’re sure he’s deaf?”
“David, Viscount Fairly, trained as a doctor in Scotland and is canny as hell. He demonstrated the cat’s disability in various ways. Poor creature can’t hear a thing, though he senses vibrations, has excellent eyesight, and does not lack for female companionship.”
“Interesting.” St. Michael set the cat back down on the workbench. “If you don’t do something with those sheep soon, they’ll develop all manner of ailments. You’ve a few smaller specimens among them already.”
To hell with the damned sheep. “You’re not getting those sheep, St. Michael. I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Now the cat perched, one paw on Nick’s shoulder, one on St. Michael’s.
“Will Nash get them?” St. Michael asked.
Persistent, the both of them, though it was some consolation that the cat liked St. Michael. Nick put the presuming feline out in the saddle room, while St. Michael remained at ease on his stool.
“I’m upset with the late earl,” Nick said, “not because his circumstances precluded lavish dowries for my sisters. Rents do not provide the income they once did, taxes climb yearly, and launching more than a half-dozen children is expensive. Papa did the best he could.”
“And yet, you’d read dear Papa the Riot Act now if you had the chance,” St. Michael said. “Why? He did not abandon you in a strange country where you knew little of the languages and nothing of the customs. He did not parade around his chateau, while you subsisted on tough mutton and endless church services.”
Beneath St. Michael’s curiosity lay hard memories. Nick hoped Nita, with her tender, lonely heart, was not marrying a hard man.
“Papa knew he was dying,” Nick said, though the words were difficult. “He sent us all away. Beckman was to take the Three Springs estate in hand. I was to find a bride. George lingered in the vicinity of Cambridge, mostly to keep an eye on Adolphus, and the girls were banished to relatives and house parties. My brother Ethan, from whom Papa had been estranged, was invited to make a final call, and Nita was allowed to remain at Belle Maison.”
“Because of her medical knowledge?” St. Michael suggested.
“Nita is very knowledgeable, but she’s still unmarried, for all she’s had her Seasons. I am angry with my father for taking advantage of Nita. She ran this place while my brothers and I were sowing wild oats, while her mother fell ill, while the old earl faded.”
Nick’s recitation was drifting from an explanation to a confession, and maybe that was appropriate.
“Lady Nita did a fine job,” St. Michael said. “Many women find ways to be useful despite spinsterhood.”
Nita would have her hands full with this one, but so too would St. Michael have his hands full. “Nita did not graduate from the schoolroom to spinsterhood, you dolt. She graduated from the schoolroom towidowhood, without any of the intervening years of laughter and happiness, without any babies or grandbabies to love, without even the preservation of a spinster’s unworldliness. Her mother was something of a healer, but Nita has far eclipsed her mother’s example, and trespasses now on all manner of miseries with impunity.”
St. Michael’s features shuttered, suggesting Nick’s point eluded his grasp.
“I thank you for passing along your fraternal sentiments, Bellefonte, but we’ve yet to resolve the settlements.”
Leah had counseled Nick to patience where St. Michael was concerned, and as ever, the countess had seen clearly.
“Listen to me, St. Michael, or there will be no need to discuss settlements. Women like Nita need to feel needed. Papa took advantage of that, until Nita forgot she could say no, until she thought all the burdens she shouldered, the babies she could deliver, were the sum of her value. Leah has relieved Nita of the weight of running Belle Maison, and Nita has gone halfway into a decline over that kindness.”
Nick picked up his hammer, and as it had for years, it fit his hand perfectly. “I’m guilty of colluding in this sad tale,” he went on, “but I’m charging you with setting matters to rights. Let Nita attend the lying-ins if you must, but no more sickrooms for my sister, no more tending gunshot wounds, no more putrid sore throats or gangrenous toes, no more—”
At the door, the cat scratched to be let in. Nick’s woodworking shop was the warmest place in the barn by virtue of braziers full of hot coals, in addition to the proximity of large, shaggy horses.
