Page 8 of Tremaine's True Love
George snugged his top hat down and cantered off, his horse’s hooves beating a hard tattoo against the frozen ground.
“So tell me, my lady,” Tremaine said, “does it really take you an hour to gobble up some eggs and pop into your habit?” Because, for all Bellefonte’s hospitality over tea and toast, some current had underlain the earl’s words at breakfast.
“Nicholas needed to scold me,” Lady Nita said, her tone perfectly amiable. “He worries, and now that he’s a papa, his worry goes in all directions, like so many chickens when a hound gets loose among them.”
“He scolded you for helping a neighbor in childbed?” Tremaine hadn’t taken Bellefonte for a man to insist on class distinctions in the midst of the dire and delicate matter of childbirth.
“My mother attended many births,” Lady Nita said, “and I accompanied her when I grew older. Nicholas understands, as Papa did, that childbirth is not a time to stand on ceremony, but I sent my groom home when darkness fell.”
Tremaine prided himself on a complement of common sense from both his French and his Scottish antecedents, so he parsed the rest of the situation out for himself.
“Your neighbor lives in a humble dwelling,” he guessed, “a single room, likely, and the groom’s choices were to be present at a birth or brave the elements for hours on end. You apprised your brother of your reasoning?”
“I did not. I was too angry.”
And her brother was too besotted with his countess. “When I was too angry,” Tremaine mused, “my grandfather sent me to the Highlands, though my problem was, in truth, grief and fear rather than temper. Mama and Papa had both perished in the bloody glory of France’s transition from one sort of despotism to another, and I could not comprehend why they’d been taken from me.”
Nor could Tremaine comprehend why he’d confide so old and useless a facet of his childhood to this woman.
“Then you’re truly interested in buying these sheep?” she asked.
“What else would I be interested in?” As Tremaine posed the question, a glimmer of insight befell him. “Or should that be ‘who else’?”
Off in the distance, George swung down from his horse and knocked on the door of a stone cottage that had a plume of white smoke drifting from its sole chimney. The breeze was faintly scented with that smoke and with the familiar aroma of sheep in winter plumage.
“My three oldest brothers have all recently wed,” Lady Nita said, “and thus matrimony is on their minds. Kirsten and Susannah have had their come-outs, and I sense they’ve given up waiting for me to choose a spouse.”
Had Lady Nita given up?
“Am I being inspected?” Tremaine asked. “Should I be flattered?” What had Beckman said to his siblings, and how should Tremaine exact retribution for it?
Lady Nita brought her horse to a halt near a wooden stile set into the undulating stone fence.
“You should be careful, Mr. St. Michael, and honest. I will not tolerate any man trifling with my sisters’ affections. Your sheep, sir, are in this pasture.”
Tremaine was always careful, and as honest as circumstances allowed. As for the sheep, their plush, woolly coats gave them away. The merino breed was native to Spain, but for years, their export had been illegal. The King of Spain occasionally made gifts of herds to other monarchs, including a gift to George III in the last century. His Majesty had dispersed his herd by sale some years ago.
When Beckman Haddonfield had mentioned that Bellefonte owned the largest intact herd of pure merinos in Kent, Tremaine’s commercial instincts had gone on full alert. Merinos grew soft, strong, abundant wool of a far higher grade than the Highland breeds could produce.
To Tremaine’s highly educated eye, the specimens in Bellefonte’s pasture were of good size, possessed excellent coats of wool, and were in good health.
In other words, Bellefonte’s sheep were nothing short of beautiful.
* * *
Tremaine St. Michael was different from Nita’s brothers, all of whom were tall, blond, and blue-eyed. They had fair complexions and came in varying degrees of too handsome. To a man, they danced well, had abundant charm, and knew beyond doubt exactly how their sisters’ lives ought to unfold.
Even George, who had reason to be more tolerant than most, envisioned only a husband and babies for his sisters.
Mr. St. Michael, by contrast, was dark and direct rather than charming. Moreover, he seemed to notice what Nita’s brothers did not: that she had a brain and a few ideas of her own about how her life should go on.
“I’d like to walk among the herd,” Mr. St. Michael said, dismounting from his bay gelding. “Shall you come with me?”
“I’d like that.”
Nita would also like a moment to slip away and check on Addy Chalmers and her baby, but that call could wait until George wasn’t underfoot. The rest of Nita’s current cases—Alton Horst’s persistent cough, Mary Eckhardt’s sore throat, Mr. Clackengeld’s gout—would have to content themselves with notes and medicinals conveyed by a groom, at least until Nicholas’s temper calmed.
Mr. St. Michael assisted Nita off her horse, revealing a strength commensurate with the gentleman’s size. Atlas stood more than eighteen hands, meaning Nita rode a good six feet above the ground. Her descent was controlled by Mr. St. Michael’s guidance, which was fortunate.
