Page 89 of Tremaine's True Love
George didn’t think, he simply took Elsie in his arms. “You are a good mother, Elsie Nash, and I have funds enough to see you safely to Italy or even America. No child should grow up in fear for his health, his future squandered by an uncle with too few scruples and too much pride.”
Worse yet, the varlet was too free with his fists, which also boded ill for Digby’s future.
Elsie leaned against George, as if for one moment she let him have all of her weariness and fear, all of her anger and despair. To hold her felt good, though holding her wasn’t nearly as much comfort as she deserved.
And then she kissed him.
George’s mind manufactured a single thought—kissing Elsie felt good too—before he began kissing her back.
* * *
When last Tremaine had been intimate with his intended, she’d chided him for not pursuing her to her room, for inflicting on her an occasion ofcold feet. Tremaine’s feet were cold, his nose was an icicle affixed to the front of his face, his ears were no warmer, and his toes were nodding cordially to frostbite.
He trudged on, as he’d trudged through many early Highland storms, past the sagging fences of Stonebridge, past Belle Maison’s sheep pastures. In another mile, he’d warm up, and the temptation to walk right past the Belle Maison drive dogged his steps.
Nita had disappeared on George’s arm and not returned, suggesting she’d gone off on one of her medical calls. Elsie Nash’s boy, most likely.
Something contagious, because winter was contagion’s social season.
The Haddonfield carriage team trotted past, though Tremaine doubted the inhabitants had seen him. They’d be tucked up in their cloaks and mufflers, dissecting who had made sheep’s eyes at whom, and whether certain couples were quarreling.
Tremaine considered the matter for a frigid half mile and concluded that, just perhaps, he and Nita were quarreling. Something he’d said in his exchange with Nash hadn’t set well with her ladyship.
Perhaps he ought to have officially acknowledged their engagement rather than danced around it? Surely an announcement was Bellefonte’s to make?
Perhaps Nash deserved a more pointed scolding? Tremaine had certainly wanted to scold Nash more soundly. Thirty paces at dawn would convey Tremaine’s sentiments handily.
He was still debating what he would have or should have done differently when he let himself into Lady Nita’s room. They were to be married in a very few days, and knocking seemed a bit silly.
Also perilous, because a fellow who knocked was a fellow who could be told to go away.
“Good evening, my lady.” God help him, Nita’s hair was unbound, a shimmering river of golden fire streaming over her shoulders as she sat before the hearth, one bare foot up on a hassock, the other tucked beneath her.
“Greetings. You didn’t think to take off your coat?” Nita wore her blue brocade night robe while Tremaine—foolish of him—still wore his greatcoat, scarf, and gloves.
“I needed assurances that you are well,” Tremaine said, unraveling the scarf from his neck. “You left with George, and he returned without you. I was concerned.”
Worried, angry, sick with an orphaned boy’s unreasonable fear for her welfare.
“I’m sorry. As you can see, I’m yet in excellent health.”
Excellent health.Tremaine loathed that phrase. Unless he missed his guess, Nita was in an excellent temper—or something. He stuffed his gloves into his pocket and hung his greatcoat on one of the bedposts.
“What are you reading?” he asked, taking the poker to the fire, then adding more coals.
“Paracelsus in the original Latin.”
Tremaine had hated Latin, though it had made learning Italian and Spanish easier. After grafting Scots and Gaelic, then English onto his French, Latin had been the outside of too much.
“What does Paracelsus have to say?” As long as Nita wasn’t telling Tremaine to leave, he’d continue to cast lures. A cheering thought befell him: perhaps her monthly had arrived midway through the assembly. That would explain much, despite protestations of excellent health.
“He says that washing surgical instruments between each use results in fewer cases of infection and fewer deaths from infection. He said this hundreds of years ago, and yet English medicine still fails to heed his wisdom.”
The sooner Nita gave up her medical pastime, the happier their pillow talk would be.
“Somebody should tell that to the army surgeons,” Tremaine said, taking a seat on Nita’s hassock. “Those who die on the battlefields are often envied by those who are wounded.”
“I have written to Wellington’s personal surgeon,” Nita said, drawing her second foot under her. “He did not favor me with a reply.”
