Page 90 of Tremaine's True Love
Smart fellow, or Nita would have bombarded him with learned correspondence. Of course, if the smart fellow had paid attention to Nita, fewer lives would be lost in the hospital tents.
That thought did not sit at all well. “How’s the lad?” Tremaine asked, gently untucking a slender female foot from under the lady’s fundament.
“Digby? How did you guess?”
“I was once a lad too, and winter was not my favorite season to mind the sheep. Your feet are not cold tonight.”
Tremaine needed to touch some part of Nita, because despite her dishabille, she was once again the remote, polite woman he’d first met in a chilly stable at this same hour days ago.
“Digby’s circumstances are poor,” Nita said. “Edward might wish the boy dead.”
While half the shire probably wished Edward would find his eternal reward. “Nash is an idiot, but surely even Nash wouldn’t wish harm to a mere boy?”
Tremaine’s mother had turned her back on two mere boys, though for the first time, he admitted that in so doing, she’d assured those boys physical safety and a childhood in the care of a loving, if gruff, relative.
“Edward would not admit even to himself a wish to harm Digby,” Nita said, “but the Nash men have always been competitive with each other. Penny Nash married and produced a son while his brothers did not or have not. Why are you here, Tremaine?”
He was there to make love with his intended, to assure himself that all was well between them. He kissed Nita’s ankle, which bore a slight scent of honeysuckle.
“I wanted to waltz with you this evening, but your sister dissuaded me. Did you want our engagement announced after all?”
“No. Shall you come to bed, Tremaine?”
Nita regarded her foot, cradled in his hands. Her brows were knitted, her expression puzzled, as if symptoms would not add up to a diagnosis.
Being married to Nita Haddonfield would involve work, though unraveling the mysteries of her moods and mental processes was work Tremaine would enjoy. She was a challenge—his challenge.
“Let’s to bed,” he said, rising and extending his hand to her. “We must talk about the ideal home in which to raise our family.”
Tremaine was no expert on women, but such a topic ought to catch Nita’s interest. She rose from her perch and went to the vanity, then sat and began plaiting her hair.
“I gather you anticipate getting many offspring with me?” she asked, whipping her hair into three skeins.
Tremaine unknotted his cravat and undid his sleeve buttons. “God willing, it shall be my privilege to give you babies, my lady. I’m not particular about the gender either. A French title is a business convenience, not who I am, so don’t you dare think our daughters will matter less than our sons.”
Nita winced, as if she’d found a knot among her tresses. “Very democratic of you.”
Tremaine sat on the bed to get after his boots, which by rights ought to have been left in the kitchen for a good oiling.
“Very paternal of me. I’m also of the Continental opinion a woman ought to nurse her own children, though I’ll accede to your wishes in this regard.”
Nita turned on her dressing stool. “Did you know the Duchess of Kent refused to use a wet nurse for her little Princess Alexandrina?”
Finally, a spark of interest.
“And you approve, suggesting we’ve found an area of parental agreement even before we’re wed. Did you enjoy the assembly?”
Nita turned back to face her vanity. “One endures the assemblies, for the most part.”
Such was Nita Haddonfield’s lack of guile that she hadn’t accounted for Tremaine being able to read her expression in the vanity’s mirror. Something or someone had upset her badly.
Tremaine pulled his shirt over his head, peeled out of his breeches, and stalked up behind her.
He took the ribbon from her fingers and lashed it around the tail of her braid. “You are tired, and in need of cosseting, my lady. Come to bed and pick out names with me. I’m told people in our situation are entitled to silly behavior.”
Also lusty behavior, which, according to every shepherd Tremaine had shared a fire with, could cure all manner of megrims and melancholia.
Nita rose when Tremaine would have begun that cosseting with a gentle hug.
