Page 99 of Tremaine's True Love
“I was hoping you’d marry my sister,” Bellefonte said as they crossed the chilly garden. “George is probably still sleeping off the effects of truly bad punch. Looks like we’ll get more snow this afternoon.”
The sky was indeed adding its melancholic contribution to a day Tremaine wanted behind him.
“I’ll be in London by midafternoon, then the weather can do whatever it pleases.”
Except bad weather meant Digby Nash’s lung fever might get worse, and Nita would be at greater risk of illness herself.
“Are we in a footrace, St. Michael?”
“I’m trying to outrun a broken heart.” Where in the bloody hell had that come from?
“You’ll lose,” Bellefonte said with the merciless certainty of experience. “You can’t outrun a broken heart, can’t out-think it, can’t out-drink it, or out-swive it. If it’s any consolation, I don’t blame you for putting Nita’s welfare above that of the parish poor. Nita never visits the nursery at Belle Maison. That arrangement works for an auntie, but not for a mother.”
Nita avoided the nursery in part because she would not expose the Bellefonte heir to contagion, but also because she’d thought never to have children of her own.
“God damn you and your attempts to cheer me up, Bellefonte.”
“Anger doesn’t work either,” Bellefonte said pleasantly, “not for long. George’s horse is gone.”
They’d reached the relative warmth of the stables, and indeed, George’s handsome gelding was not in its stall.
“Perhaps your brother has gone to check on the sheep,” Tremaine suggested, though nothing about this day would go as planned. “Mr. Kinser was nipping from a sizable flask at last night’s assembly.”
“We were all nipping from sizable flasks once we’d got a taste of that devil’s brew in the punch bowl.”
Edward Nash had been nearly facedown in the punch bowl, like a hog at his slops, while Nita had been risking her health, tending to a boy whom Nash—
“Promise me you’ll keep Nash on a short rein,” Tremaine said. “Make him beg Lady Susannah for her hand, preferably in public, on his knees. Make him promise her that he’ll fill the library with the books of her choosing.”
“Excellent idea,” Bellefonte said as William was led out. Two sacks were draped over his withers, probably Nita’s doing. “I wish you weren’t leaving, St. Michael. I could learn from you. That bit with the sheep was brilliant—also generous.”
“One-third of the proceeds of the sale of the sheep funds are to be deposited in a trust for the boy. You and George are the trustees.” Tremaine hadn’t intended to disclose that either. “Nash might be under the mistaken impression the offer he received for the sheep was from his great-uncle, the newly remarried baronet, whose title Digby is unlikely to inherit.”
“Newly remarried?”
Bellefonte was entirely too trusting, but then, many good men were. “To the lovely Miss Pamela Sandeen,” Tremaine said, “late of Hagerton Crossing, Derbyshire. Her father’s in trade, her mother’s people are bankers, and one hears things.”
Bellefonte eyed the lowering sky. “Let me guess: She made her bow only last year and comes from a family legendarily prone to producing male offspring?”
“The baronet’s bride is from a family of fourteen, twelve of them boys. Her come-out was two years ago,” Tremaine said, repeating the contents of the report delivered to the Queen’s Harebell by messenger. “Nash’s prospects linger mostly in his mind. The present baronet allowed his lady a year’s engagement, though by all accounts the couple is shamelessly affectionate.”
“Maybe I’m not so reluctant to see you get on your horse,” Bellefonte said slowly. “I assume you researched my situation thoroughly before enjoying my hospitality.”
Yes, Tremaine had, and Lady Della’s come-out weighed heavily on the earl’s mind. “Not thoroughly enough, my lord.”
When Tremaine extended a hand to Bellefonte, he was yanked into a sturdy male embrace, thumped stoutly between his shoulder blades, then shoved in the direction of the mounting block.
“Godspeed, St. Michael.”
Tremaine climbed into a bloody cold saddle, saluted with his crop, and turned his horse in the direction of Town. As he trotted past the sheep pastures, he noted two places where the stone walls were giving way to the heave of ground alternately frozen and thawed. The sheep would spot those weaknesses any day, and then Lucky’s mother and her friends would go on a grass-drunk tour of the neighborhood.
A drunk of any kind had pathetic appeal. Tremaine reached the village on that thought, and saw George Haddonfield’s horse tied outside the inn. The familiar call of business sounded in the part of Tremaine’s mind that hadn’t the decency to be felled by grief.
He prided himself on snatching commercial opportunity where it arose, no matter how inconvenient or awkward, and George Haddonfield would make an excellent factor both in England and abroad.
Though look where snatching opportunity had landed Tremaine with Nita.
Business be damned. Tremaine could solicit George’s assistance by letter. He urged William on past the green, but the horse balked.
