Ten

“Nita, wake up.” A determined hand shook Nita from dreams of minty kisses. “I’ll dash you with water if you don’t rouse yourself this instant.”

“Kirsten?”

“You were expecting somebody else?” Kirsten dove under the covers on the far side of Nita’s bed. “I hate winter. I hate being cold. I hate pretending frigid air is invigorating. Addy Chalmers’s daughter is in the kitchen asking for you. I had the child fed, but I fear she wants you to accompany her home.”

The last warm, dreamy cobwebs of memory were scoured away by a cold blast of dread.

“Mary came for me?”

“She’s well enough. I didn’t inquire about the baby. If you want to send Horton to them, I’ll pay for it out of my pin money.” Kirsten drew the covers up to her chin, bouncing the bed all about.

“Horton won’t show up until the day’s half gone,” Nita said, “if he bothers at all, and then he’ll merely look at the child, mutter about weak lungs, and suggest the surgeon should bleed her.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to bleed the little ones.”

Nita swung the covers aside. “In more enlightened environs, the practice is held in low esteem. Thank you for fetching me.”

“You’re going, aren’t you?” Kirsten groused from the depths of the bed. “The sun isn’t even properly up, it’s cold as Lucifer’s backside out there, and away you must go. I’d admire you if you didn’t make me feel so guilty.”

Nita opened the wardrobe, where her much worn habit was always kept in readiness. Guilt was not in evidence this morning, not about resenting Mary’s summons, not about time shared with Mr. St.—with Tremaine.

“You could come with me,” Nita said, taking out her habit. “At some point you will be the lady of a household, and you might want to know basic care for the ill and injured.”

Kirsten’s honesty about her own shortcomings should not have surprised Nita—Kirsten was relentlessly honest—but Nita had made the suggestion as a dare. Sisters who interrupted dreams of Mr. St. Michael’s kisses were not entitled to a cordial reception.

“Very well,” Kirsten said, slogging out of the bed. “I had the boot boy alert the stable that you’ll need Atlas. I can go along with you and spare myself Della’s attempts to flirt with Mr. St. Michael at breakfast.”

Kirsten flounced out, muttering about daft sisters and tiresome winter weather, and Nita used the reprieve to send up a prayer. Addy’s last child had not lived past the first few weeks. The weather was miserable, and the mother fond of gin. Mary would not have come at such an hour for anything less than an emergency.

Nita did not want to go, did not want to find another small, lifeless body cradled in Addy’s thin arms, did not want to face the other children, solemn beyond their years and more afraid than any child should be.

Nita did not want to go, but she must go, as always.

By the time Nita and Kirsten arrived to the cottage, the sun had made a grudging appearance just above the horizon, though a low overcast meant a single slice of dawn illumination soon disappeared as the sun rose into the clouds.

“How do you do this?” Kirsten asked as they clomped onto the porch. “These people can’t pay you, they’re all likely to die of consumption anyway, and you risk your own health every time you heed their summons.”

The woodpile was diminished, and from inside the cottage, Nita heard not a sound. Not a crying baby, which would have been the case if colic were the problem, not the children stirring about.

Nothing.

Nita stood facing the door when what she wanted to do was leap onto her horse and never return.

“When Papa was dying,” Nita said, “should I have left him alone in his bed for weeks, no one but the servants to change his linens and cajole him into taking some beef tea? He was not long for the world. Nothing I did changed that, nor would he have wanted me to alter matters if I could. Should I have turned my back on him? Addy has no one, these children have no one.”

“I’m sorry,” Kirsten said, pacing away from the door. “I haven’t your moral fortitude, Nita. Sometimes I wonder if I have a single virtue worthy of note. Maybe you’d best leave me out here to freeze.”

Honesty was a virtue, and Kirsten had that in abundance.

“You’re with me now,” Nita said, “and you remembered to raid the larder too.” While Nita had brought only her herbs and medicinals, which wouldn’t feed hungry children, nor had she brought Mr. St. Michael’s gift of coin. “Breathe through your mouth for the first few minutes, and you’ll manage.”

This, oddly, provoked Kirsten to smiling. “Onward, dear Sister. Sooner begun is sooner done.”

Nita knocked softly and opened the door, the familiar stench of soiled nappies, boiled cabbage, and unwashed bodies hitting her harder than usual. Mr. St. Michael had told her to take a soaking bath this morning, and she’d intended to use Kirsten’s soap on every inch of her skin and her hair too.

“Addy, what’s amiss?” Nita asked.

Addy sat before the hearth, where a meager fire smoldered. The children were nowhere to be seen, probably tucked up in the sleeping alcove trying to stay warm, while the baby was cradled against Addy’s shoulder.

“She’s got the croup,” Addy said, despair in every syllable. “Poor wee girl has about coughed herself to death.”

Two impressions registered, one positive, one ominous: Addy was sober, and the baby was wheezing with each inhalation. The wheezing was a weak rattle, barely audible.

“How long has she been like this?” Nita asked, setting down her bag and unfastening her cloak.

“Since right after your last visit. I didn’t want to bother you. She worsened in the night.”

When Nita might have howled with frustration—what mattered bothering when dying was the alternative?—Kirsten touched her arm.

“What can I do?”

If Mr. St. Michael were with her, Nita would have him chopping a batch of kindling, because a roaring fire was necessary and sooner rather than later.

“Bring in the driest of the firewood, then we’ll need water. There’s a cistern out back, though you’ll have to break the ice. When that’s done, the children need breakfast.”

Somebody should do another batch of laundry, sweep out the ashes spilling from the hearth, start a pot of soup, and otherwise set the place to rights.

“Has the baby taken any sustenance?” Nita asked.

“She’s fussy,” Addy said, tucking the blanket around the child. “I can’t tell if she’s hungry or hurting or miserable or all three.”

“Offer her the breast,” Nita said. “Repeatedly. Her throat is uncomfortable from coughing, and she’s tired, so she can’t take as much at once, but she needs to keep up her strength.”

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. Babies died so easily, healthy one day, gone the next, sometimes without even a sign of illness. Nita was swamped with a longing for Mr. St. Michael’s brisk competence with a splitting ax—and with a hug.

Horton, who hates me. Hated the stink, the despair, the weariness, the uncertainty, the death, and the death, and the death.

Addy took the only rocker and put the baby to her breast. The poor little child latched on with desperate greed, though she was soon fussing, her breathing interrupted by an odd, barking cough.

“Is she supposed to sound like that?” Kirsten asked, putting a load of kindling down before the hearth.

“She is not,” Nita said. “That’s the primary symptom of croup, though she’s very young to be so afflicted.” And very small, and the birth had not been easy.

What birth was?

“She won’t take any more,” Addy said a few minutes later. “She didn’t even finish on one side.”

“You must offer more frequently,” Nita said. “And keep your consumption of fluids copious, lest the supply be lacking when the demand resumes.”

Nita filled the kettle on the pot-swing with water, dribbled in some peppermint oil, and added the dry wood to the fire.

“We try not to waste wood,” Addy muttered, putting the baby to her shoulder.

“We need to create steam,” Nita retorted, “to ease the child’s breathing.”

“That smells good,” Addy said, patting the child’s back gently. “We have half a field of peppermint behind the garden.”

“Have the children pick it, and you can sell it. Peppermint has many uses.”

Tooth powders often featured peppermint, for example.

When the kettle was bubbling and the scent of peppermint thick in the air, Nita set the steaming pot on the table and used her cloak to fashion a tent over it. She took the baby from Addy, draping the cloak over her own head and the baby’s.

“My mother did that once for my sister,” Addy said. “I’d forgotten.”

Outside the dark cocoon of the steam tent, Nita heard quiet voices asking about the baby.

Not Mary. She would remain at Belle Maison until the grooms brought her back in the dogcart. The boys were stirring, and they were worried about their small sister.

The baby’s breathing eased somewhat, while Nita’s eyes watered and her nose threatened to run. She lifted her cloak, swaddled the baby in it, and headed for the door.

“Reheat that water. Lady Kirsten brought bread, butter, and eggs for breakfast, also a flask of milk and a jar of preserves.”

Nita opened the door and took the well-wrapped infant out to the frigid air of the porch.

“Lady Nita!” Addy was on her heels. “Whatever are you about?”

“Cold air helps,” Nita said. “You’re fortunate the illness has occurred in winter, because it’s just as likely to hit in summer.”

“But the child will catch her death! I’ll not lose another baby, not as long as I have breath in my body. I can’t lose her! You’re not a physician, to be subjecting her to the bitter wind like this. Dr. Horton—”

Horton, who hates me. “Horton would not come unless you sent payment when you summoned him, and then he’d bleed Annie to death and tell you it was God’s will.”

That slowed Addy down for the space of exactly one indrawn breath.

“Give me back my baby!” Hysteria laced the demand. Addy reached for the child, while Nita turned away, the baby cradled against her shoulder.

Kirsten came stomping around the corner of the cottage, a wooden bucket in her hand.

“Will shouting help the child?” Kirsten asked, her tone merely curious. “If so, I’m happy to add to the din.”

Addy stopped trying to snatch the baby from Nita’s arms. “Lady Nita means well,” Addy said, “but every mother knows a baby should not be subjected to the winter weather. It’s madness, and I’ve lost too many children to allow daft practices to cost me another.”

“If Lady Nita is daft, then why did you send for her?” Kirsten asked, climbing the porch stairs and setting the bucket down. “Her ladyship was warm and cozy in her bed when I woke her to tell her Mary was shivering in the kitchen. Even if you paid Horton, he’d not likely show up before noon. Besides, the baby—which Nita delivered you of safely enough—sounds much better.”

Kirsten’s matter-of-fact recitation had ended on the only observation that mattered: Annie’s breathing was back to normal, and the child was drowsing contentedly on Nita’s shoulder.

“I’ll slice the children some bread,” Kirsten said, taking up her bucket. “You should both be wearing your cloaks or Annie won’t be the only one falling ill.”

Silence descended, the impenetrable quiet of an early morning in winter. The baby let out a sigh—a normal, quiet baby sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Addy said. “I’ve haven’t slept, we’ve barely any food. I hate to send the boys out for wood again so soon, and if we’re not to starve, I should go back to—”

To the tavern, where she plied her trade, unless the proprietor was in a righteous mood, in which case Addy hung about the livery, given the occasional coin for tending the horses but mostly keeping warm between customers.

“Go inside,” Nita said. “Kirsten is right. We can’t have you falling ill too.”

Not the most comforting reply, but Addy’s tirade had torn at Nita’s composure. A baby’s life was more important than a soaking bath, but had Addy no respect for Nita? Would Addy rather Horton killed her child with his condescension and ignorance?

The door scraped open, and Addy went inside while Kirsten came back out to the porch.

“A plague of locusts could not devour that bread any more quickly than those children. I saved some for Mary and Addy and started a pot of tea brewing.”

“My thanks.”

“Here.” Kirsten took off her own cloak and draped it around Nita’s shoulders. “If you must brave the elements, at least do so properly clothed.”

Having delivered her scold, Kirsten went inside while Nita remained on the porch, the baby sleeping against her shoulder.

How would Tremaine St. Michael react when his wife was roused from slumber to tend a sick baby? Considering that he intended to travel for weeks or even months at a time, his husbandly patience ought not to be tried very far if Nita heeded the occasional summons from a neighbor.

He’d promised they could bide in the area, Nita recalled that much of their discussion the previous night. She’d fallen asleep, exhausted, enlightened, enthralled, and also curiously unsatisfied.

Tremaine St. Michael had assessed Nita’s strengths and shortcomings with dispassionate accuracy and presented himself without airs or graces. As a lover, he possessed magnificent stores of consideration, unplumbed reserves of humor, and all the manly competence a lady could hope for.

But as he’d prosed on about his properties and his enjoyment of art, Nita hadn’t been able to connect the handsome suitor in her bed with the man who’d taught the children their letters among the ashes. She was attracted to the wealthy sheep trader, but she liked the other fellow.

Liked him exceedingly.

“Come along, miss,” she said to the baby. “Enough fresh air for the nonce. I am in need of a soaking bath, and you must finish breaking your fast before joining your mama in a much-needed nap.”

* * *

Tremaine dawdled over his eggs, lingered over his toast, and swilled enough tea to float a man-o’-war. He was about to inquire of his hostess if he might escort the ladies to the sheep byre to visit the latest additions to the herd—a newborn lamb or three would surely draw his intended out of hiding—when he realized that Nita wasn’t coming down to breakfast.

Her family was exchanging the same fleeting glances, the same half put-upon asides, the same overly cheerful conversational sallies as they had during his first meal with them.

Nita had gone off on a call her family disapproved of, and for her to miss the first meal of the day, the call had to be urgent. Lady Kirsten’s absence didn’t seem to merit any notice, suggesting she, like Lady Della, enjoyed mornings abed.

Which left…the bluestocking, Lady Susannah, settling in on Tremaine’s left with a rustle of skirts and a whiff of roses.

“My lady, good morning. Tea?”

“Please. Are you ready for the assembly, Mr. St. Michael? I’m sure word of your visit has spread more quickly than news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, and probably with an equal amount of rejoicing.”

“Are amiable gentlemen in such short supply?” Though “amiable” in Tremaine’s case was a stretch. He danced well enough.

From the head of the table, Bellefonte paused in his visual worship of his countess.

“Eligible, amiable gentlemen are more precious than rubies in this shire.” The earl glowered at George for a moment, then went back to peeling an orange for his lady.

“When Nicholas wed, the young ladies of the parish went into collective decline,” George observed placidly. “Then Beckman fell into parson’s mousetrap, and I became the sole, unworthy consolation of at least two dozen women. You will cause a riot, Mr. St. Michael, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The ladies will take you captive and soon be counting your figurative teeth. I hope your affairs are in order.”

“They usually are,” Tremaine said, passing Lady Susannah the teapot.

Because he did not want to spend the next twenty minutes discussing which dances he enjoyed the most—he was partial to the Scottish sword dances, come to that—Tremaine embarked on a minor riot of his own.

“Will Lady Nita join us soon? I’m of a mind to see if any more lambs have arrived to the merino herd. One lively young fellow in particular might like to renew his acquaintance with her.”

The lively fellow in Tremaine’s breeches certainly would.

Lady Susannah tapped her spoon three times on the rim of the teacup, a feminine judge of the breakfast parlor bringing her court to order.

“Disagreeable weather for such an outing,” she pronounced. “Today’s a day for reading.”

George’s comment, about Susannah needing to get off her backside, came to mind. She was pretty in a blond, blue-eyed, unremarkable way. Not as tall as Nita, nor as dramatic as Kirsten, she looked suited to—and apparently craved—a life of quiet, peaceful domesticity.

“You should come with me,” Tremaine said. “We’ll think up names for the new arrivals. Lady Nita might enjoy an outing with her sisters.”

Another glance went ricocheting around the table. The countess broke the silence when it appeared none of the Haddonfield siblings would.

“Nita was summoned to a neighbor’s early this morning on a medical matter. Kirsten apparently accompanied her. More tea, Mr. St. Michael?”

The earl stood abruptly. “If he drinks any more tea, he’ll float away to France. Why didn’t anybody tell me Nita had gone haring off again? Now she’s inveigling Kirsten into her daft behaviors? Famous.”

Bellefonte was legendarily indulgent where his womenfolk were concerned, and when Tremaine wanted to chide his lordship for high-handedness—Lady Nita was not a ewe who’d wandered from her herd—he instead felt sympathy for the earl.

“If your lordship could spare me a moment in the library?” Tremaine said, rising as well. “I’d like to discuss a matter of business.”

Bellefonte kissed his countess on the cheek, cast a censorious glance at his siblings, and stalked from the room, tossing an, “I am at your service, St. Michael,” over his shoulder.

“Be patient with him, Mr. St. Michael,” the countess said. “Nicholas means well.”

Tremaine bowed to the ladies. “Lady Nita means well too.”

For that matter, so did Tremaine.

* * *

“I’m not in the mood to discuss a lot of damned woolly sheep, St. Michael,” Nick said as soon as the door to the library was closed. He stomped to the window, assessing a leaden sky that mirrored his mood exactly.

“My two most stubborn sisters have gone off to contract cholera, dysentery, or God knows what evil,” he went on. “Bad enough I can’t contain Nita’s excesses of Christian charity, now Kirsten must thwart my authority as well.”

Leah claimed Nita was sensible, Nita would take precautions, Nita would not knowingly put herself at risk for contagion.

“Do you know where she’s gone?” St. Michael asked, joining him at the window.

Frigid air radiated from the panes of glass, though that did nothing to cool Nick’s temper.

“My own countess did not see fit to confide that information in me.”

“That bothers you?”

St. Michael was free to get and spend, to lark about the known world, to blithely amass wealth because he had neither wife nor sisters nor mother nor daughters.

For now.

“Will you take a lady to wife, expecting to indulge a penchant for falsehood on her part, Mr. St. Michael?”

“I will marry, if I marry, expecting that domestic matters will fall to my wife’s supervision, while dealing with business and greater affairs will remain my responsibility.”

“Greater affairs?” Nick nearly laughed. “What affair is greater than maintaining harmony with the woman you love? Will you keep your wife all buttoned up in the family parlor, studying menus and reading improving tracts?”

St. Michael was a handsome devil, in a tall, dark-haired, broody sort of way. He was bright too, if Beckman’s letters were to be believed. Coin and valuable works of art accumulated at St. Michael’s bidding as if he were a financial alchemist. He controlled a substantial portion of the wool trade, and yet Nick’s question puzzled him.

“I expect my wife will study menus, as your countess does,” St. Michael replied evenly. “She’ll read whatever she pleases to read.”

Leah occasionally read an improving tract for entertainment, though in fairness to St. Michael, the countess was bedeviled by the menus.

“You’re daft, St. Michael, or perhaps trying not to give offense. What did you want to discuss?”

For no man could explain to another the complexities of sharing a meaningful life with a woman who was her own person, her own soul. St. Michael’s wife would have to educate him in that regard.

Nick wished her the joy of such a project.

St. Michael sauntered off, propping an elbow on the mantel over the fireplace. Nick stayed by the windows, where he might catch a glimpse of his errant sisters returning to the fold.

“When last we discussed the purpose for my visit,” St. Michael said, “I gained the impression that you regard your merinos as a suitable addition to Lady Susannah’s dowry.”

“Edward Nash regards them thus.” While Nick had increasing reservations about Susannah’s choice. George had expressed doubts about Edward Nash, and George’s judgment—in most regards—was sound.

“I am investigating the possibility that Lady Nita might be receptive to an offer of marriage from me,” St. Michael said. “I want those sheep too, and will put them to far better use than Nash could.”

Investigating the possibility that Lady Nita might… St. Michael had probably asked Nita to save him a dance at the assembly. Nita would allow him that much out of sheer pity for a lamb sent to slaughter at the hands of the marriage-mad mamas of Haddondale.

Of which there was a sizable herd.

“I’m investigating the possibility of splitting the herd,” Nick said. “Nash needs those sheep more than you do. You simply want them.”

“I want them badly, and I do not want a half or a third of the herd, Bellefonte.”

“Nash wants them very badly.” While Nick wanted them not at all. Sheep required land and were hard on their pastures. The merinos were good breeders, which meant Nick owned too damned many of them.

St. Michael knew better than to reveal his emotions in the midst of a business discussion, but something—distaste, exasperation, Nick couldn’t tell exactly what—crossed his features.

“Then think of it this way, Bellefonte. Which sister is more urgently in need of a husband? Lady Susannah is sweet, biddable, pretty, and content to spend time in the company of the Bard. Lady Nita could at this very minute be dealing with a deadly illness, and now Lady Kirsten is accompanying her.”

Well, thank the heavenly powers St. Michael had the sense to be alarmed at that prospect.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Nick wanted to put his fist through the windowpane. “Papa told me to look after the girls. He said the boys would sort themselves out, but for the girls, my influence and support would be needed.”

Nick hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to allow exasperation and bewilderment to see the cold light of day.

“Bellefonte, I’ll give her babies, God willing. What in all of creation can compete with a woman’s own children for her attention? Married to me, Lady Nita will have no more need to haunt sickrooms or antagonize the local physician.”

Had St. Michael reached that understanding with Nita, or was he simply presuming that his household would run exactly as he envisioned it? Or was Nita so besotted with her sheep count that she’d set aside her medical activities in favor of making lambs with him?

Nick prayed it was so.

“Your proposal to Nita stands or falls on its own merit,” Nick said. “You cannot marry a woman you merely tolerate because she’s brought you financial gain. Nita deserves better than that.”

“Then I have your permission to court Lady Nita?”

St. Michael lounged against the mantel, all elegant grace in a country gentleman’s attire. Beckman had said not to underestimate him, and not to entirely trust him either.

“You have my permission,” Nick said. “I thought we’d established that much.” Beyond the window, Nita and Kirsten came marching up from the stable yard. They were arguing or discussing something with great animation in typical Haddonfield fashion.

Nick’s relief at the simple sight of them was…troubling.

“Nita loves babies,” he said, half to himself. “Kirsten’s affections are by no means as tender, but Nita…she loves all the children.” She’d been more mother to her younger siblings than sister, once the countess had fallen ill.

Why hadn’t Nick seen that sooner?

St. Michael appeared at Nick’s elbow. “And you love her. You admire her, you respect her, but you don’t know what to do with her. She’s run this household for years, and now you’ve taken that from her, and you rail against the only thing she has left that feels meaningful to her.”

All true, damn it. “What if the babies don’t arrive, St. Michael? Children appear or not as God wills, no matter how badly we want them or dread them.”

Addy Chalmers probably dreaded them, for all she seemed to do her meager best by the ones in her care.

“I have, at last count, eight separate households,” St. Michael said. “I have a niece who must see some of the world and the great capitals. I can take Lady Nita traveling all over the Continent in fine style. I have business associates who must be entertained, connections at all the royal courts. Lady Nita would be my countess when it suited her, and that position will keep her well occupied even if we are not blessed with children.”

St. Michael was not merely ignorant, he was so uninformed regarding the realities of marriage as to be innocent. When a woman ached to hold a child in her arms, all the royal courts in the world meant nothing.

And yet, married to St. Michael, Nita would be well cared for. She’d want for nothing, and she’d probably be transplanted to some other shire, where her mother’s legacy of medical meddling wouldn’t open the door for Nita to engage in the same folly.

“I wish you luck, then,” Nick said as the ladies stopped by the gazebo. Whatever disagreement they were having, they’d at least not brought it into the house.

“One concern yet troubles me, Bellefonte.”

The damned sheep could hang. “You’re doubtless about to inflict it on me.”

“Lady Nita deserves more than a husband who tolerates her because she brings a herd of valuable sheep to the union. We are agreed on that, though I do want those sheep.”

“So you’ve said.” Though apparently, St. Michael could buy all the merinos he wanted elsewhere, and probably buy his own county to stash them in too.

“Doesn’t Lady Susannah deserve the same consideration? If you made it clear to Nash that Lady Susannah comes without a substantial settlement, would he still seek her hand, or is he merely tolerating the lady because she arrives to his arms with a fortune in tow? I suggest you test his resolve at least.”

“Take your suggestions and go count lambs with them, St. Michael. My sisters have returned, and I must greet them.”

Nick would have made his exit, but that troubled, exasperated expression had crossed St. Michael’s features again.

“If I’m to marry Lady Nita, and these excesses of Christian charity, as you call them, will soon be curtailed, why bother castigating her for them?”

Innocent and ignorant, but not devoid of all chivalry. Nick took encouragement where he could find it.

“You are willing to marry her, St. Michael, with or without the sheep. I comprehend this and commend you for your great magnanimity or shrewdness or whatever—though I notice you’ve not mentioned true love. Despite what you might think of my dunderheaded attempts at being the earl, I am also Nita’s brother, and I love her. You are a fine, well-bred ram, and will turn all the heads at the assembly, et cetera and so forth. Nothing in our discussion, however, allows me to conclude that Lady Nita will have you.”

Nick bowed and left, lest the consternation on St. Michael’s face inspire hearty, and not exactly hospitable, laughter.