Twelve

“It’s snowing.” Della offered this observation as if it hadn’t snowed in five years, as if snow were a great treat, when in fact, Susannah hated snow.

“Nita and Mr. St. Michael will regret their visit to the village if the snow keeps up,” Susannah said. Though they might bring her some new books. She was desperate for new books.

“If we’re to be snowed in,” Della said, holding her embroidery up to the window light, “all the more reason to get some fresh air. What are you reading?”

Susannah peered at her book. “Titus Andronicus.”

Della set her embroidery aside—flowers and butterflies rioting along the hem of a silk chemise—and snatched the book from Susannah’s lap.

“For shame, Suze, polluting your mind with all that violence and revenge. Is something wrong?”

Beware the perceptive younger sibling.

“Just because it’s a tragedy doesn’t mean it’s bad literature,” Susannah retorted. “Life can’t be all ginger biscuits and chocolate.”

Though not a single biscuit remained on the tray and the pot was empty. Susannah laid the blame for her overindulgence at Edward Nash’s booted feet.

“But Titus Andronicus, Suze? I can never remember who’s killing or despoiling whom, or cutting off which body part, in revenge for what upon whom. And all for the privilege of ruling some hot, dusty old empire. Have you heard from Edward lately?”

Oh, spite! Oh, hell! Oh, dratted baby sister!

“In this weather?”

Della put Titus on the mantel, a bit of a stretch for the only petite Haddonfield in captivity.

“It’s simply winter,” Della said, returning to the settee and tucking one slippered foot up under her skirts. “Not everybody finds imaginary characters sufficiently cheering company. Some of us pay calls and look in on each other. Even Kirsten has been known to leave the house in search of exercise and fresh air.”

“Is that what she was about?” Susannah replied. “Accompanying Nita this morning, getting some fresh air? I shouldn’t think a sickroom an ideal place for such an undertaking.”

Titus Andronicus, which Susannah could practically recite, called to her from across the room. She wanted to hold the book in her hands, the way a child held a favorite doll.

Which was also Edward’s blighted fault. Susannah esteemed him greatly, so greatly she’d have to kill him if he didn’t propose prior to the assembly.

“You are not in good spirits, Susannah. Is the assembly making you nervous? Edward should have proposed by now, shouldn’t he?”

“He’s the kind who thinks things through,” Susannah said, for one must practice mendacious loyalty if one wanted to be successful in the role of wife. “Deliberation is a sign of maturity and sincere regard, I think.”

“Deliberation is a sign of indecisiveness,” Della said. “I was up late last night and went to the kitchen for a last cup of chocolate when I caught a glimpse of Mr. St. Michael stealing from Nita’s room.” Della picked up her hoop and stabbed the needle into the throat of a pink rose. “His hair was in disarray.”

Abruptly, Titus became less riveting.

“His hair? What has hair to do with—?” Mr. St. Michael’s thick, dark hair, which had a tendency to wave and curl. “From Nita’s room? Our Nita?”

“Bernita Christina Mayflower Haddonfield had a late-night caller. I’m jealous.”

“You’re scandalous,” Susannah muttered. “I’m jealous too. He’s quite good-looking.” Also wealthy, and he had a marvelous accent for declaiming Mr. Burns’s poetry. Nita would like that he was a healthy sort too.

There was rather a lot of Mr. St. Michael though, and he was said to racket about more than he stayed put.

Susannah much preferred to stay put.

“It’s not fair,” Della said, winding golden thread around her needle. “You’re the soul of domestic tranquillity, sweet, soft-spoken, literary, and demure, and Edward can’t bother to travel two miles to pay a call. Nita ignores her own wardrobe, reads only German medical treatises, and spends her days tending those whom Dr. Horton has quacked, and she gets the late-night caller.”

“Hush, Della.” For Edward’s deliberation was related to Nicholas’s blasted sheep and Nita’s benighted Mr. St. Michael. Kirsten had overhead Nicholas discussing the matter and had told Susannah of Edward’s desire for the sheep to be included in the marriage settlement.

Sheep, of all the smelly, helpless, dim-witted creatures.

A man of Edward’s standing could expect a bride to bring some assets to the marriage. There was no insult in that—even to an earl’s daughter who should have been well dowered.

Della stabbed the fabric again. “Do you fancy a French-Scottish sheep nabob for a brother-in-law? He made Nita laugh at whist. I rather like him.”

Susannah snatched up a pillow and swatted her sister with it. “You are horrid to go on about this. If it weren’t for Nita, I wouldn’t know what to expect on my wedding night, and I won’t tell you unless you hush.”

Of course, Edward had provided a bit of enlightenment on that topic as well. On several occasions.

Truly, Susannah would kill him if he didn’t propose on bended knee, ring in hand, and sheep be damned.

Della tossed the pillow to the floor. “I already know about the wedding night. Nita told me too. Sounds very odd to me. Very personal. The kissing part might be interesting.”

The whole business was part of being a wife, which Susannah would endure. Edward’s kisses tasted like his pipe, those few kisses she’d chanced upon. Kisses led to babies though, indirectly and eventually. One could read stories to babies.

One could hold babies and love them too.

“Why the sigh?” Della asked. “You sound like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s heroines by page 287.”

“They aren’t heroines if they always need some fellow to get them out of scrapes,” Susannah said. Her own mother had pointed that out. A woman must seize her fate with both hands, else she’d end up a lonely old maid surrounded by books and cats.

Of course, she must not be seen seizing her fate, and perhaps she ought not to have seized her fate prior to seizing a marriage proposal.

“This snow looks like it means business,” Susannah said. Already the bushes and trees wore a fresh dusting of white, though Susannah meant business too. The next assembly was a good three months off, and she was nearly at the end of her Shakespeare binge. “Perhaps we should get some fresh air. Pay a call on Mrs. Nash now rather than wait to cross paths with her at the assembly.”

Della wound her thread for another golden French knot. “But it’s cold out, and poor, one-handed Titus will pine for you terribly, and George will eat all the chocolate biscuits, and—”

Settees came with an abundance of pillows because some siblings needed an abundance of thrashing.

“I’m going,” Susannah said, smiting her sister stoutly. “If I have to bribe Kirsten into going with me, I’m going. I feel a compelling need to pay a call on Ed—I mean, Elsie Nash.”

Della stopped laughing long enough to put her hoop aside. “Bribing Kirsten never ends well. She charges interest of her own devising. I might, for example, have to dance with your Mr. Nash, and his breath is not exactly pleasant when he’s been at his pipe—meaning no offense to your swain.”

“I cannot wait for you to leave for London this spring. You are a plague on my nerves, Della Haddonfield. For your impertinence, you will indulge me in a short visit to the lending library when we’ve paid our call.”

Della rose and stretched, a small, pretty, comfortable, and truly dear young lady. “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, ‘Books enough!’”

Susannah spared Titus a final glance—an awful story about awful, greedy, violent people—and parted ways with Della at the foot of the stairs. For a call on Edward, the sweet, soft-spoken, literary, and demure soul of domestic tranquillity needed to fit herself out with all the planning and subtle cunning of a Roman general bent on victory.

* * *

As a very young man, Tremaine’s fascination with, and devotion to, the gratification of his breeding organs had bordered on an obsession. Life had been a procession of frustrated urges, fantasies, frequent occasions of self-gratification, and the rare, much-anticipated interlude with a willing female who knew what she was about.

Such females became more readily available as Tremaine’s circumstances improved, while his preoccupation with erotic gratification had curiously ebbed.

And thus the first of many adult insights had befallen him: he excelled at wanting what he could not have, and the roots of that dubious talent twisted around childhood memories best left unexamined.

Those roots yet held life, apparently, for as Tremaine assisted Nita to dismount outside the sheep byre, he wanted to swive her all over again, but more than that, he wanted her acceptance of his marriage proposal.

“We shouldn’t linger,” she said, her hands remaining on his shoulders. “We’re apparently in for some weather.”

Nita was lovely, with the snow dusting her scarf and lashes, when by rights she should be chin deep in a hot, scented bath. Instead, she was paying a call with Tremaine on a flock of woolly beldames.

I love you. The words sounded in his mind—only in his mind, thank God—as startling as they were heartfelt.

“Let me take the horses around back,” he said, “out of the wind. Go inside. You’ll be warmer.”

He kissed her on the lips, George having had the great good sense to look in on Kinser. A capital fellow, George, if somewhat given to scolds. Tremaine tied the horses to the rowan growing at the back of the byre and sent a prayer skyward that the damned snow let up.

So he and his lady could linger.

“How do you tell the sheep apart?” Nita asked when Tremaine joined her inside the byre. While not cozy, the little stone structure was appreciably warmer than the out-of-doors and full of fat, milling sheep. Some reclined on the straw, chewing their cud, some sniffed at Lady Nita’s hems, two were nursing lambs, and one napped with a lamb—Tremaine’s little ram—curled at her side.

“You tell them apart the same way you do people,” Tremaine said. “By their facial expressions, their general appearance, their voices, the way they move. Shall we say hello to our friend?”

As they approached the sleeping pair, the ewe awoke but remained curled in the straw.

“I’m glad I wore my old habit now,” Lady Nita said, drawing off her gloves and kneeling. “He’s painfully dear.”

She meant that, meant that the sight of the lamb cuddled against his mama made her heart ache. Tremaine’s damned heart ached too, at the sight of Nita petting the little fellow and blinking hard.

“Will wee Annie be well?” he asked.

Nita used her gloves to swipe at her eyes. “She should be. Croup is common and needn’t be serious. Shall we give him a name? Something gallant and brave?”

How brave did a fellow have to be to curl up against a warm female and drift into dreams?

“Call him anything you like, my lady. He’ll be honored among all the other rams of the herd to have been given a name.”

Marry me. Let me give you my name.

The ewe was a tolerant sort, or perhaps she recalled the scent of the humans intruding on her afternoon’s slumbers. She sniffed at Nita’s hand, then gave her baby a few licks around his ears.

“Don’t wake him,” Nita told the ewe. “Little ones need their rest.”

Tremaine drew Nita to her feet and straight into his arms. She went willingly and the simple feel of her against him, even through layers of winter clothes, settled his nerves a sorely needed degree.

“Have you considered my proposal?”

Nita nodded against his shoulder and remained right where she was. Not well done of him, to raise the topic here, among the beasts, with the scents of straw and livestock thick in the air.

And yet the location was appropriate too. Tremaine had first noticed Nita—truly noticed her—when she’d been so concerned with a newborn lamb shivering on the frozen earth.

“I want to be sensible,” she said.

“You’ve been sensible until you’re sick with it,” Tremaine said, though ironically, Nita’s selfless, tireless, pragmatic medical skills made others well.

He could spare her that paradox and would, gladly.

“Not sick with it,” Nita said, “but lonely, certainly. With you, I need not pretend to be someone I’m not.”

George Haddonfield might have been able to decipher the emotions those words were intended to convey. Tremaine heard only a nascent acceptance in Nita’s observation.

“I do not contort myself for the sake of social niceties,” Tremaine said, stroking a hand over Nita’s hair. “And I protect those entrusted to my care. My wife will not be allowed to scamper off to a war-torn country while I have breath in my body, Nita Haddonfield. Consider yourself warned.”

Nita could do with protecting. Her family had given up that cause years ago, and Tremaine looked forward to remedying their lapse. He’d even entertained the notion that Nita was marrying him in part to allow her to withdraw from her medical folly gracefully.

When Nita drew back, Tremaine let her go, though it pained him.

“Such dramatics. I have no intention of frequenting any battlefields, Mr. St. Michael. The sheep seem healthy,” she said, holding her glove out for a ewe to sniff. “They all seem wonderfully healthy despite the wretched weather. This makes me happy.”

There was that smile, the one Tremaine was learning to watch for.

“Good health makes them happy too, to the extent sheep trouble themselves over finer sentiments. Will you make me happy, Bernita Haddonfield?”

It was a day for unintended questions, apparently.

Nita studied Tremaine for an interminable moment, her smile hovering shy of full bloom. Outside the byre, some old ewe bleated, suggesting George Haddonfield might be heading in their direction.

“One cannot make another person happy, Mr. St. Michael, any more than one can make another healthy.”

Tremaine could not fathom where Nita’s hesitance came from, though she was imbued with more natural caution and intellectual thoroughness than many ladies of her station.

“Last night you made me something,” Tremaine said. “If not happy, then very close to it. I hope the sentiments were shared, and I hope we can share them again, soon and often.”

Last night, for all his caution, he might have made them both parents. The notion pleased when it ought to alarm.

“Last night was…lovely,” Nita said. “I felt lovely. I should feel naughty and upset with myself, and guilty of course, but I cannot. I’ve tried, and all I can feel is…lovely.”

For a time in Tremaine’s arms, Nita had esteemed herself, to use George’s word, and some of that sense lingered in her bearing, in her pleased, private smile. Victory whispered to Tremaine from the shadowy, aromatic depths of the sheep byre.

“Nita Haddonfield, if you don’t know by now that you are lovely”—also dear, kind, smart, brave, and well worth protecting—“I will consider it my greatest honor to spend the rest of my life convincing you of it.”

Flowery speeches did not impress her, though neither did they chase away that naughty smile. She pulled on her gloves.

“You are lovely too, Mr. St. Michael.”

He was besotted. “Tremaine, if we’re to be lovely together.”

A ewe butted him gently above the knees, another warning that George approached.

“You allowed that we could bide in Haddondale?” Lady Nita asked.

Just like that, in the dead of winter, spring arrived to Tremaine St. Michael’s heart, to his entire life.

“We can. My business interests require that I travel, but I have good stewards and factors, and you’ll want to be near family.” Particularly as the babies arrived, which Tremaine had every confidence they would.

“At the assembly then,” she said, whipping the tail of her scarf over her shoulder—no fluttering for his Lady Nita. “Nicholas can make the announcement, but let’s save discussion of the details for later, Mr. St. Michael. The weather is worsening, and I’ve yet to have my soaking bath.”

Nita swept out of the sheep byre before Tremaine could even kiss her. In her wake, two of the lambs went dancing across the straw, leaping and bouncing for no reason and inspiring the third lamb to totter to his feet.

“Your name is Lucky,” Tremaine said, picking up the tup and kissing his wee woolly head. “Your name is Lucky, and you’re for the breeding herd, my friend. Lucky St. Michael, that’s you.”

He set the lamb down to play with its fellows and marched out into the winter weather, which was, indeed, worsening by the moment.

* * *

Back in the sheep byre, Nita had stifled the urge to tackle Mr. St. Michael, smother him with kisses, and announce to the livestock that she’d become engaged to a man she could esteem very greatly indeed.

Her intended had been by turns abrupt, bashful, endearing, and confident, but he’d given her two assurances she’d needed.

First, they could dwell in Haddondale, where her family and her patients were, and second, she need not become some indolent domestic ornament to please anybody’s sense of the appearances—no contorting herself to appease “social niceties.”

What a splendid man Tremaine St. Michael was.

Also passionate. Nita particularly liked that about him, and if she had lingering misgivings about undertaking holy matrimony with a man she’d only recently met, well, that was to be expected.

They’d have a lifetime to get to know each other better.

“I do believe our younger sisters are in the stable yard,” George said as the horses trudged up the increasingly snowy lane. “Perhaps the Second Coming is imminent.”

Susannah and Della sat side by side on the ladies’ mounting block, apparently waiting for horses to be brought out.

“They’re going for a hack in this weather?” Mr. St. Michael asked.

Nita didn’t dare think of him as Tremaine, lest she slip before her siblings, but he was Tremaine. Her Tremaine.

“Looks like they’re headed somewhere,” George said, “though I suspect their errand is in the direction of Stonebridge. Nothing less compelling could tear Susannah from her books, but I refuse to provide an escort. My arse is frozen.”

Brothers. Nita trotted ahead, for she was riding Susannah’s mare. “Halloo! Shall you take your mare, Suze? She was a perfect lady for the duration, and I’ve warmed up the saddle.”

“I’ll take her if Susannah won’t,” Della said.

“My saddle won’t fit you,” Susannah rejoined. “Though it fits Nita well enough. Was the library open?”

Mr. St. Michael drew rein and swung off his horse. “It was, though I must warn your ladyships, the lanes are snowy, the temperature is dropping, and I doubt the earl would approve of a protracted outing in such weather.”

“We can have this argument in the barn,” George said, handing his horse off to a groom. “I can’t forbid you from going, ladies, but I can advise against it, as Mr. St. Michael has.”

“Susannah needs to bring old Edward up to scratch before the assembly,” Della said, hopping off the mounting block. “If he doesn’t get the proposing done soon, she’ll start back in on the Old Testament, and all will be wars, slayings, and begats until Beltane.”

A wintry silence greeted that announcement, then George laid an arm across Della’s shoulders. “Come with me now, Della. Nobody’s riding anywhere, and somebody needs to wash your face with snow before Susannah throttles you.”

He marched Della off toward the house while Susannah remained on the mounting block, looking pale and chilly.

“Della’s simply being honest,” Susannah said. “Mr. St. Michael ought to know by now the Haddonfields aren’t overly burdened with decorum.”

Before the grooms led Mr. St. Michael’s horse away, he extracted something from his saddlebags.

“If you’re not to pay a call on Stonebridge, perhaps this will enliven your afternoon. My ladies, I bid you good day.” St. Michael passed Susannah two books, kissed Nita’s cheek, and strode off after George and Della.

Nita wanted to follow him, but he’d guessed correctly. Susannah was in a state, clutching the books to her middle as if she’d hold in a great upset, or perhaps a bout of cursing.

Susannah had not been heard to curse since she’d been seventeen and vexed beyond bearing with certain other young ladies whose company she endured at tea dances.

Nita took a seat beside Susannah as the last of the horses was led into the barn.

“Della saw Mr. St. Michael last night,” Susannah said dully. “He was coming from your room at a late hour. I like him, but be careful, Nita.” Suze offered a warning rather than a reproach, which was not like her.

“I will be careful and so will he. Were you truly haring off to Stonebridge in this weather?”

Susannah hadn’t even looked at the books.

“I was honestly hoping to be stranded there for a day or two.” Susannah’s gaze was flat, her cheeks pale, and on her head was a perfectly impractical toque garnished with pheasant feathers.

Nita wrapped her scarf around Susannah’s neck. From the direction of the garden, somebody shrieked, suggesting George had administered cold, wet fraternal retribution for Della’s thoughtless words.

A snowflake landed directly in Nita’s right eye, bringing with it a frigid stab of sororal intuition.

“Has Edward Nash taken liberties with your person, Suze?”

“Don’t scold me, Nita,” Susannah retorted. “While Papa was alive, I didn’t feel so ancient, but now Nicholas is the earl, and soon even Della will have made her come-out. I long to be married and have a family. That’s all I want, and all I’ve been raised to want.”

All any of them had been raised to want.

“Here is what you need to know,” Nita said in the same brisk tone she’d summarize a treatment regimen for a cranky patient. “I love you, and Edward is not good enough for you. He has problems, Susannah, financial and otherwise, that make him a poor candidate for your affections. Elsie does not speak well of his disposition or his temperance. If he has taken liberties, then you will tell me, and I’ll provide you what aid I can, including tisanes that will bring on your menses.”

Susannah straightened. “There are such tisanes?”

I will kill Edward Nash. “Every midwife and herbalist knows of them, and Mama certainly did too. They are by no means foolproof, but the sooner you take them, the safer and more effective they are. Have you missed your monthly yet?”

“No, not yet.”

Thank God. “If it’s any comfort, I know exactly how you feel.”

Susannah leaned against Nita’s shoulder, a gesture of defeated affection Suze hadn’t offered her older sister in a decade.

“You couldn’t possibly know how I feel, Neets. I have been an idiot. Three times, and Edward has yet to propose, because of those stupid perishing sheep.”

When had Nita allowed the Bard to so thoroughly kidnap her sister?

“I could too know,” Nita said. “I’ll describe the symptoms, with which I have firsthand acquaintance: bewilderment, self-castigation, and a towering fear that one’s fall from propriety will become glaringly evident. After a day or two, you admit to disappointment, in the fellow, in yourself, and in the experience. Most of all, in the experience. Then it happens again, and you can see no improvement, and that’s even more disappointing.”

Susannah wiped at her cheek with the end of Nita’s scarf. “Disappointment, by God. The first time, Edward was in a hurry, and I was quite honestly surprised. The last time, I let him ambush me in the saddle room. Do you know how itchy a horse blanket can be against one’s fundament?”

As itchy as self-doubt, as itchy as regret against a woman’s heart.

“Probably as itchy as a worn wool rug in the servants’ parlor,” Nita replied. “Did Edward force you?”

Susannah kicked her boot heels against the solid wood of the mounting block. “No, he did not. He persuaded, and I thought I was being shrewd, creating an obligation to offer for me, which is an awful thing to admit. I was an idiot. Edward did not have to force me, not the first time.”

Which meant something less than charm had resulted in the subsequent occasions. Damn Edward.

“Norton was the same way,” Nita said as somebody pulled the barn door all but closed against the worsening weather. “He insisted I’d like it, that the business improved with repetition. Norton lied, if he meant repetition with him.”

“Norton?” Susannah sat up. “Norton Nash? Nita, he was sent down from university any number of times. You poor thing, he had a cowlick.”

“Mama was ill, I was lonely, and he was charming.” How simple it sounded now—and how pathetic. How desperate.

“Maybe loneliness qualifies as an illness in young women, then, for I’m not sure I even like Edward. I thought I did. I like Shakespeare, mostly.” Susannah sounded so cast down, so betrayed.

“When it’s the right man, you’ll know it,” Nita said. “Your hindsight will be stunningly clear, then. Edward’s not the right man, Suze.”

“Are your tisanes foolproof?”

“Very little about medicine is foolproof.” While Nita’s determination to help her sister was unrelenting, and certain parts of her were becoming quite chilled. “I should have paid more attention to you and less to Addy Chalmers and Harrison Goodenough.”

Nita would never admit that to Nicholas though, any more than she’d admit sick babies terrified her.

“When a man shoots himself in the foot, his situation is hard to ignore,” Susannah observed.

“True enough.” Old Mr. Goodenough had been drunk at the time, trying to fire from the saddle at some varmint and unable to get his gun from its scabbard. “What will you do, Suze?”

Around them, the stable yard was filling up with snow, while from inside the barn, the comforting scents of livestock and hay wafted on a chilly breeze. Concern for Susannah weighed down Nita’s happiness at being engaged and leavened her joy with gratitude.

Tremaine St. Michael was so much more worthy than all the Norton Nashes in the world, and he was hers.

“I will read”—Susannah peered at the books—“Mr. Burns’s poetry and some essay by a Mrs. Wollstonecraft. Looks interesting. I like Mr. St. Michael, Nita. He isn’t silly, and yet he can laugh.”

Odd that Susannah, a sober soul if ever there was one, should make that observation.

“Mr. St. Michael respects my medical knowledge and is a marvelous kisser.” Odder still that Nita should offer that.

Susannah stood, books in hand, and whipped off the fetching, impractical little hat. “Best of all, Mr. St. Michael hasn’t a cowlick.”

They returned to the house on that cheering observation, then commended each other to the comforts of a long, hot soaking bath.

* * *

The snow let up after dumping a foot of cold inconvenience on all in the shire, though as Tremaine’s visit to Kent stretched on, he enjoyed a sunny sense of a negotiation coming to a profitable conclusion. He’d tendered his offer to Lady Nita; she’d investigated his prospects and found them to her liking.

Several days after Tremaine had become engaged, all that remained was to agree on settlements with the Earl of Bellefonte.

Who was nowhere to be found. Tremaine prowled the library, the parlors, the estate office, even the corridors of the family wing. He came upon Lady Della, nose down in Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s eloquence, in a cozy parlor graced with a hearth and two braziers.

“I beg your pardon for disturbing you, my lady, but I can’t seem to locate any of your siblings.”

Nor would Tremaine ask the servants for the whereabouts of his prospective in-laws, lest talk ensue. Lady Nita had said an announcement at the assembly was in order, and until then, Tremaine would observe utmost discretion.

“We’ve been abandoned,” Lady Della said. “Do come in lest you let out all the warmth I hoard so jealously.”

They were to be family, so Tremaine closed the door. Lady Della was at a dangerous age, when young ladies could get themselves into trouble with what felt like daring but was in truth foolishness, and yet Tremaine liked what he knew of her.

“Nita and Kirsten have saddled up in the interests of enjoying fresh air, though I suspect they’ll visit the Chalmers household,” Lady Della said, putting her reading aside. “Susannah went with them, intent no doubt on the lending library, and George rode as escort to ensure no riots ensued when all of my sisters rode out at once.”

From her cozy parlor, the junior sibling somehow knew the whereabouts of four adults, none of whom Tremaine had been able to track down. A farewell visit to the Chalmers family was understandable, or perhaps Lady Nita would entrust their welfare to Lady Kirsten.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Tremaine asked.

The snow had kept everybody on the Belle Maison premises for several days, though Tremaine had seen Bellefonte himself wearing a path to and from the stables. His countess occasionally went with him, though nobody rode out.

“I have a sniffle.” Lady Della sniffed delicately, mocking Tremaine, herself, or polite fictions in general. “I like your Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and I like better that you’d wave her at Susannah.”

An ally among the in-laws was never to be taken for granted. “Everybody needs a break from Shakespeare.”

“Also from Debrett’s. My come-out was delayed thanks to Papa’s passing, but Nicholas’s grandmother would have me recite from Debrett’s as if it were Scripture.”

“I’ve found it useful,” Tremaine said, taking a place near the fire. In cold weather, even a cozy room had chilly floors, a situation Lady Della managed by keeping her slippered feet up on a hassock.

“Will you and Nita make an announcement at the assembly?” She fired that salvo while casually draping a brown and red wool afghan over her knees. As the only dark-haired Haddonfield, the colors flattered her.

“An announcement?”

“Coyness is not your greatest talent, sir. Nita has been different lately. She smiles inwardly and isn’t so brisk outwardly. I saw you coming from her room the other night, and I saw her the next day. She wore ear bobs to dinner.”

Little sapphire and gold drops that went marvelously with Nita’s eyes and with her smiles. The countess had mercifully seated Tremaine next to his intended, so he could torment himself with sidelong glances and the occasional brush of hands under the table.

Nita was owed a bit of wooing, though the sooner they were wed, the better.

“Perhaps the lady and I were merely having a late-night chat about a medical condition.”

“You weren’t suffering from a medical condition,” Lady Della said, “though it apparently afflicts some men worse than an ague. If Susannah and Mr. Nash make no announcement, then I’d beg you and Nita to keep your news quiet as well.”

“I haven’t said we have news.” Though Lady Della had a point. If Susannah were not engaged, kindness suggested an announcement should wait.

“I am the youngest,” Lady Della replied, sounding not very young at all. “I am the smallest, and sooner or later you will hear that I’m an indiscretion for which the old earl forgave my mother. Susannah needs to wed, Mr. St. Michael. I know you want those sheep, and I mean no insult to your regard for Nita, but Susannah needs those sheep more than you do.”

Tremaine took a seat beside Lady Della uninvited. “You should not confide the circumstances of your birth to even me, my lady. While your situation is common enough among titled families, the information could be used to your detriment.”

She held out a plate of biscuits, not ginger for they were too pale. Lemon, maybe. Tremaine took one to be polite.

“Nita said you were kind,” Lady Della said, setting the plate down beside Mrs. Wollstonecraft. “I don’t like Mr. Nash, but I can tell you Susannah has need of him, and that means she needs those dratted sheep.”

Lady Della’s expression was disconcertingly determined, and she was regarded by her siblings as adept at gathering information. She appeared to be a darling little aristocratic confection, but something—or someone—had roused her protective instincts where Lady Susannah was concerned.

Tremaine took a bite of biscuit and yielded to the prodding of instinct.

“Do you make a habit of catching your sisters in their rare improprieties?” he asked. For Lady Della had seen something, caught a glimpse of liberties permitted or even vows anticipated. Did Nita know Susannah had misstepped? Did Susannah know her lapse had been observed?

No wonder Bellefonte often wore a harried expression.

“I make a habit out of looking after my siblings,” Lady Della said, that cool, adult thread more evident in her voice than ever. “They look after me. I’m simply returning the favor. That goes for George too.”

Whatever His Handsomeness had to do with the topic at hand.

“I’ve already decided I can’t ask for the sheep to be included in Lady Nita’s dowry,” Tremaine said, finishing a scrumptious lavender-flavored biscuit. Why he should share his decision with Lady Della was a mystery. Perhaps one spoke thus with siblings, even when they were acquired by marriage.

“So you’ll buy them in a separate transaction six months hence,” Lady Della retorted, “and Nicholas will be the soul of accommodation in this scheme because he’s another dunderheaded male. I’m telling you, Susannah needs those sheep.”

“If I could find the earl,” Tremaine said, “I’d cheerfully negotiate settlements with him that will preclude me from ever owning those damned sheep, but he’s eluding my notice. Given his size, this suggests he doesn’t want to be found.”

Given the earl’s besottedness with his countess, it suggested his lordship was elsewhere in the family wing, perhaps using a snowy morning to further secure the succession.

“Nicholas makes birdhouses when he’s wrestling with a problem,” Lady Della said, offering the biscuits again. “Leah sometimes helps him or joins him in his workshop simply to bear him company and get away from the rest of us.”

Her comment brought a memory to light, of Beckman Haddonfield hanging a fantastical birdhouse in the lower branches of an oak at Three Springs. The miniature chalet, complete with a tiny carved goat on the roof—a bearded, horned male—had been a wedding present from the earl.

“Bellefonte makes those birdhouses?” The workmanship had been exquisite, far too fine to hang in a tree. “Those birdhouses could fetch a pretty penny as parlor ornaments.”

Tremaine betrayed his mercantile soul with that comment, and the look Lady Della sent him—eyes dancing, lips threatening to turn up—said she knew it. He stuffed half another biscuit in his mouth before he could utter more ridiculousness.

“Nicholas will be cheered to hear that his woodworking passes muster,” Lady Della said. “He’s also quite skilled with a muck fork, which I’m sure his countess took into consideration when he asked for her hand. His workshop is at the back of the stables. Go into the saddle room and you’ll find a small door on the back wall. Nobody ever thinks to look for Nicholas behind a small door.”

Nor would they think to find a small sister guarding his welfare.

“My thanks,” Tremaine said, rising. “Shall I have a footman bring more coals for your brazier?”

“And have the staff know I’ve been closeted with you? No, thank you.”

She dismissed Tremaine by the simple expedient of resuming her study of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Like all the Haddonfields, Lady Della was clever, but she wasn’t restless with it the way Nita and Kirsten were, nor did she enjoy Susannah’s domestic inclinations.

Lady Della was lonely though, Tremaine would have bet William on that. That’s what her announcement of her age, size, and bastard status had been about. She was lonely and expecting to be overlooked by her newest sibling-by-marriage.

Tremaine would not overlook her—or underestimate her. By supper at the latest, she’d figure out that an agreement preventing him from owning the sheep would pose no bar to his leasing the same animals.

Which left Tremaine to puzzle over why Nita had neither told him she was paying one last call on the Chalmers family nor invited him to escort her.