Sixteen

Nick regarded his guest, soon to be his brother-in-law. “You’re up early considering half the unmarried women in the shire were chasing you about the dance floor last night.”

“May we take our meal to the library?” St. Michael asked, though his breakfast consisted of two pieces of buttered toast.

Nick picked up a plate of eggs, toast, and ham. “By all means. My sisters will soon wander in, and no battle has ever been dissected as thoroughly as they can dissect a country assembly over their morning tea.”

St. Michael was a handsome bastard, but he was a tired handsome bastard. Some of the starch had been danced out of him, or perhaps the rotten punch had served him ill. He and Nick trundled along quiet corridors into the warmth of the library, putting Nick in mind of their first meeting, only days ago.

St. Michael took a seat opposite Nick’s desk while Nick occupied the same chair his late father had used behind the desk.

“Do we have a reason for hiding from the women, other than sheer male cowardice?” Nick asked around a mouthful of eggs.

“Well, no, actually. I’ll be leaving later today, assuming the weather cooperates. Lady Nita has declined my offer of marriage.”

St. Michael munched at his toast as if he’d reported a slight dip in the value of some shares he held on the Exchange.

“You are nominally related to me, St. Michael, and I mostly like you,” Nick said. “If you’ve broken my sister’s heart, you had best have your affairs in order, nonetheless. Nita’s besotted with you—my own countess has confirmed my opinion on the matter.”

Leah usually confirmed Nick’s opinions, except when he was dead wrong on a matter of importance, and Nita’s engagement was a matter of utmost importance.

“I am besotted with her as well,” St. Michael said in that same pass-the-butter tone of voice, “though you do the lady no favors if you bring that up in her hearing. She has stated terms I cannot accept, so I’m leaving the field. You will not chastise her, you will not bully her, you will barely notice my absence, Bellefonte, or your affairs had best be in order.”

The earldom was seven kinds of a mess, but Nick’s marriage was in order and that was what mattered most. St. Michael stared at his toast as if he’d no idea how it had arrived to his hand.

Nita truly had turned the poor sod down, and St. Michael hadn’t seen that coming.

“St. Michael, Nita adores you, and she is not a woman prone to adoration. What happened?”

A simple question shifted the discussion from a tense negotiation to a session of shared male bewilderment. St. Michael returned his toast to its plate and helped himself to a ginger biscuit from the crock on the desk.

“I didn’t pay attention to what matters,” he said. “I know better. I paid attention to Nita’s sweet smiles, brandished my own version of same, made a few ringing pronouncements about guarding my wife’s welfare, and congratulated myself on being a shrewd, bold, lucky fellow. But the devil’s in the details, right? Except a woman’s passion is not a detail.”

Nick nudged the biscuit crock closer to his guest. “I am Oxford educated and a belted earl. If you speak slowly and try again, this time you might make sense.”

A biscuit went down to defeat at the hands of St. Michael’s limited vocabulary.

“Lady Nita’s passion is healing,” he said, dusting his palms. “I thought I was her passion, or marriage to me and a family of her own. I was wrong.”

Those last three words were painful to hear.

Nick chewed a strip of bacon into oblivion. “I’m frequently wrong. One survives the indignity somehow. Have another biscuit.”

St. Michael took the lid off the crock and peered at the contents. “I thought it reasonable to expect that a mother would keep her children safe from illness—and herself too, of course.”

Nick quite agreed, but he was Nita’s older brother and the head of her family. Nita had scoffed at his pretensions to authority for years.

“Maybe a marriage needs to be built on more than reason?” Nick pushed his plate away and took a biscuit.

“Duty, certainly, should play a role,” St. Michael replied. “I tend to my business because I’ll not follow in my father’s footsteps, living off my ancestors’ wealth and a rank I did nothing to gain. A man must guard his honor as he sees fit, and for me that means commercial industry.”

Nick silently admitted to having been wrong himself: Tremaine St. Michael was not greedy, not amassing coin for the power it afforded him. He worked because it was all he knew to do, just as Nita needed her bilious spinsters and colicky babies to give her life meaning.

“I’m sorry, St. Michael. My door will always be open to you. Women have been known to change their minds.”

Though not Nita Haddonfield. She was a female monument to dearly held convictions, and her stubbornness alone had probably routed death more than once.

“I don’t know how to convey this without inspiring you to violence,” St. Michael said, “but your sister might find herself forced to wed me.”

No wonder the miserable blighter looked as if he’d had too much punch.

“Nita is a Haddonfield, and allowances must be made,” Nick said. “I have reason to believe—”

“If you say I was not her first, I shall kill you, Bellefonte. Nita’s decisions are not subject to your judgment.” St. Michael broke a biscuit in half and offered Nick the larger portion, which, being a prudent older brother and a belted earl—also a man who’d known heartbreak—Nick accepted.

“I have reason to believe,” Nick went on, “Nita has tisanes and potions that will prevent any untoward consequences of your visit here.”

St. Michael’s expression went from fierce to stricken, and his half of the biscuit hit the desk, leaving crumbs all about. “Am I to thank you for that disclosure, Bellefonte?”

Nick swept the crumbs into his palm and deposited them in the dustbin. “I suppose not. What will you do?”

What was Nick to do with the sheep he’d intended to provide St. Michael as a wedding gift? Bloody beasts were eating a prodigious amount of good hay, and old Difty Kinser said a record crop of lambs was on the way.

“I will travel on,” St. Michael said, getting to his feet. “George passed along some useful information regarding German hostelries, and I’ve connections with most of the Pumpernickel Courts.”

St. Michael spoke as if he were planning the funeral of a loved one.

“Shall I send George with you?” For the weather was again threatening a reprise of winter when spring really ought to be nudging winter aside.

St. Michael put the lid back on the biscuit crock. “No, you shall not. Mr. George Haddonfield has all the earmarks of a fine shepherd and man of business. You will transfer the sheep to Mr. Edward Nash in anticipation of his offer for Lady Susannah. First, however, you will put the fear of a sound thrashing in Nash should his temper threaten to turn violent.”

Nick took a bite of cold, buttered toast. “Are you daft? I don’t want Susannah marrying that buffoon. If I had any doubt of it, the way he went swimming in the punch bowl last night confirms that he’s not a suitable parti. I cannot stop Susannah from accepting his suit, but if I withhold the sheep, I won’t hasten her doom either.”

St. Michael ran a hand through neatly combed dark hair. “Bellefonte, please attend me. I will be leaving shortly and I’m in no mood to humor earls with poor hearing. You will transfer the sheep to Nash, today if possible, whether Lady Susannah marries the fool or not, because Elsie Nash and her boy are trapped in that household.”

Trapped. On the way home from the assembly, Leah had described Elsie’s situation with the same word.

“My men of business made Nash a delicately worded, conditional, and lucrative offer for those sheep through the post yesterday afternoon,” St. Michael said. “A condition buried in the convoluted text requires that Nash turn over guardianship of the boy, Digby, to you or the guardian of your choice. Nash will sell me the sheep at a significant profit to him. I’ll transfer them to your brother George in exchange for his willingness to serve as my factor in France from time to time. If you need funds for the boy, I’ll provide them.”

The toast went down reluctantly. “Why will you provide Nash the funds he needs to put Stonebridge to rights?”

“Lady Susannah is Nita’s sister. If Susannah is not happy, Nita cannot be happy, and many men drink to excess only when their fortunes sink. With Lady Susannah’s help, coin in hand, and you and George to keep an eye on matters, Nash’s worst tendencies can be curbed, particularly if the boy and his mother are not a financial drain. It’s a compromise, my lord, as many bargains must be. Lady Susannah deserves better, but a gentleman does not argue with a lady.”

Did Nita realize the caliber of man she was rejecting? “That is a significant investment based on hope, St. Michael.”

“On prediction, your lordship. I’m no longer in the business of hoping.”

St. Michael’s scheme bore a hint of intrigue, and yet Nick couldn’t find a flaw with it. “You’ll be out considerable coin, and George might not want the sheep.”

“You underestimate your brother, my lord. He’s nobody’s fool, not afraid of hard work, and he listens more than he talks. He also loves his sisters as dearly as you do, and his good qualities are far more numerous than his few trivial shortcomings. Rent him pasture if you must, but if he has sense, he’ll soon have his own establishment.”

Nick took a swallow of tea to ease the lump in his throat caused by cold toast, but the tea had grown cold too.

“I underestimated you, St. Michael,” Nick said. “Nita will regret refusing your suit, and when she does, I hope your affections are not otherwise engaged. One question, though. You have land in France and probably relatives there too. Why hire George to oversee those holdings?”

St. Michael stalked off in the direction of the door. “Because I am sick to death of travel, and the time has come to put my memories of France behind me. You will offer my farewells to your countess and your siblings.”

Then he was gone, leaving Nick with a sister to console—and lecture.

* * *

“I have means,” George said. “A great-aunt on my mother’s side decided that because I was neither heir nor spare, nor handsome by-blow, I ought to have a start in life. I also have some luck with investments. You and Digby would want for nothing.”

The Stonebridge kitchen was warm because the morning’s bread had just come out of the oven. The fresh-baked fragrance competed with the stink of tallow though, a scent George associated with student lodgings and cheap inns. If he didn’t propose to Elsie here, though, sitting with her at the kitchen table, he’d likely never have another opportunity.

“Digby was resting quietly when you brought me home,” Elsie said, “and if it weren’t for him…”

Some of George’s proposal was because of the boy, but not all. By no means all.

“Elsie, I’m the son of an earl. Nicholas will support my request to become Digby’s guardian if we’re married. Edward will not quibble at allowing me to assume the boy’s expenses, and in a few years, Digby will be off to public school in any case.”

The weak light filtering through the windows showed the fatigue around Elsie’s eyes, but also the beauty of her features. She was small and weary, and yet she had lovely eyes, an elegant profile, and a mouth—

That mouth had the power to wake a man up, to reveal to him choices he could make, paths he could choose.

“You pity me,” Elsie said, “and yet I’m tempted anyway, George Haddonfield. Digby likes you, and you’d be a wonderful father.”

George took her hand, a hand that shouldn’t have calluses. “I will make you a wonderful husband, Elsie, or give it my best try.”

“I should not have kissed you.”

That’s all they’d done—kiss, albeit with startling passion—and on the short drive to Stonebridge, they’d snuggled under the lap robes necessary when traveling by sleigh, as any couple might have snuggled.

“Why shouldn’t you have kissed me?”

Elsie’s expression said George’s question had surprised her, but George was in earnest, and a Haddonfield bent on an objective was not deterred by a little resistance.

“You will think me wanton,” she said, “and then Edward’s low opinion of me will be justified.”

“You are no more wanton than I am.” George kept his voice down, for the Stonebridge household was not yet awake. He’d ridden over before first light and was intent on bringing good news home with him.

“You’re a man—” Elsie began, as if the entire species need not fret over anybody’s good opinion.

“I am a man, one who has found himself occasionally attracted to members of his own gender. I probably will in the future as well, but here’s what matters, Elsie Nash: I like you exceedingly and I’m attracted to you. You’re tolerant, kind, fair-minded, and a devoted mother. My regard for a passing handsome or even pretty face is eclipsed by the loyalty those characteristics inspire.”

He hoped. George’s hope was based on several solid realities. First, his involvement with men had never gone beyond the casual or the physical. Men were a lot of bother, in George’s experience, full of strut and blather, every bit as capable of drama as the blushing debutantes filling any ballroom.

Second, his regard for Elsie included a fat dose of physical attraction, but finer emotions as well. He respected her, he enjoyed her company, he liked her. He liked her a lot, always had.

Third, there was the boy. Digby needed a father, somebody to stand between him and Edward Nash. George could hardly be that father if he spent his evenings larking about London, bored, randy, and causing his family worry.

Elsie got up and used the bunched fabric of her apron to protect her hands as she turned the cooling loaves of bread out of their pans. Steam rose from the turned loaves, one, two, three. She watched the steam as if it held the mystery of eternal happiness.

“I’ll want more children, George. If you can’t—that is—Digby needs brothers and sisters. When I’m gone, I don’t want him to be alone. So if you seek a white marriage, then, much as it pains me, I’ll have to decline.”

George was on his feet, arms around her, before she got out another word.

“Hush. I’m as able to give you children as the next man, Elsie Nash. You’re dear and desirable, and provided you find some similar attributes about my humble self, we’ll manage splendidly.”

She felt right in his arms, sweet, good, and precious.

“I won’t be demanding. I won’t nag, George. I promise.”

The daft woman was giving him permission to stray.

“I’ll be demanding,” George said. “I’ll demand of myself the same faithfulness and loyalty I expect from you, Elsie. I’ll demand that my vows are spoken in earnest, not empty words. I’ll demand that you and Digby never want for anything and never fear for your well-being. Should anything happen to me, my family will provide a home for you both.”

Of that, George was certain. By the end of the day, Nicholas and their sisters would be certain of it too.

Elsie laid her head on his shoulder. “Then yes, a thousand times yes. I will gladly marry you, George Haddonfield. The sooner the better.”

George imprinted the moment on his memory: Elsie in his arms, the kitchen quiet and fragrant with fresh bread, weak winter light coming through the window, and peace and joy flooding his soul.

“When does Edward rise?” George asked. “I’ll speak to him today, unless you’d rather I wait.” As a widow, Elsie could remarry where she pleased, though George would observe the courtesies for her, provided those courtesies didn’t take too long.

“Edward didn’t come home last night,” Elsie said. “He occasionally overimbibes and spends the night at the inn. He comes home in a foul temper the next morning, having drunk too much and gambled too deeply.”

“He’ll not trouble you with his moods once he knows we’re engaged,” George said. “I’ll retrieve him from the inn and improve his mood before he arrives home.”

Elsie eased from George’s embrace. “Be careful, George. Edward’s foul moods can turn violent.”

“I know how to be careful, Elsie. Start packing, for we’ll be married within the week.”

When she ought to have beamed a smile at George worthy of a prospective bride, Elsie walked him to the back hallway and took down his greatcoat.

“We’re not married yet, George. Don’t turn your back on Edward. My heart would break if he hurt you.”

“Edward Nash has indulged his last violent mood,” George said, whipping his scarf around his neck and kissing his intended once more for luck.

Before Elsie allowed George to make good on his pronouncement, she grasped the ends of his scarf and kissed him right back.

* * *

“I wanted to take my leave of you in private,” Nita said, though most of her didn’t want to take any leave of Tremaine at all.

She could no longer read his expressions, or perhaps she no longer merited much emotion from him. He cut an elegant figure in his riding attire, though riding boots were next to no protection from the elements.

“I hadn’t thought to trouble you with farewells,” he said, crossing his bedroom to close the door behind her. “You didn’t sleep well.”

And Tremaine hadn’t locked the door. He could still read Nita, apparently, for he drew her into his arms. His generosity was more than Nita could endure.

“Tremaine, I’m sorry. I never meant to mislead you.” Tears welled, when Nita had been certain she’d never cry again. Her head throbbed, her eyes were scratchy, and her voice sounded as if she’d overindulged at the men’s punch bowl.

“I wanted to be misled,” he said. “Maybe you did too.”

Badly, badly, Nita had wanted to be misled, also loved and accepted. “I should not have—”

“Made love with me last night? Perhaps not. I’ll have a lifetime to puzzle out your motivations, won’t I?”

The small sting of his words was nearly welcome, because Nita’s motivations had been foolish and selfish. Desperate. Would she ever stop feeling desperate?

“Maybe we wouldn’t have children,” Nita said miserably, though no method of preventing conception was foolproof, except the one she’d failed to use.

“We’d have children, God willing. Many children, and even if we weren’t so blessed, there’s you, my dear. I will pray nightly for your continued good health.”

Tremaine’s hand on Nita’s hair was a benediction and a torment, a final tender caress and reminder of all Nita was casting aside. She’d wracked her brain for a compromise, for a way through their dilemma.

Wee Annie, gasping for every breath, choked the life out of Nita’s hope. Mr. Horst, his cough finally quiet, closed the lid of its coffin. Mary Eckhardt, coming through another winter of successive ailments, put flowers on the grave.

Tremaine’s mother, choosing death instead of watching her sons grow to manhood, sang the final hymn.

“I’ll keep you in my prayers as well,” Nita said, though she couldn’t step back, couldn’t move away from the warmth and comfort of Tremaine’s arms. Even when a knock sounded on the door, she stayed in his embrace.

“Nita, I’d give you my handkerchief,” Nicholas said, “but I’ll need it myself. Lovey, please stay with Nita while I see St. Michael on his way.”

Still, Tremaine made no move to step back, and Nita realized he was leaving the final instant of their parting up to her. Not exactly a kindness, maybe more of a closing argument.

They belonged together, and wee Annie deserved a chance in life too. Both were true.

Nita stepped back, snatching at the handkerchief Tremaine held out to her, a white flag of surrender that bore his initials and his scent.

“Fare well, my lady,” he said, making the words both a parting and an admonition. “If you ever have need of me—”

“Good-bye,” Nita said, kissing him, though Nick and Leah were both in the room. She stayed where she was, back to the door as Tremaine walked out of her life. When his footsteps had faded, she crossed to his bed, unbelted her dressing gown, and climbed under covers that still bore his scent.

“I shall cry now,” Nita said, because Leah had offered not a single word. “I shall go completely to pieces, and sob and scream, and wail, and carry on. I will put Mrs. Siddons to shame with my self-indulgent dramatics. You’d best leave. I’ve just sent away the only man I’ll ever love, and he is too g-good to hate me for it.”

Leah settled at the head of the bed. “I’ll leave if you want me to, but as for that other, all the tears and self-indulgence, I say you’re past due. You’ve soldiered on long enough, Nita Haddonfield, and heartbreak is one tragedy a lady should not have to deal with alone.”

Leah wrapped her arms around Nita, which only made the tears come faster.

* * *

“I was hoping to have a word with George before I left.” Tremaine had also been hoping for a miracle, a brilliant insight that would allow him to renew his offer of marriage to the only woman he’d ever love.

For Nita’s very stubbornness and selflessness, Tremaine loved her, even as he wanted to pen her into a luxuriously appointed stone keep, where disease and a charitable heart couldn’t lay her low.

“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 an experienced man. “You can’t outrun a broken heart, can’t outthink it, can’t outdrink it, or outswive 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 of legendarily good breeders?”

The baronet’s bride was 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.

“If you tarry here in Haddondale, you’ll only have that much more foul weather to deal with later in the day,” Tremaine informed his horse.

William moved forward at a grudging shuffle.

“You want a go at the horse trough,” Tremaine reasoned. Particularly in winter, watering a horse frequently was part of good care, and William was owed excellent care. Tremaine turned the gelding toward the Queen’s Harebell, a crackling in the pocket of his greatcoat catching his attention.

“Bother this entire day,” Tremaine said, swinging down before the inn.

A responsible man did not neglect his horse. Then too, Tremaine and George should talk, no matter how badly Tremaine wanted to put distance between himself and a certain dear, stubborn former fiancée.