Three

“Mr. St. Michael, I assure you, you need not accompany me.”

Lady Nita headed for the stables at a pace the King’s mail would have envied, though Tremaine’s longer legs allowed him to keep up easily.

“You’ll ride across frozen ground alone, then?” Tremaine asked pleasantly. “Risk your mount slipping on a patch of ice? End up in a ditch, there to freeze while hoping for an early spring?”

Her ladyship came to an abrupt halt beside the gazebo where they’d spent a few chilly moments the previous evening. Lady Nita’s skirts swished about her boots in a susurration any grown man would hear as indignant.

“My plans are not your affair, sir.”

She apparently wished they were nobody’s affair save her own. Alas, Tremaine could not indulge her ladyship’s wishes.

“If I remain in that house,” he said, leaning closer, “Lady Kirsten will discuss the financial pages with me, Lady Della will want gossip from Town she’s too innocent to comprehend, and Lady Susannah will ask for more poetry recited in my charming accent.”

While George’s interest likely careened toward territory Tremaine would not discuss with the man’s sister.

In the midst of Tremaine’s tirade, Lady Nita smoothed a gloved hand over his shoulder, though his coat had been thoroughly brushed since their morning outing.

“You do have a charming accent, particularly when in the grip of strong emotion.”

“You are laughing at me.” Being made an object of ridicule could justify murder among some of Tremaine’s Highland relations, though amusing Lady Nita was a different proposition entirely. She was accustomed to her older brother raising his voice to her and provoking her to slamming doors. Her reaction to Tremaine’s complaining was altogether more interesting than a slammed door.

Lady Nita had the decency not to smile, but her blue eyes danced an entire set of waltzes at the expense of his dignity.

“Is it really such an imposition to prose on for a few verses about a mouse, Mr. St. Michael?”

Two thoughts collided in Tremaine’s awareness and tangled with Lady Nita’s sweet, lemony fragrance.

First, she had not been present when he’d trotted out his meager store of Mr. Burns’s verse for the delectation of the ladies. She’d collected a report about the matter, which was intriguing. Second, for the space of this small discussion—skirmish, altercation, or argument—Lady Nita had forgotten whatever mission propelled her back out into the elements on a cold winter day.

“The poem is not simply about a plowman overturning a mouse’s nest,” Tremaine said. “Burns was writing about the tenuousness of life, the ease with which we can inadvertently cause mortal peril to one another, and how the same peril can find us despite our best-laid plans and our innocence of any wrongdoing.”

Tremaine might have launched into an explanation of Burns’s precarious existence as a Scottish farmer, the poet’s tender regard for nature, or some other blather, but the lady was once again about her business.

“Exactly, Mr. St. Michael,” she said, striding off. “Innocents among us are not responsible for the harm befalling them. You may spend your afternoon aiding my sister Della in her efforts to master the waltz, so that no missteps befall her in the ballrooms of London this spring. The gossips can be unmercifully critical, and Della is too tenderhearted for her own good.”

So tenderhearted that Lady Della was closeted with Debrett’s, doubtless making a list of eligible dukes, while Lady Nita risked lung fever in her haste to ensure the well-being of a newborn.

Did none of the Haddonfield menfolk regard themselves as responsible for her welfare? Had she turned them all into bleating sheep with her brisk pronouncements and swishing hems?

“Spend the afternoon waltzing?” Tremaine said, resuming his place beside her. “Not on your life, my lady. I’ll start off twirling about with Lady Della, all in the name of gentlemanly charity. While the countess smiles at us from the piano, Lady Susannah will come next, and then, when I’m winded from my exertions and all unsuspecting, Lady Kirsten will take a turn with me, until they’ve counted my very teeth and reported my prospects to Bellefonte in detail.”

“They already know you’re wealthy,” Lady Nita said, her tone…pitying? “Nicholas need not have invited you to his home purely for business purposes, though. He transacts most of his business in the City, or at least sees to it when he’s in Town.”

Her ladyship’s honesty was not so endearing in the cold light of day.

“You confirm my darkest suspicions, Lady Nita, and thus you owe it to me to tolerate my company when you call on that baby. You will take either me or a groom, and the groom will report your activities to your brother.”

She stopped outside the stables, the embodiment of feminine frustration. “I am merely after a refreshing hack, Mr. St. Michael.”

From which she might well return with more bloodstains on her cuffs, or worse. Based on her brothers’ mutterings, Tremaine suspected Lady Nita of planning other medical calls, perhaps even to households afflicted with contagion.

Such behavior for an earl’s unmarried daughter was insupportable in an age blessed with trained medical men in nearly every shire.

“I’ll be gone in another few days,” Tremaine said. “Surely you can endure my company until then? ‘Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, timorous beastie’ that I am.”

Her ladyship’s sense of humor plagued her again. Tremaine divined this by how severely she glowered at his boots.

“You are not a mouse, Mr. St. Michael.”

“I’m not an overbearing older brother either,” he said gently, for the grooms were hollering to each other in the barn and some conversations were private. “Somebody should ensure the child still lives and the mother isn’t feverish. I understand that.”

Lady Nita’s gaze shifted to the gray clouds brooding over the Downs to the southwest.

“If she’s feverish, there’s little enough I can do, except try to keep her comfortable and hope a wet nurse will take the child.”

“We are agreed then. You will spare me waltzes, and I will spare you awkward questions from your well-meaning family.”

The grooms led the horses out, Atlas sporting bulging sacks slung over his withers. A refreshing hack, indeed.

“I’ll be gone in three days’ time,” Tremaine said, for Bellefonte would either part with his sheep for a reasonable price or he wouldn’t. “‘Nae man can tether time nor tide,’” Tremaine quoted. “And no ten men can stop the press of business for one such as I. If your brother won’t sell me his sheep, then I’m off to Germany in search of other herds. Humor me just this once, madam, and I’ll not trouble you again.”

Lady Nita accepted Atlas’s reins from the groom, and gave the boy a look such that he hustled back into the barn with a muttered, “G’day, yer ladyship.”

Tremaine bid William to stand, which the beast would do until spring if need be.

“You may accompany me,” Lady Nita said, “but I want to hear that poem about the mouse and life’s precariousness. Susannah was quite taken with it.”

Tremaine boosted Lady Nita onto her unprepossessing gelding, surprised at her request.

Also pleased.

* * *

Nita approached the Chalmerses’ cottage purposefully, though dread dragged at her heels, given what she’d found on other visits here. Did Mr. St. Michael oblige her by remaining on his horse, looking handsome and substantial in his winter finery?

No, he did not.

He swung down and tethered their horses to the porch railing, then clomped up the sagging steps right behind her.

“This is not necessary, Mr. St. Michael. You will embarrass the mother and make my errand here more awkward.”

He rapped on the door with a gloved fist. “This mother will not embarrass so easily as that.”

The cottage stank, as Nita had known it would, of boiled cabbage, unwashed bodies, dirty linen, and despair.

“Lady Nita!” Mary’s greeting was enthusiastic but quiet, and her younger brothers said nothing at all.

“Hello, Mary. Mr. St. Michael and I thought to see how you’re getting on.” The cheer in Nita’s voice was mostly sincere, for Mary held a small bundle in her arms, and the baby’s blanket was still clean.

“Mama’s resting,” Mary said, the baby tucked securely against her middle. “Wee Annie is thriving.”

“You lot,” Mr. St. Michael said to Mary’s younger brothers. “Outside with me now. Two horses need walking and somebody must show me where the woodpile is.” His tone of voice was positively glacial, and the boys dove for their coats and scarves.

“Evan, you stay inside,” Nita said, for the smallest of the three boys had weak lungs and likely no shoes.

“He can gather up the soiled linens,” Mr. St. Michael said. “There’s laundry in need of boiling.”

Well, yes. Any household with a new baby boasted a deal of laundry.

Within minutes, Nita heard the rhythmic sound of an ax falling, and Evan was scurrying about, making a great heap of dirty clothing, bedding, and linen by the cottage door.

Nita used the relative privacy to fold back the curtain over the sleeping alcove, where Addy slumbered on as if she were the worse for drink.

“She hasn’t had any gin,” Mary whispered. “Not since wee Annie was born. Mama has slept and slept. I bring her the baby, like you told me to.”

The back of Nita’s hand to Addy’s forehead verified the absence of fever.

“Having a baby can be tiring,” Nita said softly. Childbirth could also be fatal, and then what would these children do? Nick allowed them to forage in the home wood for deadfall, and Nita had her suspicions about where the occasional hare in the stew pot came from.

“Annie’s awake,” Mary said, peering at her sister. “She’s hardly ever awake.”

The very old and the very young often drifted in a benevolent twilight. When Nita’s father had dwelled in that twilight continuously, she’d known his end approached.

“Let’s have a look at her,” Nita said, closing the curtain and taking the baby from Mary’s arms.

Annie Elizabeth felt solid, reassuringly so, and Mary had kept the baby clean. A clout had been tied about the infant’s small form, one of many Nita had made from old shifts and sheets.

The door opened and fresh, chilly air gusted through the cottage.

Tremaine St. Michael dumped a load of split wood into the empty wood box.

“So that’s the new arrival?” he asked, peering at the baby in Nita’s arms. “Pretty little thing. Ladies of that size always look so innocent.”

In this household, the child’s innocence was doomed.

“Her name’s Annie,” Mary volunteered. Behind the curtained alcove, Addy stirred in her sleep, then fell silent.

“And you’re Mary,” Mr. St. Michael said, dropping to his haunches. “Your brothers are quite in awe of you. They say you can cook and clean, and should go for a maid in a fancy lord’s house because you work ever so hard the livelong day.”

Mary’s brows drew down at this flattery, though Mr. St. Michael’s words were true enough. The cottage was tidy—the dirt floor swept, the baby’s linens folded in a short stack on the table, the hearth free of excess ashes. Most of the sausage Nita had brought last time hung from the crossbeam between sheaves of herbs and a rope of onions.

“I couldn’t leave our Annie,” Mary said. “The boys want me earning coin. They wouldn’t know how to help with Annie, though.”

Mr. St. Michael rose, his expression displeased.

“Give me that baby, my lady,” he said, plucking Annie from Nita’s arms. “Mary needs a spot of fresh air, you’re dying to fill that stew pot, and the water for the laundry will take some time to heat.”

“Ma said we weren’t to do laundry,” Mary murmured, passing Mr. St. Michael the baby’s blanket. “We need the wood for heat.”

“Get your coat on,” Tremaine told the girl as he wrapped Annie snugly in the blanket and put the baby to his shoulder. “One of your brothers is gathering more wood as we speak, to keep the fire under the laundry tub going; the other is walking the horses one at a time. If you can figure out how to climb onto my gelding, you’re welcome to walk him out for me.”

Mary sent Nita one glance, the merest brush of elated disbelief, then dashed for her cloak and was out the door.

“You’re spoiled here in the south,” Mr. St. Michael said, stroking the baby’s back gently. “You have hours and hours of sunshine, regardless of the season. If the sun’s out, those children should be catching a glimpse of it.”

He wasn’t exactly wrong, and he moved around the cottage with that child affixed to his shoulder as if…

“You like babies?” Nita asked as Mr. St. Michael took down the length of sausage.

“Who wouldn’t like a baby, for God’s sake?” Next he took down the onions, and from a basket near the hearth, he selected a fat turnip, all one-handed. “This will be sharper than anything you can find here,” he said, passing Nita a folding knife.

He could have put the child down, of course, but Nita didn’t suggest this. Tremaine St. Michael had offered his warmth to a mere lamb. Surely Annie would know she was safe in his arms?

“I liked your poem,” Nita said, starting on the sausage. Small pieces, because the children would bolt their stew rather than chew it, and of course, the meat had to last as long as possible.

“Mr. Burns’s poem,” Mr. St. Michael retorted. Outside, some child shrieked with laughter. “Mary will come to grief if she tries to trot, and then her brothers will take a turn. Every child should know how to sit a horse, and William loves children.”

William loved children?

“My new friend remains fast asleep,” he went on, “a testament to my limitless charms. Shall I tuck her in with the mother?”

Nita’s knife came down decisively, beheading a turnip. “Absolutely not. That box by the fire is for the baby.”

Mr. St. Michael laid the child in the box and arranged her blankets around her. “I thought this box was for kindling.”

Likely it had been, but such was the poverty of the household that the simple wooden box was Annie’s bed for now. Mr. St. Michael set the box up on the table beside Nita and the pile of winter vegetables.

“She’ll be out of the drafts if she’s off the floor,” he said. “Damned dirt holds the cold and damp, excuse my language. I’m off to check on the laundry and prevent horse thievery. You’ll want to add a quantity of potatoes to that stew and a dash of salt.”

Mr. St. Michael scooped up the entire lot of dirty clothes, and out the door he went, leaving Evan and Nita to exchange a look.

“He talks funny,” Evan said.

“He’s from far away. That was a mountain of laundry, Evan. I don’t think a single stocking escaped your notice. Would you like a bite of sausage?”

Evan’s nod was heart-wrenchingly solemn. Outside, more laughter pealed, interrupted by Mr. St. Michael’s stern tones.

“I’ll bet he was a hard worker when he was a lad, even if he is a fine gent,” Evan said around a mouthful of sausage. “I’ll never be as tall as him.”

“You’ll never be as rich as him,” said a voice from the back of the cottage. Addy stood beside the lone bed, the alcove’s curtain pushed back. “Lady Nita, hello. You will excuse me for not greeting you properly.”

Addy had been pretty once, and raised in a proper squire’s household, though her parents were dead now. As a girl, she’d played hide-and-seek among the gravestones in the churchyard along with all the other children of the parish. She was three years older than Nita, considerably smaller, and already looking careworn.

“Hullo, Mama.” Evan had finished his bite of sausage, and he kept his gaze on his mother’s feet, which were encased in a pair of Nita’s much-darned cast-off stockings. An old, blue woolen shawl of Susannah’s was wrapped about Addy’s shoulders. “The man is from far away, and he can chop wood. He’s boiling laundry too.”

“Not a Haddonfield, then,” Addy said, wrinkling her nose. “I smell meat.”

Addy’s observation about Nita’s brothers was merely honest, for an earl and his brothers did not boil laundry, and the town strumpet didn’t expect them to.

“Sausage,” Nita said, slicing off an inch-long section and passing it to Addy. “How are you feeling?”

Addy’s smile was so sad, Nita regretted the question.

“Not bad,” Addy replied, taking a nibble of sausage. “Mary was the worst. I nearly bled to death after she was born, and then her father’s family wanted nothing to do with her. This is good, spicy sausage. Evan, you may put my boots on to go out for a moment, but don’t you take a chill, and mind Lady Nita’s gentleman friend.”

Addy’s boots were too large for him, of course, and the coat he tied around his waist with twine was too large as well, but a too-large coat could be a blessing when the wind was sharp and a little boy’s trousers ended several inches above his ankles.

“Is your fellow good-looking?” Addy asked when Evan had gone.

Nita hacked a potato to bits—a potato she would have forgotten to add to the pot, but for Mr. St. Michael’s reminder. Addy had long ago lost the knack of standing on ceremony, probably as much an occupational hazard for soiled doves as it was for those who attended birthings.

“Mr. St. Michael’s looks are not excessively refined, and he’s not my fellow,” Nita said, going after a second potato. “But he recites poetry, loves children, and once upon a time, he was very, very poor.”

Which Nita’s family likely would not have guessed in a thousand years.

* * *

Tremaine had spent years forgetting how dirty poverty was, though the state of his fingernails brought the reality back quickly. He’d also forgotten that boiling laundry was an art, which the child Mary had apparently studied.

Stale bread rubbed on the linen would have taken out the grease stain on her pinafore she’d assured him, though of course no bread survived long enough in her household to become stale. Hot milk should have been applied to the jam Evan had got on his sleeve—though no milk could be spared for such a vanity.

Most of the items they’d boiled had been small, stained, and threadbare, a metaphor for life as those children knew it.

“You’re very quiet, Mr. St. Michael,” Lady Nita observed.

“Thinking about Mr. Burns’s mouse,” Tremaine replied as the horses clopped along in the direction of Belle Maison. Laundry was a tedious undertaking, thus much of the afternoon had been wasted at the malodorous cottage. At least the laundry had allowed Tremaine to remain outside in the fresh air, while Lady Nita had been indoors, cooking, mending, and cleaning.

And likely breathing through her mouth.

“Nobody will believe we spent the past three hours trotting about the shire,” Tremaine pointed out. “Not in this weather.”

“They won’t ask.”

Lady Nita had trained them not to ask, in other words.

On this refreshing hack through the nearer reaches of destitution, Tremaine had picked up two splinters, a twinge in his left shoulder—a dull ax was an abomination against God and Nature—and dirty fingernails.

Lady Nita was still tidy, serene, and unruffled by their visit to the cottage.

“Your brother won’t have to ask us what we’ve got up to,” Tremaine said. “He’ll interrogate the grooms about how long we were gone and in which direction we rode. He’ll inquire in the kitchen about bread, milk, sausage, tea, salt, sugar, and other necessities. He’ll inspect your hems and my boots as we pass him in the corridor.”

Even the Earl of Bellefonte would recognize the stink of boiled cabbage clinging to their clothing.

Tremaine’s recitation did not please her ladyship. She turned her face up to a frigid breeze, as if seeking fortification from the cold.

“Nicholas might ask,” she said, “but he won’t interfere, though he probably wishes all the infirm and indigent would simply leave the realm, or his little corner of it.”

No, Bellefonte wished his sisters would leave—for the dubious comforts of holy matrimony. In this, his lordship was simply a conscientious English patriarch.

“Then why not marry?” Tremaine asked. “You’d be out from under your brother’s roof.” Though Bellefonte appeared to dote on his sisters—on most of his sisters.

Lady Nita glanced back in the direction of the cottage, which now boasted a cheery plume of smoke from the chimney, a load of chopped wood on the porch, and a deal of laundry laid over the bushes and porch railings in hopes it would dry rather than freeze.

“I have no use for marriage,” Lady Nita said. “If I hadn’t attended Annie’s birth, she’d likely have died. Addy was decent once, and she does not cope well with her fall from grace. Women in such circumstances can give up—”

She fell silent as the wind gusted, the breeze rewrapping the tail of her ladyship’s scarf so the wool covered her mouth.

The horses plodded along the frozen lane while Tremaine considered Lady Nita’s point: an evening she might have spent embroidering by a cozy fire was instead spent seeing that a baby arrived safely into the world. She was justifiably proud of that, and yet she was also troubled.

“You hope,” Tremaine said, “that by attending the birth, you did the child a service, rather than a disservice, for life in that cottage is precarious indeed.”

Lady Nita’s plow horse shuffled onward, head down, gait weary—for the horse, too, had been out at all hours in bad weather. As the wind continued to whip through the bare branches of the hedgerows, tiny flakes of snow came with it.

Any shepherd boy knew the smaller the snowflakes the more likely the weather would turn nasty in earnest.

“Here is the rest of the syllogism,” Tremaine said, because Lady Nita’s family had apparently neglected to say these words to her. “Babies will be born and babies will die, and it’s the duty of those amply blessed to aid those in precarious circumstances. However, because babies do die, we all occasionally need a pretty waltz and a pleasant evening in good company. Martyrs have many admirers but few friends, Lady Nita, and worst of all, they never have any fun.”

On the Continent, where decades of war had laid waste to much that was good, sweet, and dear, people seemed to grasp this. Life was for living, for rejoicing in, not for suffering through. In the Highlands, where thrift had become a cultural fixture, the same rejoicing was brewed into the very whiskey and song that punctuated every celebration.

Lady Nita swiped at her cheek, as if a stray snowflake might have smacked into her, then she did it again on the other cheek.

“I love to waltz,” she said, gaze on the horse’s coarse mane. “I love to sing, and I like nothing better than to join my sisters for great silliness over cards, until we’re laughing so hard we’re in tears. Nicholas would take even that from me to see me married to some viscount or lordling.”

She tapped her whip against the horse’s quarters and sent him into a businesslike canter.

Tremaine followed several yards behind and grappled with a realization. His objective was no longer strictly a profitable transaction with Lord Bellefonte, for where Lady Nita was concerned, a point had to be made about life and her entitlement to some of its joy.

Then too, a woman constantly in the company of the ill and impoverished was a woman at risk for illness herself, of the body or of the spirit. Lady Nita’s brothers were remiss in not protecting her from those harms, though Tremaine lacked any authority to correct their oversights.

And yet he could not stand idly by while Nita Haddonfield martyred herself on an altar of guilt and obligation. He was bound for Germany at week’s end if Bellefonte would not offer terms for the sheep, but in the remaining two days, the choice of weapon belonged to Tremaine:

Waltzing, singing, or cards.

Or perhaps all three.

* * *

“Damn fookin’ cranky besom yowe! Git ye doon the now!”

Kinser’s affectionate profanity seemed to impress the wayward ewe—“yowe”—not one bit. She’d leaped up onto the stone wall marking the boundaries of the pasture, and considered freedom with what George took for ovine glee.

“Perhaps we should leave her to find her own way off the wall,” George suggested. “She won’t jump back into the pasture if we’re glowering at her.”

“She’ll nae leave her own kind,” Kinser said. “Unless she takes a notion to ramble aboot the shire. That un’s piss-all contrary.”

Every damned denizen of the pasture struck George as contrary—much like the Haddonfield womenfolk—but he hadn’t trusted Kinser to get the ewes moved before worse weather arrived. Kinser was contrary and, more to the point, plagued with a fondness for both whiskey and warmth.

A small boy came trundling down the lane on the far side of the stone wall. He moved with the trudging gait of a child bundled up against the elements and stopped when the ewe baa’d at him.

“Tell her to get down,” George called. “Wave your arms and chase her back toward us.”

“That be the Nash lad,” Kinser said. “On his way hame from Vicar’s.”

The boy apparently grasped the situation, for he rushed the sheep, waving his arms and making a racket. She bounded down from her perch and scampered back to the herd bunched at the far end of the pasture.

“That’s it, then,” Kinser said, taking another pull from his flask. “My thanks, Master George. Best get ye to a warm hearth soonest.”

Kinser waved at the boy, blew a kiss to the sheep, and left George in the middle of the pasture, his toes freezing, his nose freezing, and his arse none too cozy either.

“Digby!” George called to the boy. “I’ll take you up on my horse if you’re bound for home.”

The child did not have to be asked twice. He scrambled onto a stile and waited for George to mount up and trot over to the fence.

“My thanks, Mr. Haddonfield,” Digby said, climbing up before George. “B-beastly cold, isn’t it?”

“Wretched beastly damned cold,” George said, for a boy ought to know that colorful language in the company of other fellows was quite acceptable. “You were at your Latin with Vicar?”

“I was keeping warm,” Digby said, wiggling in the saddle, which was cold as hell against George’s fundament. “Uncle thinks I’m slow, but Vicar has a fire in the study, while the schoolroom at home is freezing.” The child’s words were nearly unintelligible, so badly were his teeth chattering.

“Ask Vicar about the Second Punic Wars,” George suggested. “The Battle of Cannae is good for at least an hour’s diversion.”

Digby twisted around to peer up at George. The boy had his mother’s lovely blue eyes, bright red hair, and pale complexion.

“You know about the Second Punic Wars, Mr. Haddonfield?”

“Every Latin scholar worth his salt knows about Cannae. Hannibal won with a smaller force because he used his wits. The Romans charged at him headlong, but he fell back with his main army while sending columns around the enemy’s flanks. The Romans thought they were charging to victory until they realized they were surrounded. Have you considered asking your mama to order a fire in the schoolroom?”

A frigid third-floor schoolroom was no place for a solitary boy to learn anything.

“Mama won’t allow it if Uncle has said no. I hate winter.” Digby drew himself up in the saddle. “I hate Uncle too.”

Most little boys hated discipline and structure—George certainly had. George wasn’t particularly keen on Edward Nash either, come to that.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Digby Nash, just between us Latin scholars. The schoolroom is exactly where you want to spend your time. Nobody will bother you there if it’s kept that cold.”

“You can see your breath in the schoolroom, Mr. Haddonfield. Uncle says that builds character. I think it saves on the coal bill and gives a lad the sniffles.”

Digby had his mother’s common sense too.

“Maybe a cold schoolroom does both,” George temporized as they approached the Stonebridge lane. “Make friends with the scullery maid. She’ll bring up chocolate with your nooning. As long as you’re at your studies, you’ll have all the peace and quiet you can wish for—enough to play with your soldiers, draw, read, or take a nap. I’ll send you over a few books with lots of battles in them.” Though the boy apparently had a few battles of his own brewing. “Does your mama even know how cold the schoolroom is?”

Digby’s little shoulders heaved up and down with puerile long-suffering.

“Mama knows,” he said darkly. “She argued with Uncle about it, but nobody ever wins an argument with him. He shouts and hits and says mean things. He thinks money is more important than anything.”

Digby had his mother’s slight size in addition to her blue eyes and red hair, and the notion of anybody striking the child sat ill with George.

“Don’t provoke your uncle,” George advised as the horse negotiated the frozen ruts. “In a few years, you’ll be off to school, having jolly good fun and growing brilliant with the other scholars. They’ll envy you for how much Roman history you know, and all because you managed a chilly schoolroom for a few winters.”

Even Hannibal had grasped the value of a strategic retreat. Edward Nash was Digby’s guardian, and thus Nash’s authority over the boy—and likely the boy’s mother—was absolute.

“I’ll be cold forever,” Digby retorted. “Uncle says I’m not to go to Harrow, even though my papa wished it. We haven’t the money. Mama says Papa set the money aside, but then Uncle starts shouting. I hate it when he shouts.”

George’s parents hadn’t been exactly quiet, but they’d had the decency to air most of their differences out of the hearing of their children. Perhaps Edward Nash had set the funds aside for university instead of public school.

“Give it time, lad. Things have a way of working themselves out, even when you think you’re beyond hope.”

For little boys, in any case. For grown men, harsher truths usually applied.

“Like you gave me a ride today,” Digby said, patting the horse’s shoulder. “I was sure I’d freeze to death on my way home. I can’t feel my toes, you know. Vicar gave me a baked potato for each pocket, but I need potatoes for my boots.”

What the boy needed was a pony to trot him back and forth to Vicar’s house for these weekly Latin lessons, or brothers to tease and fight with, or a damned brazier in his schoolroom.

Or a different uncle.

“Let’s warm up a bit, shall we?” George asked. “Grab some mane, and we’ll canter.” The horse was only too happy to pick up its pace, and soon the Stonebridge stables came into view.

“Mama’s waiting for me,” Digby said with the air of a boy enduring the entire weight of a widowed mother’s anxieties. “She frets, you see.”

George brought his mount to the walk and ruffled a gloved hand over Digby’s crown, feeling a pang for the father who’d never see this boy reach adulthood.

“Mind you don’t hop down,” George warned. “Nothing is worse for frozen toes than a quick dismount.”

Elsie Nash did indeed look fretful, also half-frozen in her black wool cape.

“Digby, into the kitchen with you,” she said, marching up to the horse. “Cook has made biscuits, and you will have at least two. Mr. Haddonfield, my thanks. Will you come in to warm up for a moment?”

George swung down, though the last thing he wanted was to tarry in Elsie Nash’s company.

“Afraid I can’t stay,” he said, lifting the child from the saddle and setting him down gently. “Enjoy the biscuits, Digby, and my thanks for helping out with that ewe.”

“Thank you, Mr. Haddonfield!” The boy scampered off, having no notion of the awkwardness he left in his wake.

“Very kind of you to bring him home, Mr. Haddonfield,” Elsie said as Digby skipped up the drive. “Edward says the fresh air is good for him, but the vicarage is two miles of fresh air each way, and Digby hasn’t Edward’s size.”

“Yet,” George said. “Give the boy time. I’m the runt in my family, and I struggle along adequately, despite that burden.”

Elsie ran an appraising eye over him, though her inspection was dispassionate rather than an assessment of his masculine charms.

For Elsie Nash knew better.

“Digby’s father wasn’t particularly tall,” she said, “but I wouldn’t change a thing about my son. How are you getting along, George? Your sisters natter on about the assembly and some Scottish fellow with a French title visiting the earl, but they seldom mention you. You’ve been traveling, haven’t you?”

George stood beside his horse, trapped by manners and a nagging concern for the boy.

“Elsie, you needn’t pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“I travel on the Continent because my family finds my taste in kissing partners inconvenient.” Dangerous, Nicholas had said, for certain sexual behaviors, regardless of how casually undertaken or commonplace, were yet considered hanging offenses.

“George Haddonfield, if I were dismayed by every person I found kissing an inconvenient party in the garden, I should never have lasted a single Season as the colonel’s wife. You were kind to my son, and that is all that matters to me.”

Elsie glowered up at him, five entire feet—and possibly one inch—of mother love ready to trounce George if he contradicted her.

“Your son needs a brazier in his schoolroom,” George said, and Elsie’s glower disappeared like snow on hot coals.

“Digby exaggerates, George. You mustn’t mind him.”

“Digby is a good lad, and he’s lucky to have you for a mother.” While George was lucky Elsie had never breathed a word about what she’d seen in a certain earl’s moonlit garden.

God help him, it hadn’t even been much of a kiss.

“You won’t come in for a biscuit and a cup of tea in the kitchen?” Elsie asked.

Her invitation was genuine, and the day was beastly cold. Then too, George had enjoyed the time spent with Digby—who wouldn’t like such a lad?—so he pulled off a glove and gave a piercing whistle.

“If you could please walk my horse,” George said to the groom who came trotting out of the stables. “Up and down the barn aisle will do, and I won’t be long.”

Elsie beamed at George as if he’d announced a sighting of blooming roses.

“Perfect,” she said, slipping her arm through his. “You must tell me about this Mr. St. Michael. Your sisters seemed to think he might do for Lady Nita, and he’s rumored to be quite wealthy.”