Eight

“Lovey, I don’t trust Mr. St. Michael.” Nicholas Haddonfield snuggled up to his countess and pillowed his cheek on her breast. Nick’s siblings knew better than to comment if they thought it unusual that the earl and his countess retired to their rooms after the midday meal.

How did women always manage to smell so good? Leah’s scent was lily of the valley with other notes. Sweet, kind, lovely notes that Nicholas would die to protect.

“You are not in the habit of allowing men you distrust to gallivant about with your sisters,” Leah observed.

Sweet, kind, lovely—also practical, that was Nick’s countess, even before she’d become the mother of his heir.

“I trust Nita,” Nick allowed, “and I know the effect frigid air can have on a man’s base urges. St. Michael lurks in the social undergrowth, like a wolf studying a henhouse from downwind. I wish I knew what he was truly about.”

Leah traced Nick’s eyebrows with her fingertips, which made Nick want to close his eyes and groan like a horse being groomed in that one particular spot that rolling on the ground and acting like a horse never quite attended to.

“Are you falling sleep, Nicholas?”

“I am composing a letter in my head to Beckman. Nita and George should pay Beckman a visit, if the weather ever breaks.”

“If the flu season starts, you mean. Why not send your entire horde of siblings?”

The idea was tempting, which was no credit to Nick’s familial loyalty.

“I love my brothers and sisters,” he said, “but since the baby showed up…” Since the baby had arrived, Nick never had time alone with his wife.

“You worry more,” Leah said. “You worry in a whole new way, and you were a prodigiously talented worrier before his lordship arrived.”

The little Viscount Reston was healthy as a shoat, with a full complement of Haddonfield blond hair and marvelously merry blue eyes—most of the time. The boy enjoyed marvelously healthy lungs too.

“Am I too heavy?” Nick asked.

“You are too anxious. What aren’t you telling me, Nicholas?”

Nick mentally rummaged around among his cares and woes, put aside his curiosity about Tremaine St. Michael, and lit upon his most recently acquired problem.

“Edward Nash mentioned something about Addy Chalmers when last I spoke with him.”

Leah’s fingertip paused on the bridge of Nick’s nose. “When he attempted to wheedle coin and sheep from you, under the guise of asking permission to pay his addresses to Susannah?”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Nick said, shifting to crouch over his countess. “But Susannah fancies him and she hasn’t fancied any other fellow, so what’s to be done? When Nash assured me the baronetcy came with a tidy income, I thought he was acknowledging that Susannah’s dowry was of no moment. Then he turns around and hints about the sheep, between broader hints about Addy Chalmers.”

Leah kissed Nick’s nose, a now-see-here sort of kiss. “What did Edward say about Addy? He’s caused you to frown, and I prefer my earl smiling.”

“Nash asked me how long I intend to tolerate a fallen woman raising up her brood of bastards under my very nose.”

“Oh, dear.”

Bastards were a sensitive topic among the Haddonfields, and not only because Nick’s older half brother Ethan bore that dubious distinction.

Nick brushed Leah’s dark hair back off her forehead. Since having the baby, her hair had become different—thicker, softer, more kissable.

“What sort of ‘oh, dear’ was that?” he asked, kissing her brow.

“Oh, dear, Edward has appointed himself the moral magistrate of the shire. What business is it of his if you’ve reduced Addy’s rent?”

Reduced it to nothing, while allowing her boys to poach game and firewood from the Belle Maison home wood.

“You’d have me tolerate sin among our tenants, lovey?”

Leah turned her face away, presenting Nick with an ear to kiss instead, but it wasn’t an ear-kissing moment.

“You’ve never been a hypocrite, Nicholas. I love that about you.”

Such were the Countess of Bellefonte’s charms that she could scold while murmuring endearments.

Nick flopped to his back, because his sweet, kind, lovely, practical countess was also the lodestar of his honor. Around them the house was quiet, as if waiting for spring and weary of winter.

“I used to tease little Addy Chalmers in the churchyard. I helped carry her mother’s casket. Now, she’s no longer decent, but is that the fault of her children? Am I to burn her out and put those children on the parish when their sustenance costs me nothing but a few skinny hares and rotting tree limbs?”

Prostitution was not illegal—the great men of England who made the laws had been careful about that. Living entirely on the proceeds of immoral commerce was, however, against the law, and Addy had no other reliable means of earning coin.

“Nicholas, do you ever wonder whose children those are?”

Nick did kiss Leah’s ear. “All the time. The oldest one, the little redhead, reminds me of somebody. Addy would know who her father is too.”

“But Addy has never said. Do we have work here for Addy?”

A family the size of the Haddonfields could employ a small army, assuming the staff didn’t make Addy’s life hell.

“Nita has asked the same thing,” Nick admitted, “but then who would watch those children? The oldest girl can’t watch a newborn. The infant needs its mother.”

Her mother, for this time Addy had born another girl, may God have mercy on the little mite.

“Let me think about it,” Leah said, drawing Nick’s head down to her shoulder. “Nita says she’s a bright child, and I’m sure she’s a comfort to her mother. Her name is Mary.”

Nick allowed himself to be comforted, but the problem of Addy Chalmers was complicated and tangled up in the problem that was Nita. Also, in light of Nash’s meddling, the problem that was Susannah.

Given that list, the problem that was Tremaine St. Michael, and a bunch of bleating, stinking sheep, didn’t even intrude into Nick’s awareness as he fell asleep in the arms of his countess.

* * *

What could be more dear than a gentleman decked out in London tailoring, sitting on the floor before the hearth of a simple cottage, teaching children their letters in the ashes?

That sight had upset Nita, had put a lump in her throat where no lump ought to have been and had filled her with an aching joy. Somebody else saw the Chalmers children as worthy, as innocent. Somebody besides Nita and their own mother, and that was every bit as enthralling to Nita as Mr. St. Michael’s kisses.

“Will you stay for the assembly?” Nita asked him as the horses trudged along the deserted lane.

“I’d like to, but perhaps not. Bellefonte has promised to set a price for the sheep, and it shouldn’t take him days to do that, if he’s willing to part with them at all. I’m needed in Oxford, I have business to tend to in London, and a trip to Germany is still a strong possibility.”

“You’d travel now, when winter is at its worst?” Beckman had traveled for years, George had just returned from travel, and Nita had worried for both of her brothers.

She worried for Mr. St. Michael more. When he’d been ready to ride out of Nita’s life, Mr. St. Michael had said he’d wished he could see her turning down the room.

Had that wish meant anything?

“I am known to be a shrewd businessman, Lady Nita. I travel when others are snug in their homes. I do business with any with whom I can turn a reasonable profit. I am often accused of sharp practice when, in truth, I’m guilty of working harder, taking more risks, and seizing more opportunity than most. When it suits me, I travel on the Continent as a Frenchman. When it suits me, I’m a canny Scot. When it suits me, I’m an Englishman with substantial holdings in Northumbria and the Midlands.”

Quite a speech from him—and a warning too.

“You won’t cheat Nicholas out of his sheep.”

Mr. St. Michael said nothing for a good distance of frozen ruts, bitter breezes, and sheep, who regarded the passersby curiously from behind stone walls.

“Your Nicholas is tempted to send the sheep to Squire Nash. I had the sense that were I to offer for you, the sheep might more easily fall into my hands.”

Atlas came to a shuffling halt in the middle of the lane without Nita having asked it of him.

“Nicholas said that?”

All manner of emotions lay behind her question. Indignation that Nicholas would see any of his sisters as part of a livestock transaction; compassion for Susannah, who would likely be married as a function of such a bargain, and to Edward; relief that Mr. St. Michael would warn Nita regarding Nicholas’s nonsense.

These reactions ricocheted through her in the time it took Atlas to stomp one big hoof and swish his tail.

And then…an emotion Nita did not want to name, somewhere between curiosity and hope.

“I have never considered marriage very appealing,” she said. “Were you tempted?”

Mr. St. Michael sent William forward and Atlas moved off as well. “Tempted? Not by the sheep, my lady.”

In the middle of a gray, bitter winter afternoon, as Nita rode home in anticipation of scolds and censuring looks from family, as she worried for Addy Chalmers and her offspring, sunshine, pure, sweet, and warm, flooded her soul.

She hugged that sunshine to her heart until she and Mr. St. Michael had handed their horses off to the grooms and were crossing the winter-dead gardens behind Belle Maison.

“You were tempted by the prospect of marriage to me?” Nita asked.

Mr. St. Michael marched along beside her until they reached the gazebo, a lonely sentinel guarding the flower beds until spring returned.

“You needn’t sound so pleased. I’m no sort of bargain, Lady Nita. I have wealth, of course. Many men have wealth, but I travel a great deal. I’m firmly in trade. My disposition is not genial, and I eschew tender sentiments. I frequently come home at the end of the day smelling of sheep or commerce, or preoccupied with how to get ’round some solicitor’s clever wording. I lack charm and have all the wrong accents.”

Nita took Mr. St. Michael’s arm and fairly danced down the garden path with him when he would have stood in the wind reciting his shortcomings all afternoon.

“You were tempted,” she said, beaming at the dead roses rather than allow Mr. St. Michael to see her smile. “By marriage to me.” A niggling, inconvenient, tender part of her heart pointed out that he’d resisted the temptation—so far.

Nita led the way into the back hall, where warmth and the scent of fresh bread blended with the odors of damp wool and mud.

Mr. St. Michael pulled the door closed, rendering the hallway gloomy—or cozy.

“You are intelligent, attractive, kindhearted, mostly sensible, energetic, well connected, and reasonably dowered,” he muttered, his fingers at the fastenings to Nita’s cloak. “A shrewd businessman rejects no offers out of hand unless the terms are outright illegal or dishonorable. Marriage is an honorable institution, and illegality is not a concern in this case. You are free of prior obligations and of age.”

Nita was on the shelf. She started on the pewter buttons to Mr. St. Michael’s greatcoat.

“You make a list of my faults, Mr. St. Michael, not positive attributes. Hold still.”

Holding still for more than an instant was not in Tremaine St. Michael’s nature, and yet he’d tarried long enough on the floor with the Chalmers children to get them to the letter W.

W was for Welsh rarebit.

Nita undid the last of his buttons and pushed the heavy garment from his shoulders. She hung it on a hook and found her own cloak whisked from her shoulders.

“I tell you things I ought to keep to myself,” he said, another shortcoming apparently. “I abet your insubordination of the earl’s very reasonable dictates. I consult you on matters a gently bred lady ought not to hear of.”

Mr. St. Michael’s tone was gruff and Scottish—gruffness was very much in his nature—and yet Nita suspected he was more bewildered than annoyed. She was bewildered too, also damned if she’d fail to seize an opportunity, no matter how unlikely.

“The earl knows better than to have dictates around his family,” Nita said, remaining right where she was, before a man soon to depart for damned Germany.

“You’re also magnificent,” Mr. St. Michael said, remaining right where he was, in a gloomy back hallway surrounded by cloaks and boots and two hanging hams.

The last of Nita’s common sense evaporated at that accusation, for Mr. St. Michael was magnificent, in his willingness to confront Edward, his dislike for Dr. Horton, his W is for Welsh rarebit.

Nita wrapped her arms around him and kissed him full on the mouth. He remained unmoving, as if his brain hadn’t quite heard what his lips were telling it, and then his arms settled around her, and his entire posture shifted.

He enveloped Nita in warmth and strength, in maleness, and in his embrace. A hint of cinnamon biscuit flavored his kiss, and a hint of tenderness. He cherished, he tasted, he invited.

While Nita accepted. No winter apparel came between them, no misconceptions, no immediately impending departures. Mr. St. Michael knew Nita for who and what she was—of age and all that—and he was honest about himself.

Shrewd, capable, literate—and endlessly kind.

The kindness attracted Nita as broad shoulders, poetry, wealth, and even bold, tender kisses could not. Tremaine St. Michael understood her. Nita felt that understanding in his palm cradling the back of her head and his fingers tracing the angle of her jaw.

She wanted to know more than his kisses though, wanted to know the planes and geometry of his muscled chest, the turn of his flanks, the exact texture of—

His tongue traced her lips as delicately as a warm breeze, then again. Nita returned the overture, and the kiss went skittering off into an entire assembly of dances and flirtations Nita had had no idea could transpire between a man and a woman.

When Mr. St. Michael lifted his mouth from hers, Nita’s back was to the wall, amid her sisters’ everyday cloaks, while one of the hams swung gently, as if somebody had bumped it with a shoulder.

“You started it,” Mr. St. Michael said, kissing her brow. “I’ll not apologize.”

“You ended it.” Nita kissed his chin, which was like kissing a bristly rock. “Apologize for that.”

He laughed, a hitch of his chest, while Nita tried to draw a steady breath and ended up smiling like Susannah in the presence of an original Shakespeare folio.

“You lack charm and have all the wrong accents,” Nita said, sneaking another kiss, this one to his cool cheek, “except for rendering Mr. Burns. You do his verse exceedingly well. For that and many other reasons, I’m tempted too, Mr. St. Michael.”

Nita bolted out of his embrace, into the light and warmth of the kitchen, straight up the servants’ stairs. She kept on going until she fell, laughing—laughing!—onto her bed.

* * *

“Digby should see Dr. Horton,” Elsie said when the boy had been excused from the breakfast table to learn his day’s portion of frosty Latin.

No other creature on the entire face of the earth had the ability to goad Edward as Elsie did. What could Penny have seen in her? Elsie was pretty, if a man could abide red hair, Edward would concede that much. But then, what did hair color matter in the dark?

“Pass the teapot,” Edward said, taking another bite of eggs that the kitchen could never seem to serve hot.

Elsie passed him the teapot along with a fulminating look. “A head cold can turn into lung fever, Edward, and that child is your sole heir. I’d think his health would matter to you.”

“I will overlook that remark because you are a concerned mother and your nerves are delicate. Finish your meal, Elsie.”

Her next nasty look went to the plate still sitting before Digby’s place, upon which the boy had left not a crumb of toast nor a morsel of eggs.

“I am a concerned mother. You should be a concerned uncle.”

Elsie could not help herself. Edward had come to this conclusion in the early months of her tenure at Stonebridge. Some women had no means of calling attention to themselves except by being contentious.

Morning sunlight illuminated Elsie’s pale cheek and the bruise fading around her eye. That bruise shamed them both, though she might have used a bit more powder to cover it up.

“Send for Horton if you must,” Edward said, topping up his cup of tea. “He’ll bleed the boy, prescribe a mustard plaster for his chest and feet, and send a prodigious bill after drinking some of my best brandy.”

“Thank you.”

Elsie’s thank-yous were as cold as Edward’s eggs.

“In future, madam, you will no longer pester me with your importuning. I intend to propose to Susannah on the occasion of the assembly, and as the lady of my household, she will tend to matters of health among the children and servants.”

Edward wouldn’t propose at the assembly, of course, but just before, so the announcement could be made to all their neighbors in traditional country fashion.

“I wish you luck, Edward. Lady Susannah is a lovely woman.”

That tone of voice, that mocking, superior tone of voice… Edward would not gratify such insubordination with a display of temper.

“What do you mean, Elsie? Of course Susannah is a lovely woman. Do you imply I should plight my troth with a troll?”

Elsie toyed with her eggs, her fork scraping across the plate. “I meant nothing, Edward, except a sincere wish that your proposal be accepted. Lady Susannah will be good company for me. She’s well connected and seems to suit you.”

In a manner Edward would never understand, Elsie’s demure, practical words implied something else entirely. Susannah wouldn’t speak to him thus—nobody else spoke to him thus.

“Madam, let me remind you that you and the boy are here on my charity, which I can ill afford. I must marry responsibly, as befits the succession of the baronetcy, and Susannah is my choice.”

Edward polished off the last of his eggs, determined to leave the table without shouting. Then the dratted woman muttered something behind her teacup.

“I beg your pardon, Elsie.”

Elsie closed her eyes, as if assaulted by a sudden megrim. “Lady Susannah. She will always be Lady Susannah. You show her disrespect by assuming familiar address prior to an engagement.”

The urge to strike the fool woman coursed through him. Edward’s arm actually lifted, then fell. A display of temper gratified Elsie somehow, and—the insight nearly had him smiling—this entire round of disrespect from Elsie was merely a symptom of jealousy, for she was to be displaced as the lady of the Stonebridge household.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Edward said, rising. “Digby isn’t running a fever, his throat isn’t sore. A mere cold does not necessitate a call from Dr. Horton. You may treat Digby as you please, but we’ll not incur an unnecessary bill to humor your overprotectiveness. In future, please ensure the kitchen serves only hot eggs and toast.”

“Yes, Edward.”

Elsie could put a wealth of rebellion in two words. Edward nearly admired that about her.

“Something for you to consider, Elsie Nash. This household might not have room for two ladies, particularly once the nursery includes a proper heir to the baronetcy. While I would never disrespect my brother’s memory, you’re long past first mourning. Perhaps you should think of attaching yourself to another establishment. Digby would of course remain in my care, for I owe the boy nothing less than my personal supervision in his formative years.”

That spiked Elsie’s guns neatly. She stared at the remains of her meal, her grip on her teacup turning her knuckles white.

Edward enjoyed the moment, with Elsie in a silent temper as he stood over her. This was progress for them. Nobody had shouted, nobody had been forced to a display of violence to settle the matter. His patience with her was paying off, finally.

“Have a pleasant day, my dear.”

“You as well, Edward.”

He paused outside the door of the breakfast parlor, half hoping to hear the sound of a teacup smashing—which was very bad of him. When several moments of silence had passed, he went off to the comfortable warmth of his library, to do battle once again with a ledger that would not balance.

* * *

“I may have proposed to your sister,” Tremaine St. Michael said when he’d closed the door to the Belle Maison library.

George liked listening to St. Michael talk. All manner of ancestry presented itself in his vowels and consonants, in what was dropped, elided, or rolled. George also liked looking at Mr. St. Michael, particularly when the man removed his jacket and undid his cuffs, as if in anticipation of some manual task.

Though George had recently discovered he liked looking at Elsie Nash too—a puzzle, albeit a pretty one. He’d enjoyed the company of women in the past, the same as any other fellow at university—some women, anyway.

And a few men.

“I gather Nita did not accept this matrimonial overture, or you’d know for sure whether you proposed,” George replied, replacing his volume of Mrs. Radcliffe on the library shelf where it belonged. Nita had established a system for organizing the library books, and one thwarted that system at one’s peril.

“Lady Nita neither accepted me nor rejected me,” St. Michael said, “but then, I didn’t exactly propose.”

“Nita is formidable.” George liked St. Michael, but he loved his sister. “Nonetheless, she can’t abide a suffering creature. Her rejection would be as kind as possible.”

“Also firm.” St. Michael draped his jacket over the chair behind the estate desk, sat, and took out writing implements. “My proposal was oblique at best. A lady deserves a sincere, direct proposal.”

St. Michael was unhappy with himself for his oblique proposal, or perhaps—George knew of no male who endured the emotion easily—he was bewildered.

“A gentleman deserves to know his suit will at least receive fair consideration,” George offered by way of commiseration. “I proposed to a lady once, long ago. The experience was not enjoyable.” He’d never told his siblings this, lest they get that speculative gleam in their eyes.

St. Michael produced a penknife and went to work on a goose quill. “She turned you down?”

“She laughed in my face, and I was as much in earnest as I could be at that age. I enjoyed her conversation, had no need of her dowry, and had pegged her for a practical, good-natured sort.” Who wouldn’t have minded a marriage where both partners were free to roam, provided appearances were maintained.

The notion struck George as vaguely distasteful now, sad even.

A small pile of shavings accumulated on the desk blotter. “Your expectations of the institution are modest, Mr. Haddonfield. I think your sister’s are too—as were mine.”

Past tense in any accent was worth noting. Somebody needed to take the library in hand, for it now had no less than three copies of The Monk.

“Your estimation of marriage has changed?” George asked. St. Michael had lovely hands—big, competent, elegant. Nita had probably had the same thought.

“Lady Nita is not a woman of modest accomplishments or modest sentiments. Have you never resumed your search for a bride, Mr. Haddonfield?”

The question was casual, while the goose feather had been pared to a perfect point. St. Michael swept the orts and leavings into the waste bin beside the desk and dusted those big palms together.

“I keep an eye out,” George said, which was true. Marriage to the right woman would solve a few problems and stop his siblings from fretting over him.

Would it be fair to the lady, though? George liked women, and even desired them on occasion, the way a fellow might desire a hot cup of tea or chocolate with a dash of cinnamon on a cold morning.

Not the way he longed for the fiery pleasure of a good brandy—stupidly, passionately, without any dignity or care for his own well-being.

“Shall we have a drink?” George asked, crossing to the sideboard.

St. Michael uncapped the ink, laid out a piece of foolscap, and began writing. He made a lovely picture at the vast desk, the white feather moving across the page with an assurance George envied.

“A bit early for me,” St. Michael said, the pen never breaking rhythm, “but don’t let that stop you. When I’ve completed this epistle, could you spare me time for a discussion of your latest German travels?”

“You’re proposing to my sister, then decamping for the Pumpernickel Courts? That will impress Nita not at all. She’ll go right back to her midwifery and tisanes, and forget you ever existed unless you turn up sick or injured.”

St. Michael dipped his pen again, let a drop of ink gather on the tip, and waited, hand immobile, until that droplet had fallen back into the bottle.

“She well might,” he said as a second drop followed the first. “Perhaps that’s for the best. Do you fancy sheep, Mr. Haddonfield?”

In a different, half-drunken context, George might have misconstrued the question.

“I like them well enough. Harmless creatures, pretty, and not given to violence.” Rather like himself.

“I’m passionate about sheep,” St. Michael said. “Your brother-the-earl would do well to recall this.”

George took a steadying sip of excellent brandy and tormented himself by sitting on the edge of the desk, close enough to catch St. Michael’s scent.

“Are you passionate about my sister?”

“Interesting question.” St. Michael did not stop writing, and abruptly, weariness pressed down on George.

St. Michael didn’t even see him, and if he did—if he somehow divined that George regarded him as potentially desirable—he’d be disgusted or, worse, amused. He would never reciprocate George’s interest, and as to that, what did George know of Tremaine St. Michael?

He was attractive, wealthy, and interested in Nita.

So George must pant after him in silent frustration? Must comport himself with all the emotional delicacy of a tomcat?

Such stirrings flattered nobody. They were for strutting, impulsive boys who had one foot planted in rebellion and the other in boredom.

“Nita is lonely,” George said, setting his glass down near the ink. “She was born immediately after her older brothers, and it’s almost as if Mama and Papa didn’t realize there’d been a change in gender. Nita tagged after us boys, rode like a demon, and tried very hard to keep up with us.”

“And you humored her,” St. Michael muttered, “which she hated.”

“Drove her nigh barmy, to be so little and dear. I don’t think it much bothers her lately.”

St. Michael glanced up from his epistle. “She’s very dear, also brave, maybe too brave.” He might have asked George to name his seconds in the same tone, so fierce was Nita’s newly acquired champion shepherd boy.

“You did propose,” George said, feeling pity for the handsome St. Michael, which was an odd relief from indiscriminate desire. “Maybe you’re lonely too, St. Michael.”

George certainly was.

Now where had that notion come from?

St. Michael appended a signature to his letter, legible but with a slight flourish to the initial capitals. Beckman had said that St. Michael dealt in fine art in addition to wool.

“The question is, Mr. Haddonfield, does the lady see any advantage in my suit. One must think practically in any negotiation.”

St. Michael would think at least in part with his breeding organs, like any other male. In this, he and George were no different. And yet loneliness was a problem the breeding organs could not solve.

A day for insights, apparently. George took another sip of his drink and recalled Elsie Nash’s invitation to share a fresh biscuit and cup of tea on a cold day.

“What does Nicholas say about your proposing to Nita?” George asked, for any Haddonfield must be mindful of the earl’s position on matters of significance. Nicholas was tolerant, patient, and practical, but also trying to step into the old earl’s shoes, a delicate and difficult task.

“Bellefonte is attempting to lure two men to the altar with the same flock of sheep,” St. Michael said, casting sand over his letter. “He’s neglected to consider how we’re to lure the ladies to the altar, for a man cannot be married to a lot of bleating livestock.”

“How to lure the object of one’s tender emotions is always a fraught question,” George allowed. “How will you answer it?”

St. Michael sat back. “I want those sheep, but if I acquire them as part of your sister’s dowry, Lady Nita will not be well pleased. Lady Nita doesn’t want Squire Nash to have Lady Susannah or the sheep, but then, what does Lady Susannah want, and what does the earl want?”

“Do you come from a large family?”

“I own enormous quantities of sheep, but come from barely any family.”

“One would not have guessed as much.” George passed St. Michael his glass. “You’ll need this more than I do, but when it comes to my sisters, I’ve been plagued by a thought.”

St. Michael poured the sand off his letter. “Don’t be coy. If I’m not engaged soon, we might be traveling to Germany together.”

Interesting prospect, about which St. Michael seemed to feel no hesitation.

“My sisters each need what the other has,” George said. He would never have aired this notion before Nicholas. “Nita needs more poetry and rest, Susannah needs a purpose beyond verse and endless sedentary hours of embroidery. Della needs to be taken more seriously and patted on the head less, and Kirsten needs to laugh more and be cosseted.”

St. Michael waved the letter gently over the dustbin, then laid it exactly in the middle of the blotter.

“Nash represents a purpose for Lady Susannah, then,” he said. “A household she can take in hand, an estate she can help run. Interesting.”

He took a whiff of George’s drink, grimaced, and set the brandy aside, making even that mundane activity attractive. George noted it, probably the way Nita noted that an infant in the churchyard was healthy or St. Michael would note that a herd of sheep was in good weight.

A passing observation, not a passionate preoccupation—thank God.

George took the empty glass over to the sideboard. “So you want Nita, but she’ll turn you down if she thinks you’re marrying her to get the sheep, yet Nash shouldn’t have the sheep either. Complicated.”

“She might turn me down because I’m no sort of marital bargain, and because I haven’t proposed.”

St. Michael would propose though. He might not get the prescribed words out in the prescribed order, but he’d convey his intentions well enough.

Lucky Nita. St. Michael would give her babies and a household to run while putting a stop to the endless progression of sore throats, influenza, and rheumatism that now filled her days.

“I would not want to see Lady Susannah attached to Nash’s household,” St. Michael said, “though my hesitance is unrelated to the fate of the sheep.”

George had pleasant associations with Stonebridge. Warm ginger biscuits, the Second Punic War, and Elsie Nash’s surprising tolerance.

“Suze wants Edward Nash,” George said. “The man’s fate is sealed. Nicholas will like that she’s close by, and so will I.”

“Lady Nita fears for the safety of the women in Nash’s home, though I very nearly violate a confidence when I tell you that. If Lady Nita is to be believed, then Mrs. Nash at this moment is sporting a black eye courtesy of the head of her household.”

St. Michael’s voice was as cold as the wind moaning around the corner of the house.

“Lady Nita is to be believed,” George said slowly, while consternation warred with outrage inside him. “Nita does not indulge in falsehoods. Nash struck Elsie?”

Elsie was petite, kindhearted, fair-minded, a mother.

“Lady Nita came to that conclusion, and if you’re about to tell me I must disclose this situation to the earl, I cannot. I gather Lady Nita is in Mrs. Nash’s confidence, and were her ladyship not enraged beyond endurance, she would never have spoken to me so honestly. I apologize for burdening you with this information but will prevail on your gentlemanly honor to keep it between us.”

St. Michael was upset about Elsie’s situation, upset enough to disclose it when he hadn’t meant to. No wonder Nita saw potential in him.

“Nita holds herself to the standards of a physician when it comes to people’s privacy,” George said—though George did not, and perhaps St. Michael perceived as much. Something would have to be done, and Susannah could not marry a man who lacked control of his own temper. “Shall I have Nicholas frank your letter?”

St. Michael capped the ink and tucked it into a drawer. “Thank you, no. The matter requires some discretion. I’ll post it myself.”

George set his mind to the problem that was Elsie Nash’s safety—Digby had also said Nash had a sour temper—but St. Michael’s comment nagged at him too.

What could require such very great discretion that Nicholas mustn’t even be allowed to see the epistle St. Michael had penned with such dispatch?