In other words, he was choking off Elsie’s friendships, one after the other, lest somebody get wind that Edward Nash was rolled up, a sot, and desperate to marry well.
If only those were the worst of Edward’s shortcomings.
“Does George have excessive debts?” Elsie asked. He did not. The Haddonfields as a family were free of the vices Edward assiduously failed to acknowledge in himself.
“He well might,” Edward said, stroking the feather against his chin. “The Haddonfields don’t hesitate to put their unsavory family members on remittance, and George looks to be taking Beckman’s place in that regard.”
“Don’t many gentlemen live in hock to their tailors?” Questions were risky, but Edward was not yet imbibing, so Elsie could venture a few inquiries in the interests of understanding his latest queer start.
More twiddling of the feather while Elsie remained on the edge of her chair and resisted the urge to crack a window, so stuffy did Edward keep this one room.
“George’s situation is not as innocent as a few overdue bills among the merchants, Elsie. He has tastes I would not expect a woman of your refinement to comprehend, but they place him among the least appropriate associations you or my nephew could form.”
In a family of large, loud, dramatic men and headstrong, outspoken sisters, George Haddonfield had a quiet independence that appealed strongly to a widow under the thumb of an in-law she abhorred.
So what if George hadn’t shed the habits many fellows developed in the best public school dormitories? Elsie had followed the drum for two years and had become difficult to shock.
“I’ll tell Digby to avoid Mr. Haddonfield’s company,” Elsie said. “Do I maintain a distance from him at the assembly?”
Edward thrived on instructing Elsie, the maids, Digby, and their man of all work, whom Edward insisted on referring to as a footman. Edward probably instructed his horses and hounds, who were at least free to bite and kick him.
Though they’d regret such displays sorely.
“In public, you will show Mr. Haddonfield every courtesy,” Edward said, twiddling the feather between his palms. “Dance with him, make small talk, inquire after his health. Bellefonte is protective of his siblings, and I cannot have it said we were less than gracious to any of Susannah’s family. Other than the civilities, though, you will avoid him. I offer you this guidance, because I know Pendleton would expect it of me.”
Elsie blinked a few times in rapid succession, as if mention of her late husband still had the power to move her to tears. She had Penny to thank for landing her in this hell, and for handing over Digby’s funds to a mean, intemperate wastrel.
“I owe you so much, Edward,” Elsie said, rising. “I am very grateful for your guidance. Was there more you wanted to say, or shall I get back to those pies?”
Because making pies was doubtless the acme of every gentlewoman’s ambitions, in Edward’s view.
“Don’t let me keep you, but please have the kitchen send up a tray. These endless figures make a man peckish. A toddy or two as well. Something to ward off the chill, and some comestibles to fortify me until my next meal.”
He came around the desk and held the door for Elsie, doing his impersonation of a blond, handsome exponent of good manners and faultless breeding. Edward would have been better served by fewer manners, more common sense, and a dash of self-restraint.
When the door had closed behind her, Elsie paused in the corridor long enough to let the chilly air wash over her.
Of the three Nash offspring, Penny had been the sensible middle brother, not as pretty as Edward, but willing to work to earn his bread, less concerned with appearances, and genuinely devoted to his son. He’d not been the brightest of officers, but he’d worked hard and had had a streak of gruff kindness that had made his sternness bearable.
Norton had been the brash, ginger-haired youngest son, happy to gallop off and buy his colors rather than molder away in rural Kent as an unpaid steward or extra at whist. Elsie suspected Edward had been happy to see Norton go, for younger sons without means could author much mischief.
While Edward was a trial without end. Elsie honestly wanted to warn Lady Susannah to look past the same three tiresome Shakespeare sonnets and a pair of soulful blue eyes. To look at the empty shelves in the so-called library, at how short Digby’s trousers were, at how cold the house was but for the rooms Edward occupied.
Elsie could not afford to warn Lady Susannah, for if Edward did not soon marry wealth, Elsie and Digby might both find themselves on the charity of the parish.
Six
Tremaine knew he was in trouble—serious, interesting trouble—when the little bell in the dovecote tinkled on the frigid breeze, and he heard it as the sound of reprieve.
He wanted to remain here in Kent, haggling with Bellefonte over his sheep, preventing Lady Nita from attending to her most rebellious errands.
And kissing her.
“Was that a pigeon?” Her ladyship sounded annoyed. “I couldn’t tell.”
“Whatever it was, it flew straight to your dovecote,” Tremaine said, stepping off his horse. “Perhaps I won’t be journeying to Oxford just yet.”
For the first time, his obligations to his livestock, his employees, and their families felt not like an anchor, not like the enviable result of commercial success, but like a burden.
“I’ll hold William,” Lady Nita said, lifting the reins over the horse’s head. “Alfrydd was in the saddle room. You’d best fetch him.”
A ladylike version of an order, with which Tremaine complied. Alfrydd tottered up the ladder to the mow, leaving Tremaine in the gloom of the stables, surrounded by horses munching hay and shifting in their stalls.
He was worried for his sheep, of course he was.
He was worried for Lady Nita too.
He ought to worry for himself. Nita Haddonfield was decent, a lady to the bone, and an innocent, despite her ill-advised medical adventuring. Tremaine’s dealings with her should be polite, gentlemanly distance or matrimonial overtures.
Lady Nita wouldn’t understand the first, and she’d laugh at the second.
“From Mr. Belmont,” Alfrydd said, advancing down the ladder by lowering his left leg, pausing, then the right. Left, pause, right. Tremaine’s grandfather had moved in the same fashion when his hip had been predicting a winter storm.
“I expect it’s for you, sir,” Alfrydd said, passing over a tiny rolled cylinder of paper. Outside, under the sullen winter sky, Lady Nita stood waiting beside William, while in the gloom of the stable, Tremaine wrestled with an ungentlemanly temptation.
He could tell her ladyship, regardless of what the note truly said, that he was needed in Oxford. Leave the sheep, the sisters, and the kisses behind, climb onto his horse, and tend to business.
Atlas hung his head over his stall door, as if to inquire of any news.
“Thank you, Alfrydd.” Tremaine took the note out into the light.
Tups coming right. Will feed only regular fodder. Further updates by post or rider if needed. MacNeil
The writing was tiny; Tremaine’s relief was enormous.
While Lady Nita patted his horse and asked nothing of him save that he travel safely. She was so calm, so alone.
She was also a delight to challenge over a hot, spicy, late-night mug of cider.
And to kiss.
“You were right, my lady,” Tremaine said. “You were exactly, absolutely, one hundred percent right. My boys are rallying.”
He expected one of her ladyship’s sweet, beaming smiles, for he was certainly smiling, smiling like a shepherd boy smitten with the goose girl. What greater gift could any shepherd have than his flock returned to well-being?
Lady Nita peered at the sky, she fiddled with William’s reins, she stroked the horse’s hairy shoulder.
“I’m glad.” Another lingering pat, this one to the beast’s neck. “Will you be staying then, Mr. St. Michael?”
Nita Haddonfield was the l
east presuming woman Tremaine had met, or perhaps the most disappointed.
“I will tarry another few days,” Tremaine said. “Isn’t there an assembly next week?”
Now Lady Nita smiled—at the cold, hard ground, true, but a happy smile nonetheless, one that whispered of mulled cider and midnight ginger biscuits.
“We do have an assembly in the offing,” she said. “Leah will be in alt to present you to the neighbors. You must practice your dancing and flirting.”
Tremaine and Lady Nita could practice dancing and flirting with each other, though flirting had ever been beyond him. Strategy, however, was in his gift.
He took the reins from her ladyship and passed them to Alfrydd. “Lady Nita, might you accompany me on a call to Mr. Nash?”
Her bashful, endearing smile winked out like a star fallen from a December night sky.
“I think not, Mr. St. Michael. Susannah is on better terms with Mr. Nash than I am. She, Della, or Kirsten would happily accompany you. All of them together, in fact, and likely the countess as well.”
A flock of curious ewes, climbing all over Tremaine’s attempts to gather information—and not only information about Nash.
“Your company will be the more discerning,” Tremaine said. “Nash is competing with my attempts to acquire your brother’s sheep. My call will not be entirely social, and I think you might have planned an errand or two for this afternoon.”
Alfrydd hovered in the doorway to the barn with William, out of the wind but within earshot. He was very much the earl’s man, of course, while Tremaine was…
In trouble.
“An errand or two, Mr. St. Michael?”
“We could stop for a pint at your local posting inn,” Tremaine suggested. “Enjoy a cottage pie, ensure the vicar has sent some charity to those in need.”
He would not abet her ladyship’s attempts to visit any sickrooms, but for a chance to spend more time with her, he’d endure a call upon the new mother.
Lady Nita was as guileless as her sister Susannah was reported to be, for Tremaine saw the moment understanding dawned.
“I’ll need to change into my habit.”
Unlike most women, Lady Nita could probably manage that in less than fifteen minutes.
“I’ll accompany you to the house,” Tremaine replied, “and warn Bellefonte his hospitality is not yet at an end.”
Nor was the fate of the merino sheep settled. Bellefonte had agreed to name a price by correspondence for which Tremaine could purchase the sheep. The sum likely depended upon a blunt discussion with Mr. Nash about the cost of the repairs needed to put Stonebridge to rights and an equally blunt discussion with Lady Susannah.
Complicated business, tending to marriageable sisters, particularly when the earl’s ready capital appeared to be limited and unavailable to dower those sisters. The aristocracy was often caught between the stability of centuries-old agrarian wealth and the need for cold, hard coin that would allow commercial diversification.
“Alfrydd, if you’d have Atlas saddled?” Lady Nita asked, another polite command. “He’ll need his saddlebags. No telling what Mr. St. Michael and I might come across in the shops.”
“I’ll see to it, my lady.”
Alfrydd led William back into the barn, while Tremaine rehearsed his announcement to Bellefonte.
I’m back, your lordship, and more intent on taking possession of those sheep than ever.
In a friendly, temporary, adult sort of way, might Lady Nita consider taking a little possession of Tremaine, as well?
* * *
You were exactly, absolutely, one hundred percent right.
Nita was often right. She’d been right that Daryl Bletching’s hand could be saved with poultices, stitching, good care, and liberal doses of willow bark tea. She’d been right that Norma Byler had been carrying twins. She’d been right that Darinda Hampton’s youngest could not tolerate strawberry jam. She’d been right that Winnifred Hess’s ague was the onset of chicken pox.
Nobody rejoiced when Nita was right, Dr. Horton least of all.
Tremaine St. Michael had rejoiced and accorded Nita full victory honors.
How handsome he was when he smiled like that, openly, exuberantly, lips, eyes, cheeks alit with joy and half of rural Aberdeenshire in his accent—because of her.
Because of what Nita had done for his best lads.
Nita finished buttoning up the skirts of her riding habit and surveyed her reflection in the mirror. The garment was several years out of fashion, had been mended in two places around the hem, and was looser than when Nita had made it.
She’d never cared about any of that before, nor had she ever hurried to pay a social call on the Nash household, but she did today.
Mr. St. Michael boosted her into the saddle, waved off Alfrydd’s offer to send a groom along, and then swung up on William.
“Lead on, my lady. I expect it to start snowing at any minute.”
“A handy excuse for not tarrying at Nash’s. What will your motivation be for calling on Edward socially?” Nita asked, though country households visited back and forth routinely.
“Nash is a fellow appreciator of good poetry.” Said with an amusement that should have made wolves nervous.
“You’re up to something.” Men were frequently up to something, but Tremaine St. Michael would confide his plans in Nita, not shout his orders at her.
“Does Squire Nash want the sheep more, or the lady?” Mr. St. Michael mused as the horses ambled out of the stable yard. “By asking to include the sheep in Lady Susannah’s dowry, maybe Nash is so intent on winning the lady that he’s proposed a bargain easy for the earl to agree to. The sheep are overgrazing their pasture, they require a dedicated shepherd, and they’re becoming inbred.”
Nita applied her diagnostic abilities to Susannah’s situation, something she’d yet to do.
“Or does he want the sheep,” Nita replied, “and asking for Susannah’s hand ensures he’ll get them, because Nicholas dreads to see his sisters growing old, haunting Belle Maison in their endless spinsterhood. Then too, Edward appears to dote on Susannah, and she is a lady upon whom any husband ought to dote.”
They turned out of the drive, onto the lane that led into the village, and directly into the wind.
“All wives ought to be doted on, at least a little,” Mr. St. Michael observed. “Or where’s the benefit in accepting a fellow’s suit?”
Most girls were raised with an eleventh commandment their brothers were spared: A bad match is better than no match at all. The benefit was in avoiding the shame of spinsterhood.
Nita was not interested in marriage—ten commandments were enough for her—but when she’d stood in the stable yard, holding William’s reins and hoping, hoping, hoping that Mr. St. Michael didn’t have to leave, she’d been honest with herself.
She was interested in him. In letting him dote on her, in doting on him.
“Nicholas and his countess are devoted,” Nita said. “Their mutual doting is sweet.”
“It’s nearly nauseating,” Mr. St. Michael countered. “Lovey this, lambie that, darling Nicholas the other. In five years, they’ll barely speak to each other over their morning tea.”
Mr. St. Michael was wrong. Whatever else was true about Nicholas, he loved ferociously and unrelentingly, and his countess reciprocated his sentiments.
“What will you call your wife, Mr. St. Michael, when you’re doting on her a little?” Nita regretted the question immediately, for any answer would make her sad. Mr. St. Michael wouldn’t ever be doting on her, would he?
“I’ll call my wife Mrs. St. Michael,” he replied. “Tell me about Edward Nash’s situation.”
Mr. St. Michael was shy about this doting business, and yet Nita had the sense he’d make a thorough job of it, nonetheless.
“Edward Nash is the oldest of three brothers,” Nita said, “two of whom are deceased. He’s always known a baronetcy was coming his way, and thus he deals from a sense of entitl
ement. His vanity has been indulged too, by his parents and the local mamas, and that didn’t help.”
“Vain, selfish, and handsome. He ought to be a viscount, at least. What are his weaknesses?”
A fox reconnoitering a henhouse would ask such a question.
“A want of coin,” Nita replied, for she’d been up the back stairs at Stonebridge, seen the barren corridors, uncurtained windows, and unlit sconces. “Perhaps it’s more that Edward suffers an inability to properly manage coin. He’s parsimonious with his sister-in-law and nephew, and he has trouble keeping help. Even at the holidays, the Nash household doesn’t entertain to speak of.”
Nita could share that much, because those were facts rather than medical confidences.
“Despite that,” Mr. St. Michael said, “Mr. Nash himself is doubtless always dressed in the height of rural fashion, he rides a handsome young piece of bloodstock, and he’s considered quite the catch by the ladies of the parish.”
“Some of the ladies.” Perhaps other ladies were warned by their fathers and brothers that Edward Nash was pockets to let and an embarrassment to his gender when in his cups.
Nita let the conversation wander to other topics, but all too soon the horses were cantering into the Stonebridge stable yard.
“Your expression is not congenial, my lady,” Mr. St. Michael observed as he assisted Nita to dismount.
The groom led the horses away, allowing Nita to speak freely.
“I usually approach this house with dread, fearing my sister might end her days in misery here. I do enjoy the company of Mr. Nash’s widowed sister-in-law, and Elsie Nash has a delightful son, Digby.”
Mr. St. Michael shifted, so his sheer bulk stood between Nita and the bitter wind. She had the sense his movement was instinctive, for he’d taken the same position when they’d inspected the sheep.
“Do you want me to buy the merinos simply to make it less likely your sister will wed Nash?” he asked.
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