“We can have this argument in the barn,” George said, handing his horse off to a groom. “I can’t forbid you from going, ladies, but I can advise against it, as Mr. St. Michael has.”
“Susannah needs to bring old Edward up to scratch before the assembly,” Della said, hopping off the mounting block. “If he doesn’t get the proposing done soon, she’ll start back in on the Old Testament, and all will be wars, slayings, and begats until Beltane.”
A wintry silence greeted that announcement, then George laid an arm across Della’s shoulders. “Come with me now, Della. Nobody’s riding anywhere, and somebody needs to wash your face with snow before Susannah throttles you.”
He marched Della off toward the house while Susannah remained on the mounting block, looking pale and chilly.
“Della’s simply being honest,” Susannah said. “Mr. St. Michael ought to know by now the Haddonfields aren’t overly burdened with decorum.”
Before the grooms led Mr. St. Michael’s horse away, he extracted something from his saddlebags.
“If you’re not to pay a call on Stonebridge, perhaps this will enliven your afternoon. My ladies, I bid you good day.” St. Michael passed Susannah two books, kissed Nita’s cheek, and strode off after George and Della.
Nita wanted to follow him, but he’d guessed correctly. Susannah was in a state, clutching the books to her middle as if she’d hold in a great upset, or perhaps a bout of cursing.
Susannah had not been heard to curse since she’d been seventeen and vexed beyond bearing with certain other young ladies whose company she endured at tea dances.
Nita took a seat beside Susannah as the last of the horses was led into the barn.
“Della saw Mr. St. Michael last night,” Susannah said dully. “He was coming from your room at a late hour. I like him, but be careful, Nita.” Suze offered a warning rather than a reproach, which was not like her.
“I will be careful and so will he. Were you truly haring off to Stonebridge in this weather?”
Susannah hadn’t even looked at the books.
“I was honestly hoping to be stranded there for a day or two.” Susannah’s gaze was flat, her cheeks pale, and on her head was a perfectly impractical toque garnished with pheasant feathers.
Nita wrapped her scarf around Susannah’s neck. From the direction of the garden, somebody shrieked, suggesting George had administered cold, wet fraternal retribution for Della’s thoughtless words.
A snowflake landed directly in Nita’s right eye, bringing with it a frigid stab of sororal intuition.
“Has Edward Nash taken liberties with your person, Suze?”
“Don’t scold me, Nita,” Susannah retorted. “While Papa was alive, I didn’t feel so ancient, but now Nicholas is the earl, and soon even Della will have made her come-out. I long to be married and have a family. That’s all I want, and all I’ve been raised to want.”
All any of them had been raised to want.
“Here is what you need to know,” Nita said in the same brisk tone she’d summarize a treatment regimen for a cranky patient. “I love you, and Edward is not good enough for you. He has problems, Susannah, financial and otherwise, that make him a poor candidate for your affections. Elsie does not speak well of his disposition or his temperance. If he has taken liberties, then you will tell me, and I’ll provide you what aid I can, including tisanes that will bring on your menses.”
Susannah straightened. “There are such tisanes?”
I will kill Edward Nash. “Every midwife and herbalist knows of them, and Mama certainly did too. They are by no means foolproof, but the sooner you take them, the safer and more effective they are. Have you missed your monthly yet?”
“No, not yet.”
Thank God. “If it’s any comfort, I know exactly how you feel.”
Susannah leaned against Nita’s shoulder, a gesture of defeated affection Suze hadn’t offered her older sister in a decade.
“You couldn’t possibly know how I feel, Neets. I have been an idiot. Three times, and Edward has yet to propose, because of those stupid perishing sheep.”
When had Nita allowed the Bard to so thoroughly kidnap her sister?
“I could too know,” Nita said. “I’ll describe the symptoms, with which I have firsthand acquaintance: bewilderment, self-castigation, and a towering fear that one’s fall from propriety will become glaringly evident. After a day or two, you admit to disappointment, in the fellow, in yourself, and in the experience. Most of all, in the experience. Then it happens again, and you can see no improvement, and that’s even more disappointing.”
Susannah wiped at her cheek with the end of Nita’s scarf. “Disappointment, by God. The first time, Edward was in a hurry, and I was quite honestly surprised. The last time, I let him ambush me in the saddle room. Do you know how itchy a horse blanket can be against one’s fundament?”
As itchy as self-doubt, as itchy as regret against a woman’s heart.
“Probably as itchy as a worn wool rug in the servants’ parlor,” Nita replied. “Did Edward force you?”
Susannah kicked her boot heels against the solid wood of the mounting block. “No, he did not. He persuaded, and I thought I was being shrewd, creating an obligation to offer for me, which is an awful thing to admit. I was an idiot. Edward did not have to force me, not the first time.”
Which meant something less than charm had resulted in the subsequent occasions. Damn Edward.
“Norton was the same way,” Nita said as somebody pulled the barn door all but closed against the worsening weather. “He insisted I’d like it, that the business improved with repetition. Norton lied, if he meant repetition with him.”
“Norton?” Susannah sat up. “Norton Nash? Nita, he was sent down from university any number of times. You poor thing, he had a cowlick.”
“Mama was ill, I was lonely, and he was charming.” How simple it sounded now—and how pathetic. How desperate.
“Maybe loneliness qualifies as an illness in young women, then, for I’m not sure I even like Edward. I thought I did. I like Shakespeare, mostly.” Susannah sounded so cast down, so betrayed.
“When it’s the right man, you’ll know it,” Nita said. “Your hindsight will be stunningly clear, then. Edward’s not the right man, Suze.”
“Are your tisanes foolproof?”
“Very little about medicine is foolproof.” While Nita’s determination to help her sister was unrelenting, and certain parts of her were becoming quite chilled. “I should have paid more attention to you and less to Addy Chalmers and Harrison Goodenough.”
Nita would never admit that to Nicholas though, any more than she’d admit sick babies terrified her.
“When a man shoots himself in the foot, his situation is hard to ignore,” Susannah observed.
“True enough.” Old Mr. Goodenough had been drunk at the time, trying to fire from the saddle at some varmint and unable to get his gun from its scabbard. “What will you do, Suze?”
Around them, the stable yard was filling up with snow, while from inside the barn, the comforting scents of livestock and hay wafted on a chilly breeze. Concern for Susannah weighed down Nita’s happiness at being engaged and leavened her joy with gratitude.
Tremaine St. Michael was so much more worthy than all the Norton Nashes in the world, and he was hers.
“I will read”—Susannah peered at the books—“Mr. Burns’s poetry and some essay by a Mrs. Wollstonecraft. Looks interesting. I like Mr. St. Michael, Nita. He isn’t silly, and yet he can laugh.”
Odd that Susannah, a sober soul if ever there was one, should make that observation.
“Mr. St. Michael respects my medical knowledge and is a marvelous kisser.” Odder still that Nita should offer that.
Susannah stood, books in hand, and whipped off the fetching, impractical little hat. “Best of all, Mr. St. Michael hasn’t a cowlick.”
They returned to the house on that cheering observation, then commended each other to the comfor
ts of a long, hot soaking bath.
* * *
The snow let up after dumping a foot of cold inconvenience on all in the shire, though as Tremaine’s visit to Kent stretched on, he enjoyed a sunny sense of a negotiation coming to a profitable conclusion. He’d tendered his offer to Lady Nita; she’d investigated his prospects and found them to her liking.
Several days after Tremaine had become engaged, all that remained was to agree on settlements with the Earl of Bellefonte.
Who was nowhere to be found. Tremaine prowled the library, the parlors, the estate office, even the corridors of the family wing. He came upon Lady Della, nose down in Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s eloquence, in a cozy parlor graced with a hearth and two braziers.
“I beg your pardon for disturbing you, my lady, but I can’t seem to locate any of your siblings.”
Nor would Tremaine ask the servants for the whereabouts of his prospective in-laws, lest talk ensue. Lady Nita had said an announcement at the assembly was in order, and until then, Tremaine would observe utmost discretion.
“We’ve been abandoned,” Lady Della said. “Do come in lest you let out all the warmth I hoard so jealously.”
They were to be family, so Tremaine closed the door. Lady Della was at a dangerous age, when young ladies could get themselves into trouble with what felt like daring but was in truth foolishness, and yet Tremaine liked what he knew of her.
“Nita and Kirsten have saddled up in the interests of enjoying fresh air, though I suspect they’ll visit the Chalmers household,” Lady Della said, putting her reading aside. “Susannah went with them, intent no doubt on the lending library, and George rode as escort to ensure no riots ensued when all of my sisters rode out at once.”
From her cozy parlor, the junior sibling somehow knew the whereabouts of four adults, none of whom Tremaine had been able to track down. A farewell visit to the Chalmers family was understandable, or perhaps Lady Nita would entrust their welfare to Lady Kirsten.
“Why didn’t you go with them?” Tremaine asked.
The snow had kept everybody on the Belle Maison premises for several days, though Tremaine had seen Bellefonte himself wearing a path to and from the stables. His countess occasionally went with him, though nobody rode out.
“I have a sniffle.” Lady Della sniffed delicately, mocking Tremaine, herself, or polite fictions in general. “I like your Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and I like better that you’d wave her at Susannah.”
An ally among the in-laws was never to be taken for granted. “Everybody needs a break from Shakespeare.”
“Also from Debrett’s. My come-out was delayed thanks to Papa’s passing, but Nicholas’s grandmother would have me recite from Debrett’s as if it were Scripture.”
“I’ve found it useful,” Tremaine said, taking a place near the fire. In cold weather, even a cozy room had chilly floors, a situation Lady Della managed by keeping her slippered feet up on a hassock.
“Will you and Nita make an announcement at the assembly?” She fired that salvo while casually draping a brown and red wool afghan over her knees. As the only dark-haired Haddonfield, the colors flattered her.
“An announcement?”
“Coyness is not your greatest talent, sir. Nita has been different lately. She smiles inwardly and isn’t so brisk outwardly. I saw you coming from her room the other night, and I saw her the next day. She wore ear bobs to dinner.”
Little sapphire and gold drops that went marvelously with Nita’s eyes and with her smiles. The countess had mercifully seated Tremaine next to his intended, so he could torment himself with sidelong glances and the occasional brush of hands under the table.
Nita was owed a bit of wooing, though the sooner they were wed, the better.
“Perhaps the lady and I were merely having a late-night chat about a medical condition.”
“You weren’t suffering from a medical condition,” Lady Della said, “though it apparently afflicts some men worse than an ague. If Susannah and Mr. Nash make no announcement, then I’d beg you and Nita to keep your news quiet as well.”
“I haven’t said we have news.” Though Lady Della had a point. If Susannah were not engaged, kindness suggested an announcement should wait.
“I am the youngest,” Lady Della replied, sounding not very young at all. “I am the smallest, and sooner or later you will hear that I’m an indiscretion for which the old earl forgave my mother. Susannah needs to wed, Mr. St. Michael. I know you want those sheep, and I mean no insult to your regard for Nita, but Susannah needs those sheep more than you do.”
Tremaine took a seat beside Lady Della uninvited. “You should not confide the circumstances of your birth to even me, my lady. While your situation is common enough among titled families, the information could be used to your detriment.”
She held out a plate of biscuits, not ginger for they were too pale. Lemon, maybe. Tremaine took one to be polite.
“Nita said you were kind,” Lady Della said, setting the plate down beside Mrs. Wollstonecraft. “I don’t like Mr. Nash, but I can tell you Susannah has need of him, and that means she needs those dratted sheep.”
Lady Della’s expression was disconcertingly determined, and she was regarded by her siblings as adept at gathering information. She appeared to be a darling little aristocratic confection, but something—or someone—had roused her protective instincts where Lady Susannah was concerned.
Tremaine took a bite of biscuit and yielded to the prodding of instinct.
“Do you make a habit of catching your sisters in their rare improprieties?” he asked. For Lady Della had seen something, caught a glimpse of liberties permitted or even vows anticipated. Did Nita know Susannah had misstepped? Did Susannah know her lapse had been observed?
No wonder Bellefonte often wore a harried expression.
“I make a habit out of looking after my siblings,” Lady Della said, that cool, adult thread more evident in her voice than ever. “They look after me. I’m simply returning the favor. That goes for George too.”
Whatever His Handsomeness had to do with the topic at hand.
“I’ve already decided I can’t ask for the sheep to be included in Lady Nita’s dowry,” Tremaine said, finishing a scrumptious lavender-flavored biscuit. Why he should share his decision with Lady Della was a mystery. Perhaps one spoke thus with siblings, even when they were acquired by marriage.
“So you’ll buy them in a separate transaction six months hence,” Lady Della retorted, “and Nicholas will be the soul of accommodation in this scheme because he’s another dunderheaded male. I’m telling you, Susannah needs those sheep.”
“If I could find the earl,” Tremaine said, “I’d cheerfully negotiate settlements with him that will preclude me from ever owning those damned sheep, but he’s eluding my notice. Given his size, this suggests he doesn’t want to be found.”
Given the earl’s besottedness with his countess, it suggested his lordship was elsewhere in the family wing, perhaps using a snowy morning to further secure the succession.
“Nicholas makes birdhouses when he’s wrestling with a problem,” Lady Della said, offering the biscuits again. “Leah sometimes helps him or joins him in his workshop simply to bear him company and get away from the rest of us.”
Her comment brought a memory to light, of Beckman Haddonfield hanging a fantastical birdhouse in the lower branches of an oak at Three Springs. The miniature chalet, complete with a tiny carved goat on the roof—a bearded, horned male—had been a wedding present from the earl.
“Bellefonte makes those birdhouses?” The workmanship had been exquisite, far too fine to hang in a tree. “Those birdhouses could fetch a pretty penny as parlor ornaments.”
Tremaine betrayed his mercantile soul with that comment, and the look Lady Della sent him—eyes dancing, lips threatening to turn up—said she knew it. He stuffed half another biscuit in his mouth before he could utter more ridiculousness.
“Nicholas will be cheered to hear that his woodwo
rking passes muster,” Lady Della said. “He’s also quite skilled with a muck fork, which I’m sure his countess took into consideration when he asked for her hand. His workshop is at the back of the stables. Go into the saddle room and you’ll find a small door on the back wall. Nobody ever thinks to look for Nicholas behind a small door.”
Nor would they think to find a small sister guarding his welfare.
“My thanks,” Tremaine said, rising. “Shall I have a footman bring more coals for your brazier?”
“And have the staff know I’ve been closeted with you? No, thank you.”
She dismissed Tremaine by the simple expedient of resuming her study of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Like all the Haddonfields, Lady Della was clever, but she wasn’t restless with it the way Nita and Kirsten were, nor did she enjoy Susannah’s domestic inclinations.
Lady Della was lonely though, Tremaine would have bet William on that. That’s what her announcement of her age, size, and bastard status had been about. She was lonely and expecting to be overlooked by her newest sibling-by-marriage.
Tremaine would not overlook her—or underestimate her. By supper at the latest, she’d figure out that an agreement preventing him from owning the sheep would pose no bar to his leasing the same animals.
Which left Tremaine to puzzle over why Nita had neither told him she was paying one last call on the Chalmers family nor invited him to escort her.
Thirteen
Susannah’s birdhouse had been easy. Nick had devised a structure that looked like a set of shelves holding various volumes—Fordyce’s Sermons, Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, Wordsworth’s latest poems. These, Nick fashioned into a home for birds, two stories of books high, the finished product fooling the eye from only a few feet away.
“Nita took me by surprise,” Nick informed a fat, white tomcat who sat on the workbench washing its right paw. “One hardly knows what to give her, she’s so damned independent.”
The sketchbook in front of Nick was open to a blank page, the same blank page he’d been staring at for an hour.
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