Tremaine's True Love by Grace Burrowes Page A

household.”
    Thank the celestial powers, Bellefonte at least understood the need to curb his sister’s more dangerous charitable impulses.
    “You do not mention the risk that Lady Nita herself might fall ill,” Tremaine said.
    English physicians interviewed patients. They did not touch them in the usual course and often didn’t even visit the sickroom. If contagion was a significant issue, then a family member might relay symptoms to the doctor, who’d prescribe nostrums from the safety of his cozy study.
    Lady Nita apparently observed no such precautions.
    Bellefonte snapped his book closed. “There’s no point mentioning the risk of contagion to Lady Nita, such is my sister’s disdain for common sense. Nita’s healthy as a tinker’s donkey, and nothing I say, promise, threaten, or shout makes any difference to her.”
    An image sprang up in Tremaine’s mind of Lady Nita crouching by the shivering lamb, ready to do battle for its life if Tremaine had intended the little beast harm.
    “Have you tried asking the lady to comply with your wishes, my lord?” For sooner or later, she’d fall ill, if not die, as a consequence of her kindheartedness.
    Bellefonte consumed his third biscuit thoughtfully. “I haven’t tried asking. I should, though Nita can drive me to shouting more quickly than the rest of my siblings put together.”
    Well, of course. Demure, sensible Lady Nita left her brother no choice but to rant and carry on like a squalling infant.
    “With your sisters, as with your sheep, I’m sure you’ll do as you see fit, my lord. I’m off at week’s end to arrange travel to Germany if we can’t come to terms on your herd of merinos.”
    “Talk to George, then, if you’re bound for the Continent. He’s recently returned and has good recall for which inns are clean, which of the packet captains sober. Beckman was our vagabond, but George might take up the post.”
    Beckman had traveled to escape bad memories, while George Haddonfield appeared the soul of sunny charm. Interesting.
    “If we cannot come to terms, I will certainly confer with George. And, Bellefonte?”
    The earl dusted biscuit crumbs from his hands.
    “Lady Susannah might be happy with this poetical baronet-in-waiting,” Tremaine said, “but I suggest you make a thorough study of the man’s finances before you send her into his arms. Near his manor house, all is in good repair. The surrounding tenant farms, however, have sagging fences, tumbling stone walls, weedy cornfields, and overgrown hedges. Those sheep wouldn’t be on Nash’s property for a day before they’d be loose about the shire, wreaking havoc in your neighbors’ gardens, and comporting themselves like strumpets with the local flocks.”
    Tremaine ate the last bite of his ginger biscuit, retrieved his letter, and left Nicholas, Lord of Many Sisters, contemplating the remaining supply of biscuits.
    * * *
     
    Nita sought the warmth of the kitchen, for worse than being bone tired was being bone tired and hungry—which Addy Chalmers likely had been for years.
    As Nita fetched the butter from the window box and unwrapped a loaf of bread, she recalled Addy mentioning Mary’s father’s family. Perhaps the unwritten etiquette of vice prohibited such a topic, for Addy had never before referred in Nita’s hearing to the fathers of her children.
    If she even knew who they were.
    Nita poured cider into a pot and swung it over the coals of the cooking fire. Cinnamon would have made a nice addition, also an expensive one.
    “Lady Nita, I’m surprised to find you awake at such a late hour.”
    Tremaine St. Michael leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his cravat missing, his shirtsleeves turned back, and his shirt open at the throat. Nita liked the look of him, his bustling energy and fine tailoring made more approachable by a touch of weariness and informality.
    “Mr. St. Michael, good evening. Have you wandered below stairs in search of a posset?”
    How long had he