Kissing Mr. St. Michael bore a resemblance to the onset of a fever. Weakness assailed Nita, from her middle outward through her limbs, and then heat welled in its wake. He held her snugly—she would not fall—but she felt as if she were falling.
Tremaine St. Michael’s kiss was a marvel of contradictions: solid male strength all around Nita and feather soft caresses to her lips; dark frustration to be limited to a kiss, and soaring satisfaction to have a kiss that transcended mere friendliness; utter glee to find that her advances were enthusiastically returned; and plummeting sorrow, because Mr. St. Michael’s horse awaited him in the stable yard.
He cupped Nita’s jaw as he traced kisses over her eyebrows, nose, and cheeks.
“You deserve more than a stolen kiss in the stable,” he whispered near Nita’s ear. “But if a stolen kiss is what you’ll take, then I hope this one was memorable.”
This one kiss, this one series of kisses, had banished winter from Nita’s little corner of Kent in less than a minute.
She rested against him, as she had for a moment in the kitchen late at night. “You’ll let us know when you’ve arrived safely to Kent.” She was repeating herself.
“I’ll let you know, and Nita?”
Not Lady Nita, but plain Nita. How that warmed her too. “Tremaine?”
She felt the pleasure of her familiar address reverberate through him, because he kissed her ear as he held her in the gloom of the stables.
“Please be careful. Your brother isn’t wrong to worry about you. Tending to the sick is noble, but perilous. I would not want harm to befall you.”
Nita added two more feelings to the bittersweet confusion in her heart. Tremaine St. Michael cared for her, and yet, he sounded as if he nearly agreed with Nicholas: the Earl of Bellefonte’s oldest sister ought to spend her afternoons stitching samplers, indifferent to the suffering of others.
“I’ll be careful,” Nita said. “You avoid the ditches.”
“I generally do, though I wish—” Mr. St. Michael stayed where he was a moment longer, peering down at Nita as a heathery fragrance sneaked beneath the stable scents to tease at Nita’s nose.
Nita was penned in by the wall, the horse, and Mr. St. Michael, so she turned her face away, from him, from his wishes.
“Safe journey, Mr. St. Michael.”
He stepped back, and as he tugged his gloves on, Nita could see his focus withdraw from her and affix itself to his sheep, to the journey he undertook to ensure their safety.
Nobody had ever tormented him with orders to stitch samplers, or plan a house party, or practice the simpler Haydn sonatas while a child suffered influenza or a maiden aunt endured a female complaint in mortified silence.
Nita was the first to move toward the stable yard, lest Mr. St. Michael ruin a delightful kiss with parting sermons and scolds.
William waited outside, a groom leading him in a plodding circle. Snowflakes graced a brisk breeze beneath a leaden sky, and Nita’s resentment receded to its taproot: worry, for Mr. St. Michael, for the infirm whom she tended.
And a little bit, worry for herself.
“I have enjoyed my stay at Belle Maison,” Mr. St. Michael said, taking the reins from the groom. “Every bit of it.”
He led William to the mounting block, the first few steps of a distance that must widen and widen between him and Nita. She wanted to throw herself into his embrace just once more, but instead spared the sullen sky a glance.
Mr. St. Michael swung up as a flutter of white caught Nita’s eye, followed by a thin, tinkling peal from the bell in the dovecote.
* * *
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Thanks, and happy reading!
Grace Burrowes
Thomas Page 32