Free Tremaine's True Love by Grace Burrowes Page A

boy time. I’m the runt in my family, and I struggle along adequately, despite that burden.”
    Elsie ran an appraising eye over him, though her inspection was dispassionate rather than an assessment of his masculine charms.
    For Elsie Nash knew better.
    “Digby’s father wasn’t particularly tall,” she said, “but I wouldn’t change a thing about my son. How are you getting along, George? Your sisters natter on about the assembly and some Scottish fellow with a French title visiting the earl, but they seldom mention you. You’ve been traveling, haven’t you?”
    George stood beside his horse, trapped by manners and a nagging concern for the boy.
    “Elsie, you needn’t pretend.”
    “Pretend?”
    “I travel on the Continent because my family finds my taste in kissing partners inconvenient.” Dangerous , Nicholas had said, for certain sexual behaviors, regardless of how casually undertaken or commonplace, were yet considered hanging offenses.
    “George Haddonfield, if I were dismayed by every person I found kissing an inconvenient party in the garden, I should never have lasted a single Season as the colonel’s wife. You were kind to my son, and that is all that matters to me.”
    Elsie glowered up at him, five entire feet—and possibly one inch—of mother love ready to trounce George if he contradicted her.
    “Your son needs a brazier in his schoolroom,” George said, and Elsie’s glower disappeared like snow on hot coals.
    “Digby exaggerates, George. You mustn’t mind him.”
    “Digby is a good lad, and he’s lucky to have you for a mother.” While George was lucky Elsie had never breathed a word about what she’d seen in a certain earl’s moonlit garden.
    God help him, it hadn’t even been much of a kiss.
    “You won’t come in for a biscuit and a cup of tea in the kitchen?” Elsie asked.
    Her invitation was genuine, and the day was beastly cold. Then too, George had enjoyed the time spent with Digby—who wouldn’t like such a lad?—so he pulled off a glove and gave a piercing whistle.
    “If you could please walk my horse,” George said to the groom who came trotting out of the stables. “Up and down the barn aisle will do, and I won’t be long.”
    Elsie beamed at George as if he’d announced a sighting of blooming roses.
    “Perfect,” she said, slipping her arm through his. “You must tell me about this Mr. St. Michael. Your sisters seemed to think he might do for Lady Nita, and he’s rumored to be quite wealthy.”

Four
     
    “There you are!”
    Bellefonte advanced into the library, his tone suggesting Tremaine had been hiding for days, rather than drafting correspondence in plain sight for the past hour.
    “I’m writing to your brother Beckman,” Tremaine said. Beckman the Rapturously Married. “He’ll expect a full accounting of my sojourn among his siblings. Have you anything you’d like to include with my epistle?”
    Bellefonte again took a position with his back to the roaring hearth. The earl was an informal sort. Tremaine’s grandfather had often assumed that very posture before more rustic hearths.
    “I like the smell of a wood fire,” Bellefonte said. “Though I’d be better off selling the wood, I’m sure. You may warn Beckman I’m sending Lady Nita to him in the spring, so he’d best ensure all in his ambit are in excellent health. From there, she can visit our brother Ethan, and I’ve any number of friends who’d be delighted to host her over the summer. My grandmother, Lady Warne, loves showing my sisters off at house parties.”
    Tremaine sprinkled sand over the page, for he and the Earl of Bellefonte had a few matters to clear up of a more pressing nature than social correspondence.
    “Are you scolding me, Bellefonte, for accompanying your sister on an outing that you, a team of elephants, and a host of archangels could not have dissuaded her from?”
    Women rallied around babies, and Tremaine had no quarrel with that. None at all. Women were