His Christmas Countess

‘I think I am a lucky man.’ Kate jerked up her head and saw Grant’s smile—sudden, dazzling. Confusing. Then he bent down, pulled her into his arms and up to perch on the desk beside him. ‘You are not wanton, Kate. You are sensual, passionate and desirable. I thought I was marrying a woman with courage and intelligence who would be a good stepmother to Charlie. I rather think I have been more fortunate than I deserve.’

‘Desirable?’ She was no traditional beauty, she knew that. And childbirth had made changes to her body, even though she had ridden and walked until her figure was trim again and her muscles taut.

‘Desirable,’ Grant confirmed and bent his head to snatch a kiss from her lips. ‘Did you not notice how much pleasure you gave me last night?’

Kate felt ready to sink, but Grant was being frank with her, and very understanding, so she owed it to him to be equally frank. Besides, his arm around her waist, the pressure of his body against hers, gave her courage. ‘I thought men didn’t mind very much who they were with, once they were actually making love. That any woman would do.’

Beside her Grant made a sudden, suppressed sound. Laughter or outrage? ‘Believe me, we mind.’ It had been laughter. ‘And, no, any woman will not do. Except for the sort of rutting beasts whom I hope you will never encounter.’

‘You do not find being married to me as bad as you feared, then?’ She let herself lean into him, reading his mood through the feel of the big body more easily than she could interpret his expression.

Grant stiffened, then she felt him relax. He has decided to carry on being truthful. ‘I foresaw difficulties, and the bedchamber was one of them. I am much reassured.’

‘And the others included the fact that you thought me plain, awkward and unfit to be an earl’s wife?’ Kate prodded.

‘As you observed yesterday, neither of us was at their best last Christmas.’

‘So you left me here rather than allow London society to see who you’d married.’ As soon as she said it, she knew the fact that he had left her here had been a blow to her pride, even as she had been so relieved that he had done so. And it was very poor tactics to make him think she wanted to go there now.

Grant got to his feet and began to pace around the study. ‘I could not... It was too soon after the birth for you to travel.’ Perhaps he was not prepared for total honesty after all. At least, she pondered, he was careful not to hurt her feelings.

‘You could have sent for me when Charlie went to London for the second time.’

‘I told myself that Anna was too young, that she was better here in the country air.’

‘You told yourself?’

Grant swung round and she saw his expression was rueful, not angry. ‘You listen to what is behind the words, don’t you? Yes, I told myself we were better apart. My reasons for marrying you were good, I knew that. But the risks, the drawbacks, seemed greater the longer I was away from you.’

And you did not come back, you left it months. Why? ‘And now?’ This is the rest of our lives, the choice between happiness or, at best, a bitter toleration.

‘Now I wish I had come back sooner, begun to know my wife sooner. London and the Season may be a trifle...sticky, but we have months to build this marriage to be too strong for gossip to break it and for you to become a confident countess.’

It is to be happiness, then. She pushed away the thought of the Season, the threat implicit in those words. ‘I have a list,’ Kate said and smiled at her husband. For the first time since she had woken up to the enormity of what she had done, the word husband did not fill her with apprehension. And London was a long way away, time to worry about that later.

‘And what is on this list? An increased dress allowance? I’m to make numerous morning calls with you?’ He was teasing her, but his eyes held that familiar reserve. What did he think she would demand?

‘I want you to show me the house and the estate yourself. Tell me about it and what it means to you. Let me see it through your eyes.’ That was what she had wanted, for all those months. She needed to understand Abbeywell and its importance to Grant and Charlie, then she would know how to live here, not as a visitor, but as part of it. There were changes she could see that needed making, projects that would improve the life of the tenants, the ease of using the house, the beauty of the estate, but she had no right to make them without consultation and some she would not even suggest if her idea for diverting the stream to make a water garden meant drowning Grant’s favourite boyhood hideout or the suggestion for building a communal laundry for the village was simply too expensive. Opening the door to Madeleine’s rooms was far down the list of what she could venture upon, even though it was becoming something dangerously like an obsession.