His Christmas Countess

‘Ouch,’ Grant remarked when his son had departed with the air of a condemned man heading for the gallows. ‘I am not certain I could translate that with any elegance these days.’ He ran a hand through his tousled hair, twitched off Kate’s cloak, shook it out, draped it over his arm and opened the door for her. ‘Those letters, I hope, are the replies to my invitations to our first house party.’

Kate was conscious that he was watching her for a reaction. Did he fear she would be unable to manage a small, informal gathering, or was it his guests’ reactions to her that gave him more concern? No man would want his closest friends to think he had made a poor marriage, that his wife was not good enough for him.

I am good enough, she told herself. Good enough for him and for his friends. And I can manage a country house party more easily than he thinks. The thought of confounding Grant with her ability gave her an inner glow of unworthy satisfaction, even if it was only a small thing. Henry liked to entertain his friends and his wife, Jane, uncomfortable with country gentlemen and their hearty manners and unsophisticated pleasures, had been more than happy to unload the burden of organisation on to Kate.

If truth be told, it was the thought of female guests that gave her the most apprehension. Men, if they were comfortable, well fed and provided with plenty of sport, tended to be uncritical of their hostess. Ladies, on the other hand, were not. Polite, charming—and if they sensed a weakness, as relentless as a flock of pigeons pecking away at a pile of wheat grains until there was nothing left but the husks.

‘Let’s hurry and open them,’ she said and was through the doorway into the shadowed hall with, surely, enough enthusiasm to convince Grant that she was not nervous in the slightest.

‘Alex and his wife can come,’ he said, studying the first letter. He opened the others. ‘So can Cris and Gabriel. But they both say they will not be accompanied by their sisters. Gabe, in language I will not use to my respectable wife, assures me he will inflict neither his latest chère amie upon us, nor a respectable fiancée—which it is unimaginable that he will ever have, by the way—and certainly not his unmarried sister.’ Grant folded the sheet with its sprawling black handwriting and grimaced. ‘Now I come to think about my last encounter with her, that is probably a good thing. She can talk the hind leg off a donkey and needs diluting with a very large pool of other guests. Cris merely thanks me most properly for the suggestion, but tells me that he will be unaccompanied, as his sister is newly betrothed and will be staying with her future in-laws.’

Grant handed her that letter and Kate scanned the elegantly written page. ‘He sounds somewhat cool,’ she ventured. ‘Is it the prospect of meeting me?’

‘He always sounds cool, although this does seem more detached than usual.’ Grant took the letter back and read it again. ‘It isn’t us, it is him. Something’s wrong, I think. He’s been in Russia or Denmark or somewhere in that direction, doing a vaguely diplomatic job for the Foreign Office.’

‘Not as an ambassador?’

‘No, far more undefined than that.’ Grant looked thoughtful and Kate did not probe. If his friend was engaged in espionage, he certainly would not want to speak of it. The poor man probably needed some peace and quiet and homely comforts after the stress of a foreign court.

‘I suggested May 20 and they all say they can make that. Is it convenient for you?’

Two weeks? ‘Certainly,’ Kate said with a sense of fizzing excitement. Her first house party as mistress of Abbeywell and the chance to understand Grant much better through his friends. She could hardly wait. ‘That will be no problem at all.’

* * *

The house was quiet, finally. Grant leaned back against the door of his bedroom and yawned. Charlie, still overexcited from the day before at the prospect of all his favourite honorary uncles arriving at the same time, had been difficult to get to bed. Anna, with the knack of small children for knowing when adults were tired and distracted, decided to wail endlessly and Kate had been absent-minded throughout dinner. And, to put the cap on a wearisome evening, she had indicated in an embarrassed murmur that it would not be a good time for him to visit her bedchamber.

So now he was feeling selfish for feeling disappointed when she was obviously self-conscious and uncomfortable. The decanters had been set out and he went to pour himself out a finger of brandy, shifting his shoulders under the heavy silk of his robe in an effort to ease the ache in the right one, which always complained when the weather turned cold and damp.