His Christmas Countess

He’d been short with Kate yesterday when she had asked a perfectly reasonable question about the scars. On an impulse he tossed back the brandy and strode to the door, stopping only to remove the key from its hiding place in the indented base of a Japanese bronze figure and to pick up a three-branch candlestick.

It was over a year since he had been in the empty suite. The door swung open with a faint creak and the cold, stale air hardly moved the candle flames. He could still smell burning, he was convinced, even though all the fabrics and carpets had been torn out and destroyed, the walls and floor scrubbed. The seat of the fire was obvious from the heavy charring of the floorboards in front of the hearth and near the door where the edge of the rug had been was a dark patch. His blood.

He made himself walk further into the room, telling himself that he could not hear the crackle of the fire, the screams, the child’s wailing cries. He could not smell the smoke, the burning brandy... But they were there, in his head, the memories mixed with the sounds and stench of the battlefield, the screams of the dying, and afterwards, those hideous pyres...

Then he was through into the bedchamber. It was still furnished, for the door had been closed that night and the smoke and flame had not penetrated here. It smelt of dust and old polish and faintly, unmistakably, there was the scent of jasmine in the air.

There were sounds here, too. A woman crying. Screaming. Sobs and reproaches. Pain and grief. To pull himself back into the present left him sick, but he made himself walk around the room checking coldly, methodically, for damage, signs of damp, of mice or mould. These chambers were spaces, that was all. They had no memory, no life of their own. The phantom sounds and smells were all in his head and he could overcome them, drive them out with the laughter of a son who was healthy and happy, the scent of a woman who found joy in his lovemaking, the smiles of a baby who reached out when she saw him. He had experienced no nightmares since he had returned to Abbeywell—he was healing, even if his lacerated shoulder never would.

He walked back, locked the door behind him, returned to his room. Yes, he could sleep now.

Chapter Thirteen

Kate woke, blinking at the darkness. Something had roused her. A shout? All was quiet, but instinct made her get up and tiptoe to the dressing room door, which stood ajar. Anna was fast asleep and there was no sound from Jeannie, who slept in a small room just along the corridor.

It must have been an owl, or a vixen’s strange cry. Then she heard it again, distinctly now, unmistakably a human voice.

‘Charlie!’ It was Grant and she ran to the connecting door, threw it open expecting to find some emergency—a sick child, sleepwalking, an accident—her mind ran through the possibilities. But the room was dark and still, except for the sound of muttering and movement from the bed.

‘Grant?’ There was no reply. A cold finger of unease moved down her spine. Kate backed away into her own chamber, found by touch the candle and tinderbox by the bed and, hands shaking, struck a light. ‘Grant?’ This time she could see him naked on the bed, the sheets a tangle around his legs, trapping him. He seemed to be trying to drag himself towards the edge of the bed.

‘Charlie. I’m coming. Charlie...’ He was deep in the throes of a nightmare.

Kate bent over him, put her arms around his shoulders and tried to make him lie down, but he was too strong for her. ‘We have Charlie. He is safe, quite safe,’ she murmured, then repeated it loudly, but it did nothing to calm him.

Then something in the tension of Grant’s body changed. ‘Dream,’ he muttered. ‘No.’

He knew he was in a nightmare, Kate realised, and he was fighting against it, forcing it back with the strength of his mind as much as his body. She held on tightly, pulling the rigid body against hers, stroking down his back. When she touched the scarred shoulder she felt him flinch as though the wounds were raw.

With a heave Grant threw off her restraining hands, fell back against the pillows. ‘Couldn’t help her,’ he muttered. ‘Charlie...’

‘He is here. You saved him. Charlie is safe.’

‘I know,’ he answered her rationally, irritably, even though he was asleep. ‘Damned dreams...’ And then he was still, relaxed, deeply asleep.

Shaken, Kate backed away from the bed, the candle flame wavering. She put up a hand to shield it and realised it was her own panting breath that made it move. Grant had been dreaming about the fire that killed his wife, she was certain. Dr Meldreth had said something about Grant being injured during the fire, but the only scars she could see on his body were the slashes on his shoulder and they were not burns. How could a fire cause those? But a weapon could, a broken bottle could.