His Christmas Countess

‘I am?’ Kate murmured, lost in the face of so much frankness.

‘When I first met him I had sprained my ankle and he was very kind to me, but his eyes held so much sadness, even when he was smiling. That’s gone now.’

There was the fleeting memory of that look in his eyes when they were in the bothy and, afterwards, when they reached Abbeywell. She had thought that the haunting sadness had gone because he was home again, and with Charlie, but Tess implied that it had been there for longer than just that difficult journey from Scotland. ‘I know the look you mean. And you are right, it isn’t there now.’

‘That’s love for you,’ Tess said, her smile tender and secret.

‘But it isn’t,’ Kate protested. ‘We’re not in love. Surely Grant told you all in London about how we met, why he married me? This is not a romance, this is a marriage of practicality.’

‘Well, yes.’ Tess sat up straighter, the smile gone. ‘But he did not have to marry you to get you out of the fix you were in. There were all sorts of things he could have done to help you. He must have been attracted to you right from the beginning. And the way you look at him...’

‘He needed a stepmother for Charlie,’ Kate said stiffly. ‘I needed a father for Anna and there was no time to discuss all the options, she was about to be born. And I don’t love him.’ Do I? Tess arched one dark brow. ‘And Grant does not love me,’ she added with rather more certainty.

‘I am sure you know better than I,’ Tess said, but the smile was back.

‘Knows better than you about what, my darling?’ The men were back in the room before Kate could answer that sly remark. ‘Surely no one knows better than you about anything,’ Alex Tempest added.

‘Wretch.’ Tess tilted her head back to look up at her husband. ‘Have you men finished fighting the battle again to your own satisfaction? Because if Kate will excuse me, I am for my bed. It has been a long day.’ She paused as she passed Kate. ‘But I am right, you know, about at least one of you.’

Tess’s departure broke the party up. Alex, it seemed, was not prepared to let her go up to bed without him, Gabriel suggested that Lord Avenmore come up with him so he could lend him a book he had just finished and, with the departure of her guests, Kate wanted nothing more than to get Grant alone upstairs.

‘My chamber or yours?’ he asked as they climbed the stairs.

‘Yours.’ He would be more relaxed there, she sensed. I don’t love him, I am not in love. I like him, I desire him, I am so very grateful to him, but...love? I still hardly know him and, anyway, I am not very good at recognising love.

‘I like your friends,’ Kate said and went to help him out of his coat when he dismissed the waiting valet. ‘Let me untie your neckcloth.’ She enjoyed the closeness of standing toe to toe, unwinding the body-warmed muslin from around his neck, exposing a glimpse of skin beneath.

‘Good.’ Grant bent to nuzzle her temple as she stood folding the cloth. ‘They like you, but then I knew they would, all being men of taste and discrimination.’

They undressed slowly, helping each other, pausing between garments for a lingering caress, a kiss. But without any spoken agreement Grant reached for his heavy silk robe when they were naked, while Kate retrieved her own robe from her room. She sat down facing him across the width of the hearth, studying the austere profile, the straight nose and firm mouth. He was a handsome man, her husband, and, yes, she looked at him and enjoyed doing so, just as Tess had observed. That did not mean she was in love with him.

‘I married very suitably and far too young,’ Grant said without preamble. ‘We were both too young and I had very little experience of well-bred young ladies beyond the ballroom. I was disappointed that Madeleine seemed so cool, but she had seemed willing enough to marry me, and neither of us had been brought up to expect some passionate love match. We rubbed along well enough until Charlie was born and, naturally, I would not have dreamed of returning to the bedchamber for quite a while after that.’

‘It sounds like a very lonely marriage,’ Kate ventured.

Grant’s shoulders moved in the ghost of a shrug. ‘It is what we both expected, what I had grown up with. Then I visited her room one night and was told that she had done her duty by bearing me an heir and surely, if I wanted to indulge my male lusts, I could set up a mistress. I pointed out that sex within marriage was not a question of lust, and besides, I wanted more children and surely she did, too.’