His Christmas Countess

‘It is strange, though, there was something so familiar about him.’ Grant shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’ve come across one of his relatives. Society is so interbred, I may know a cousin of his and not even realise it. Now, where is the carriage?’

It was waiting at the end of Milkmaid’s Passage, where a footpath led from the park to the front of St James’s Palace. ‘Why did you not take the groom with you?’ Grant demanded as they settled themselves inside.

‘Um...idiocy?’ Kate ventured and was rewarded with a smile.

‘I shouldn’t be cross with you. I forget what an innocent you are in London. This is not the moorlands where you may stretch your legs accosted by nothing worse than a flock of sheep.’

‘No, my lord,’ Kate said meekly and saw, from the smile in Grant’s eyes, that she was forgiven. ‘Sheep can be very dangerous, you know.’ I don’t deserve him. How am I going to get out of this mire without someone getting hurt? ‘How did your meeting go, my lord? It was satisfactory, I hope?’

‘Most. I suspect I have landed myself with a great deal of work, but I am interested in social issues.’

She would get the details out of him when they were alone and, perhaps, convince him that she read the newspapers, too, that she had views on social policy and could discuss the problems he was going to be tackling. If he is still prepared to talk to me.

Kate stared blankly out at the passing clubs and shops as the carriage climbed the slope of St James’s Street. What am I going to do about Jonathan and Henry now?

* * *

Grant stood in front of his dressing mirror, tying his neckcloth and attempting to pin down the niggling sense of unease at the back of his mind. He had swept Kate upstairs and made love to her so thoroughly that she seemed to be entirely satisfied that he was not blaming her for the Green Park incident. It also served to satisfy his own primitive male feelings of ownership. He grimaced at himself as he acknowledged the response. Still, it could have turned nasty if he had not come across them. The behaviour was typical of Baybrook, by all accounts. The man might no longer be able to carry on his dissolute lifestyle, but he obviously could not resist accosting an attractive woman when one crossed his path.

What was unsettling was that the strange incident had reawakened all his niggling doubts about Kate. He had been trying to suppress them, tell himself that they were simply leftovers from his experiences with Madeleine, and that now he was so happy in his marriage they would vanish. But they had not. Perhaps the lack was in him and he had lost the ability to trust completely.

‘Move the candles up, would you, Griffin?’ The valet shifted a branch of candles to the left-hand side of Grant to balance those on the right, and he leaned close to the glass to slide in his tiepin. Just so. He met his own gaze in the mirror and grimaced. He was turning into a damn dandy, peacocking about for his Kate.

The thought lifted his spirits. Amused green eyes smiled back and he went still. That was what had been nagging away—Baybrook’s eyes. For a few tense seconds they had stared at each other, almost nose to nose. And Baybrook’s eyes were green, an unusual clear colour with golden flecks and a black rim to the pupil. The colour he had seen when he had compared Anna’s eyes to his own. It was too much of a coincidence, that bizarre encounter between the earl and Kate and the colour of the man’s eyes. He is Anna’s father.

‘My lord?’ Griffin murmured, the equivalent from him of a nudge in the ribs.

‘What?’

‘Are you quite well, my lord? A migraine, perhaps?’

‘No, I’m fine, just distracted by business.’ He had to think about this, try to work out just what the other man knew. It was interesting that, although Jeannie had been with her, Kate had obviously not shown Anna to her lover. Her ex-lover, he told himself, exerting all his willpower to steady his breathing, his instinctive reactions. Don’t get into a jealous rage over this. There is no way he and Kate have been together since we married. Although what she was plotting now with apparently chance meetings in the park...

The thought of Kate getting up to something underhand was like a stab. Was this what he had sensed was wrong all along?

He turned away and stood while Griffin eased him into his evening coat. A sliver of doubt seemed to have slid into his heart. She had lied, he realised, told him Anna’s father was dead. So what else had she not told him? The cold fist closing around his gut was all too familiar from years of dealing with Madeleine’s lies and evasions. But not Kate. I need to trust her!