His Christmas Countess

Grant sat down facing her and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. ‘Are you all right, Kate?’

It was the last thing she expected him to say, this expression of concern for her, and it almost undid her.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said, firmly and without reaching for her. The prosecuting counsel...

‘I am not and I will not.’ Easier to promise than to keep, she suspected. ‘You seem to know a great deal, but I expect you would like me to tell you myself why I have lied to you.’

Grant moved, an involuntary gesture that she read as acknowledgment of her betrayal. So be it. ‘Henry likes to gamble and he met Jonathan in some hell or another and invited him to stay. I think he had made up a plan on the spur of the moment when he realised that Baybrook needed to escape his creditors and get out of London for a while before news of his debts reached Lord Harlington, his future father-in-law. I did wonder whether it was some deep-laid plot or whether Henry simply had a flash of inspiration, but it was probably the latter. He brought him home, made much of him, invited all his cronies round for card play, let him shoot our coverts. And did nothing when Jonathan began to flirt with me. I thought Jonathan was serious, that Henry’s unconcern meant approval. I was inexperienced, lonely—ripe for the plucking, I suppose.

‘I told myself I was in love, that he was an honourable man who intended marriage. I was not the first naive girl to fall for it and I will not be the last. When Jonathan had gone, his pockets lined with enough winnings from the local squirearchy to keep his tailors happy, I realised he had made me no promises, not even to write. And then I found I was expecting and Jane told Henry and he went off to London.’

‘To tell Baybrook he must marry you.’ Grant leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. The judge listening to the evidence, weighing it up...

‘That’s what he told me, but I realise now he knew perfectly well that Jonathan was in no position to do that. He was contracted to the daughter of a powerful and wealthy man and he could not afford to risk that alliance. Henry told me about it when he got home. He’ll pay, he promised. And like an idiot I asked if that meant there would be enough for me to have a little cottage somewhere, raise the child in modest respectability. He laughed and said that we did not need money for that, he would find a home for the baby easily enough. And then he explained it all, how he could extort money from Baybrook for years, how he needed to get me out of the way so Jonathan could not find me, how a foundlings’ home would take my baby.’

‘I think I would like to see your brother through the sights of a duelling pistol on the nearest common at dawn,’ Grant remarked. ‘What did you do then?’

‘I did as I was told and I went up to the lodge in Scotland.’ Now they were coming to it. The story so far had been one of her own foolish innocence in allowing Jonathan to seduce her. But what followed was not innocent. ‘I should have written to Jonathan, told him that I was not in league with Henry, promised him I would support a statement to a magistrate. But I didn’t. I allowed myself to be used. And then it was too late, I was on my way north and all I could think about was how to get away, how to keep my baby.’

‘You left it very late.’ Grant’s voice was dispassionate. She found she could not look at him, so she watched Charlie running along the road towards the inn, laughing and calling back to Mr Gough. My son. I could lose him, too.

‘I wasn’t well at first, and then I had no money. It took me a long time to get it together, stealing the odd shilling from the housekeeper’s purse over weeks so no one would notice and suspect. They were all paid by Henry. I had nothing to offer them to win their loyalty.’ Charlie had vanished, but she could hear his voice faintly from the hallway below, happy, laughing. She shrugged. ‘You know the rest.’

‘Why did you tell me that Anna’s father was dead?’

‘At first, just instinct to hide, to cover up. That was why I told you I came from Suffolk and didn’t tell you about Henry’s baronetcy. And then, later, you were so protective, so possessive. I was afraid you would confront Baybrook, call him out. If I told you about the blackmail, then that made you an accessory after the fact, didn’t it? So you would have no option but to expose Henry, and I know he deserves it, but it could have ruined Jonathan if his father-in-law found out and cut him off financially.’

‘You have a high opinion of my sense of honour and of how law-abiding I am,’ Grant said drily. ‘It did not occur to you to tell me this whole story and let me set it right?’