His Christmas Countess

‘Grant! Not in front of the children.’

‘Anna’s fast asleep and Charlie’s lost in composition. Oh, very well, I’ll behave, but that gown is devilishly provoking.’ When she escaped to the other end of the sofa he growled, but carried on with his story. ‘I made arrangements with Henry, sent off all the necessary letters, conveyed Lady Harding, bag and baggage, to Newport Pagnell and got back to town late yesterday afternoon. Then I tracked Baybrook down—’

‘You didn’t hit him or call him out or anything dreadful?’

‘No. I managed to convince him that I intended to give him money, not demand it, and we ended up having a very civilised dinner at his club. He’s not the scoundrel I thought him to be. Or perhaps I should say that he isn’t now. He seems to be genuinely fond of his little heiress and he doesn’t want to hurt her, at least as much as he doesn’t want her father finding out about his sins. He’s more than grateful about the return of the money and he accepts that it was not your doing.’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘What is it?’

‘Men are so strange. You were breathing fire and brimstone, you were ready to call him out just for insulting me in the park and now there you are dining with him.’

Grant shrugged. ‘He gave us Anna, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, so he did. And Madeleine gave us Charlie.’

He pulled her close again and they sat in silence, watching the children as the winter daylight ebbed into darkness and the candlelight glowed off holly berries and swags of evergreens and the fire burned bright in the grate.

Kate had thought of the same night one year before as she’d carried Anna up to her cot and Grant and Charlie went to change for the grown-up dinner they had promised the boy so that he could make the toast to his great-grandfather’s memory. A year ago she had been cold, desperate and in pain with no hope for the future, only a desperate will to make it through somehow.

I wonder if I can be any happier than this? she thought, watching Grant bend to kiss Anna goodnight. Perhaps, when I tell Grant the final secret I am keeping.

* * *

Christmas morning dawned bright and, to Charlie’s huge delight, snowy. ‘May we make a snowman?’ he asked at breakfast. ‘There’s all that snow in the back garden. Or...’ His eyes grew wide. ‘The park! We could build dozens of snowmen, an army of snowmen!’

‘This afternoon,’ Grant promised. ‘Presents first. Anna’s birthday, then the staff, then our Christmas presents.’

Anna was predictably more enchanted by the silver paper, the flicker of candlelight and the trailing scarlet ribbons than she was by her presents, but, as Kate pointed out to Grant, he was going to get far more fun out of her presents than she was.

‘I know. I want to spoil her, to make up for that first birthday, that first Christmas,’ he said, smiling at the dolls, the pretty dresses, the stuffed rabbit and the little horse on wheels.

‘You gave her that first Christmas,’ Kate whispered in his ear and then found she had to blow her nose very inelegantly.

They lit the yule log together, played with Anna, listened to the sounds of fiddle music, singing and laughter wafting up from below stairs. It seemed the staff were having a good time getting ready for their Christmas meal. Charlie, bursting with pride, led Kate and Grant, with Anna fast asleep in Grant’s arms, downstairs to deliver the family’s Christmas good wishes and thanks for all their hard work during the year.

‘He is growing up so fast,’ Kate whispered as Cook gathered Charlie to her capacious bosom and gave him a hug that turned his ears scarlet. Then they trooped back upstairs, collecting Mr Gough as they went, and shared out Christmas presents.

My family, Kate thought as she watched them, the love filling her heart as softly as the snowflakes swirling down outside the window. Charlie was thrilled with a new saddle and a pair of ice skates. Grant peacocked around the room in the heavy silk robe Kate had found for him and winked at her to show he knew exactly how she imagined him wearing it, with nothing underneath. The tutor was delighted with a subscription to a circulating library and Charlie presented his parents with two pairs of handsome, and only slightly lopsided, bookends that, he confided, he had made with the assistance of the estate carpenter.

Kate was trying not to crane her neck and see if there was anything left in the litter of paper for her when Grant announced, ‘We are going out for a walk.’

‘We are?’ Kate almost protested that it was too cold, too snowy, and that she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Anna on her first birthday. But there was something about Grant’s expression that was both serious and yet happy. He had a surprise for her and she was not going to spoil it for him.