Not that she had seen him then, of course. Henry, as befitted the male head of the household, had taken himself off to London to, as he put it, deal with the matter. Only, he had not dealt with it, not brought her a husband back. At the time it had struck her as strange that her brother had not been more angry, but she had decided that perhaps he had been relieved that he had not found himself facing the viscount at dawn on Hampstead Heath. Then she had found the letter in Henry’s desk, the coldly furious response to blackmail, the counter-threats. But Lord Baybrook had not called Henry’s bluff. He would pay, she thought, reading the letter. Pay—and then she was certain that one day he would find some way to make Henry pay and Kate, too, the woman Jonathan thought had deliberately set out to ensnare him.
Anna gurgled and Kate stopped, her feet sinking into the soft mulch of the path. There was nothing to be gained by brooding on it, fretting over the long arm of a vengeful aristocrat or wincing in shame at her own part in her brother’s schemes. Most certainly, she was in no position to judge Grant’s first wife on moral grounds. Equally certainly, if she had the choice between Grant Rivers, Lord Allundale, and Jonathan Arnold, Lord Baybrook, she had no doubt which man she would choose now.
Chapter Eight
Grant sat up in the marble bath and considered the tricky, but eminently safe, subject of plumbing. His grandfather had installed baths with a cold-water supply and drains for the main bedchambers, but he had not risked the newfangled systems of boilers and piped hot water. Grant had agreed with him at the time, but lugging the cans of hot water upstairs and along endless corridors certainly made a great deal of work for the servants.
He lathered the long-handled brush and scrubbed his back while calculating the safe location for boilers and the length of pipework one would need. It was technical, complicated, and was entirely failing to stop him brooding on the subject of his wife. His second wife.
He had been deep in discussion with his secretary and the steward when he heard her voice in the hallway that afternoon. Six months ago Mr Rivers would have pushed aside the piles of paperwork and asked the men to wait while he went out to greet her. But the Earl of Allundale could not do anything as unfashionable and demonstrative as interrupting an important meeting in order to speak to his wife for no reason whatsoever. A few months in London society had reminded him forcefully of that.
Madeleine had always said he was far too casual, not sufficiently aware of his own consequence, or of hers. Now he was the earl he should behave like one, and, given the circumstances of their marriage, Kate was going to need all the consequence he could bring her, he was very conscious of that.
Now he put aside the brush and lay back to critically survey what he could see of his body as he stretched out under the water. Toes, kneecaps and a moderately hairy chest broke the surface. No stomach rising above the soap suds, thank goodness. The London Season was enough to put inches on anyone foolish enough to eat and drink all that was on offer during interminable dinner parties, suppers at balls, buffets at receptions. But with rigorous attendance at the boxing salons, sessions with the fencing master and long rides in th
e parks, at least the elegant new clothes he’d ordered when he’d first arrived still fitted him by the end.
Alex had laughed at him for having a fashionable crop, but he had hardly noticed the teasing—contemplating his old friend Alex Tempest married to the woman he had believed on first sight to be a nun was enough to distract any man.
Alex and Tess had seemed happy. Blissfully so and physically, too. Shockingly they hardly seemed able to keep their hands off each other—Lord and Lady Weybourn appeared to have no reservations about appearing unfashionably in love.
Grant reached out and pulled the plug out, then, when the bath emptied, he put it back and turned on the cold-water tap. He made himself lie still until it reached his shoulders. It had dawned on him when he reached London that he was a married man again. Which meant that he should be faithful to his wife. It was not something that had entered his head when he made that rash proposal, and sex had not been exactly at the forefront of his mind for at least a month before that, what with the anxiety about his grandfather and then so much travelling, culminating in his accident in Edinburgh.
Now he lay in the cold water and made himself calculate. This was May. It had been mid-November when he had ended that pleasant little dalliance with the Bulgarian attaché’s wife in Vienna. Nearly six months. Despite the chill of the bath, blood was definitely heading downwards with the realisation of such prolonged celibacy. Damnation. He could hardly sling a towel round his hips and stride off to his wife’s bedchamber to deal with the matter. That was not the way to approach one’s first night in the marriage bed. And what were Kate’s expectations of that marriage bed anyway?
Grant climbed from the bath and stood in front of the fire while he towelled himself dry. The logical way to discover her feelings and views on any subject was simply to ask her. On the other hand, he hardly knew the woman. Wife or not, he could not just sit down and have a frank and open discussion about sex. She would be shocked.
He had been away a devil of a long time and he had a guilty conscience about that, he realised as he towelled his back. He could expect to receive, at the very least, some wifely remonstrance on the subject before he was forgiven. Yet when they had met in front of the mausoleum Kate had simply not acknowledged that there had been anything wrong, so he could neither justify himself nor be forgiven. Maddening. The question was, did she realise how awkward that was and was she administering a particularly subtle punishment? Or did she care too little to be annoyed with him? Probably the latter.
The faint sound of splashing stopped him, the towel still stretched across his shoulder blades. Of course, when the suites had been changed around, the two new bathing rooms had been carved out of a small, little-used retiring room and the walls must be simply lath and plaster. He padded across and applied his ear to the panelling. Definite splashing and the sound of Kate’s voice.
Grant stepped back with a grimace. The next thing, he would be peering through the keyhole at his own wife. The sounds were certainly exercising his imagination in a thoroughly arousing way, as though his body needed any more encouragement. He gave his back one sharp slap with the towel and went out to the dressing room, where Griffin, his smart new London valet, was laying out his smart new London clothes. If nothing else, his wife would not be confronted by the travel-worn, battered, weary, grief-stricken man she had married. He gave a grunt of satisfaction as he lowered his chin the half-inch to perfect the set of the waterfall knot in his neckcloth, nodded his thanks to Griffin and headed for the drawing room and the start of his new marriage.
*
Kate paused at the head of the stairs for one last calming breath, twitched her black silk skirts into order and descended the staircase in a manner befitting a countess. She had waited nearly four and a half months for this evening and the unexpected encounter with Grant that morning had done nothing to make this any easier. The exhausted, kind, patient stranger she had married was now an alert, attractive, impatient, secretive stranger. Nothing had changed for him, it seemed, except for the fact that he’d had nearly four and a half months’ worth of town bronze, the status of an earl and an endless amount of time to regret marrying her. She had her looks back, her confidence as the mistress of a large country house and an inconvenient attack of physical attraction for the aforesaid stranger.
I want a proper marriage, not simply make-believe for the rest of our lives. But what does he want? She smiled at Giles as the footman opened the door for her and then checked on the threshold as Grant turned from the contemplation of a landscape painting she had placed over the hearth, a replacement for one of the old earl’s more bloodthirsty hunting scenes.
‘A definite improvement.’
For a moment she thought he meant her appearance, then he gestured to the painting. At least he is smiling. ‘I am glad you think so.’ Kate went to her usual armchair by the fireplace. The distance across the room had never felt so long, nor her limbs so clumsy. Grant moved as though he would intercept her, touch her, but she sat down before he could reach her side. With a feeling of relief that she recognised as sheer nerves she picked up her embroidery frame from the basket beside the chair. She wanted this man, but she had no idea how to cope with him.
‘Naturally, I would not remove any portraits, but I found that sitting here every evening under the glazed eyes of a slaughtered stag was somewhat dampening to the spirits,’ she said as she found the needle, then dropped her thimble.
Grant stooped to retrieve it and handed it to her. He moved back, but remained opposite her, one elbow on the end of the mantelpiece. In any other man she would have supposed the pose was intended to draw attention to his clothes or his figure, and it certainly did that, but Grant’s attention seemed to be all on her.
‘That is a charming gown. Have you been sending to London for the latest fashions?’
She had been pleased with it, although a trifle nervous of the low neckline, which the dressmaker assured her was high by London standards. ‘No, merely for the latest fashionable journals. I have discovered a most accomplished dressmaker in Newcastle and an excellent fabrics warehouse.’
‘In that case you might wish to accompany me into the city next week and choose something for half mourning. I imagine you are weary of unrelieved black and grey and the six months isn’t too far away. I hardly feel the need to apply the strictest rules, do you?’
‘We are mourning your grandfather, it is for you to decide, but I must confess that some colour would be welcome.’ It would be a delight, to be truthful, even if it was only shades of lavender and lilac. She placed a careful row of French knots. ‘Were your friends very surprised at the news of your marriage?’
Grant’s eyebrows rose at the abrupt change of subject and it seemed to Kate that in moving to take the chair opposite her he was taking the time to compose his reply with care. ‘My three closest friends know something of the truth.’ He shrugged. ‘I could hardly deceive them that our relationship was of long-standing, they know my movements too well. But I would trust them with my life and you may rely on their absolute discretion. As far as acquaintances in town are concerned, I confided in a few incorrigible gossips that Grandfather had not approved of the match, hence a secret Scottish wedding and no announcement. They were titillated enough by the disapproval not to question the date and one or two were obviously on the verge of remarking that it was convenient that his death precluded an uncomfortable confession to him following the birth of our child.’
‘How…distasteful.’