His Christmas Countess

‘So do I. An early ride gives me the opportunity for some uninterrupted thinking, so I made some notes.’ Grant picked up the sheet of paper from the blotter in front of him, frowned at it, then abruptly screwed it up and tossed it into the hearth. ‘And I thought I had worked it all out, a plan for this marriage.’

‘A plan? Why do we need a plan?’

‘I did not think we did. I thought I would come back here for the summer, join my wife and family, spend a pleasant few months getting to grips with the estate and then take us all back to London after Christmas when Parliament reconvenes. Then you could enjoy the Season.’

‘And that is no longer your intention?’ Please, not London.

‘Certainly it is. And I thought that it would be easy enough to find a way to live together, to coexist and form a household, despite the way our marriage started.’

Her mouth felt dry. Kate willed herself to say calmly, ‘So what has changed?’ What had gone wrong that he had brooded about on his morning ride?

‘Last night—’ He broke off, looked out of the window and then back at her as though making the effort to meet her gaze. ‘I was not going to say anything. I thought we could coexist, work together and simply put the past behind us. But in the light of day, I wonder if that is the best way forward for us.’ He picked up a quill without looking at it and Kate watched as it bent in his grip. When it snapped Grant glanced down as though he was unaware he had been holding it.

‘I see.’ She could hear that her voice was colourless, but for the life of her she did not know how to inject any warmth into it. ‘You must find me inexperienced, lacking in...sophistication.’

‘In bed? Oh, hell.’ Grant got to his feet, came round the desk and sat on the edge of it, close to her. ‘No, that is not what I mean. Last night was very pleasurable for me, Kate. Very. But I heard what you whispered afterwards. You are still in love with him, aren’t you? You are doing your duty as my wife, but you still love Anna’s father.’ He said duty as though it was a dirty word.

‘I... No, I don’t.’ She realised how important it was to make Grant understand that. He did not love her, he was not asking or expecting her to love him, but he must loathe the thought that he had taken to his bed a woman who was gritting her teeth and doing her duty—even if she discovered she enjoyed it.

If Jonathan had been a groom from the stables, a local farmer, a merchant from King’s Lynn—any of those—she could tell the truth, admit he was alive and had refused to marry her. But how could she confess that her lover had been an aristocrat who was in all probability known to Grant? The awful thought struck her that they might be friends. What if Jonathan had confided in him? I’m being blackmailed by some dirty little worm and his two-faced bitch of a sister.

She had to keep lying even though she hated it. ‘I had thought I must still love him, but I am not in love and perhaps I never was.’ She stared up at Grant, trying to find the right words, create a safe fiction that would protect her—and him—from the humiliation of the discovery that he had married not just another man’s cast-off lover, that he had given his name, not to some fatherless baby, but a child with a parent who could very well support it. A man who would probably want to see her and her brother tried for blackmail.

Kate tried to find a story that would satisfy him. ‘Jonathan was going to America, and then he would send for me. But when no letter came, when I realised he must be dead, lost at sea, then I was frantic with worry. But not with grief. I was sad, but I wasn’t devastated. And I would have been, wouldn’t I, if I loved him?’

It was partly true. When Henry told her that Lord Baybrook had refused to marry her she had been frightened, but she had been more fearful that Henry would challenge him to a duel rather than shattered by his betrayal. If she had loved him, truly loved him, his refusal to protect her should have broken her heart. And when she had found out Henry’s infamy, if she had loved Jonathan she would have gone to him, done everything in her power to put things right. As it was, to her shame, she had done nothing until she realised that Henry was a threat to her unborn child.

‘I see.’ Grant lifted a hand as though to touch her, then let it fall back to rest on his thigh. The broad hand gripped the buckskin-covered muscle and the movement sparked a dull gleam from the signet on his finger.

She could not raise her gaze from his hand. ‘You are shocked.’ Of course he was, what did she expect? ‘It was scandalous enough that I slept with him, but if I did not even have the excuse of loving him... And now, to find such pleasure with a man I hardly know? You must think I am a wanton.’