His Christmas Countess

‘I’ll come out with you,’ Alex offered as she stood up with a murmur of apology. ‘You can’t be expected to greet those two by yourself.’

‘They are quite safe really.’ Tess walked beside her to the front door. ‘At least, mostly safe. Gabriel is unsettling and Cris is terrifying, but just pretend you don’t notice.’ She waved enthusiastically as the two coaches, both driving at breakneck speed, came to a crashing halt.

Pretend I don’t notice? How? Kate waited with butterflies somersaulting below her diaphragm as a footman opened one door and the other was thrown wide. The man who climbed languidly down with a nod to the footman was, Kate realised, probably the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was also glacially blond, blue-eyed and dangerously composed. Why dangerous?

‘That’s Crispin de Feaux?’ she whispered to Tess.

‘Indeed it is,’ the other woman whispered back. ‘I always think of archangels and flaming swords.’

He strode up the steps and bowed over the hand that Kate, expecting to shake hands, had extended. ‘Lady Allundale, I am delighted to meet you at last.’

‘Kate, allow me to introduce the Marquess of Avenmore,’ Alex drawled. ‘Cris, Lady Allundale. Grant’s flat on his back with a migraine.’

‘The prospect of losing to me at cards again, I assume.’ The dark, loose-limbed man one step below the marquess needed a shave, a haircut, and had obviously chosen his expensive clothing for comfort. He smiled at Kate, a wolfish baring of his teeth that had her stiffening her spine before she offered her hand.

‘Edenbridge, at your service.’ He took her hand and neither kissed nor shook it. ‘Clever, clever, Grant,’ he remarked, closing his long fingers possessively around hers.

Oh, yes, this is definitely the unsettling one. ‘Do come in.’ Kate tried to look sophisticated, as though dark-eyed men with feral smiles murmured ambiguous compliments to her every day. He released her hand and she even managed not to snatch it back and hide it behind her back. ‘There are refreshments in the drawing room, unless either of you would like to be shown to your rooms first?’

They all voted for refreshments, trooping after her into the drawing room, as much at home as she was. More so, she thought, nerves jangling as she worried about Grant, fretted about her marriage, restrained Charlie from causing havoc and somehow made conversation. She was certain it was thoroughly banal and that four people who obviously knew each other well would much prefer to be talking amongst themselves rather than answering her polite enquiries about their journeys.

And upstairs her husband, whom she had tried to deceive, was lying blinded by pain and she could do nothing to help him.

‘Do have another ginger biscuit, Lord Avenmore. Such fortunate weather for your journey, was it not?’

* * *

Grant lay with hard-learned patience and watched the plaster details of the ceiling over his bed gradually come into focus. His head still felt as though it was gripped in a vice and pain stabbed behind his eyes, but the worst was over. The attacks were always short and savage and it took a while before bright light and loud noises were tolerable.

Normally he would sleep for several hours until the sickness and nausea were gone, but somewhere downstairs Kate was greeting his three best friends and he understood her well enough now to guess that she was doing so with poise and grace despite the ordeal. Because it would be an ordeal, meeting people who knew him better than anyone and far better than she did.

And then there was her unfamiliarity with high society. Cris, simply by standing around, had been known to make dukes run a nervous finger around their neckcloths. Gabe was enough to make any relatively unsophisticated lady flustered and Alex and Tess were so head over heels in love that they could only serve to point up the deficiencies in his own marriage.

And Alex had seen at once that something was wrong. Grant shifted cautiously and, ignoring the way it made the room move about, sat up. He had to get down to Kate. The acid anger still churned in his stomach as he forced himself to his feet and he stopped his unsteady progress across the room to his boots to analyse it.

His wife had disobeyed him, deceived him, so why did he feel guilty about being angry with her? He stared into the mirror at his narrow-pupilled eyes and rigid mouth. The sight made him feel considerably worse. He needed to think, but it was hard enough staying on his feet. Yet instinct told him to move. He reached for his boots, winced as he bent his head and made the effort to pull them on. Grant got to his feet and made his way downstairs, steeling himself against the tide of talk and laughter, punctuated by Charlie’s whoops, that rose to meet him.