His Christmas Countess

‘Grant.’ There was anxiety on Kate’s face, as well as relief in her voice. She half rose from the chair, then sat down again, and he realised that, thankfully, she was not going to make a fuss over him.

Neither Cris nor Gabe stood. They knew too well that getting up, slapping him on the back or shaking his hand just now would make his head feel as though it had fallen off. Cris waved a greeting with a stylish turn of his wrist, Gabe merely smiled his pirate’s smile. Charlie opened his mouth and was promptly scooped up by Alex, who wagged a finger at him until he subsided.

‘My apologies for not receiving you. One of those confounded migraines.’ They had left his usual chair for him, so he sat down and tried to focus.

‘Charlie, take your father his tea, please.’ Kate handed the boy a cup and turned back to her interrupted conversation with Gabe, which, to Grant’s amazement, appeared to be about vingt-et-un and the calculation of odds. Perhaps he was hearing things.

Ten minutes later Mr Gough came down to remove a reluctant Charlie and give the adults some peace. Then his guests decided that they should retire and wash off the dust of the road. They left, waving him back into his chair when he would have risen. ‘We’re family, remember,’ Alex said airily. ‘We’ll find our way, Kate, never fear.’

It left him, head still pounding, sitting opposite his wife. She looked decidedly pale now the animation of talking had left her. ‘Kate.’ He realised he had no idea how he felt about her.

‘Please don’t. You could not reproach me half as much as I am reproaching myself. We were building trust between us, weren’t we? And I destroyed it.’ Bravely, she kept her gaze on his face and he remembered that it was her courage that had first impressed him.

‘No, we were not.’ It came out more harshly than he had intended, a snarl at himself as much as at her. Kate bit her lip and Grant closed his mouth before he said anything else unconsidered.

‘I am not going to apologise any more.’ She levelled a steady look at him across the teacups. Grant looked down and saw her hands were shaking. When Kate saw the direction of his gaze she curled them loosely in her lap as though willing them to stillness. ‘I have said I am sorry, and I am, but my motives were good. Mostly. I cannot acquit myself of some curiosity.’

She admitted inquisitiveness and he knew she wanted to remodel that part of the house, but neither of those could be described as a good motive. Grant almost said as much, and then he saw the anxiety in her eyes, stopped thinking about his own feelings and saw hers. Because if the positions were reversed, I’d have done the same thing. Of course he would.

If Kate had been hiding some secret that gave her nightmares, made her short-tempered and laid her low with migraines, he would have done anything that he could to discover what it was and try to set it right, whether she said she wanted him to or not. She was too important to him now—he would not have shrugged and ignored her pain, left her to carry the burden alone. Which meant that he was important to her. He knew himself well enough to recognise that when he was angry it took nerve to stand up to him. Kate had risked his anger and so he must forgive what she had done.

Forgive. And that meant telling her the truth, because otherwise she was going to fret herself to flinders over him. Hell. The thought made him nauseous all over again, his shoulder seemed to flare with remembered pain. What would she think of him? That he was as good as a murderer? It was, after all, what he thought of himself often enough as he lay awake long into the night, because that was better than sleeping and the dreams that came with sleep.

With another woman he would never have the confidence in her discretion and her understanding, but he could trust Kate, he realised.

‘Yes, I can see that your motives were good.’

Kate’s expression changed subtly. Relief, possibly. Anxiety about what he would reveal? Or regret that she had pushed things this far? He had always known her to be self-contained, now he could not read her thoughts, interpret her emotions, and he knew he should be able to. This was his wife, he should be able to understand her because that was what happened in real marriages and he wanted this one to be real.

Grant forced his reluctant tongue to form the words. ‘I would not let you in to my secrets. Where’s the trust in that? And you were not idly curious, I know that. You wanted to help, despite my best efforts to keep you out.’

‘Most husbands would maintain that a wife must obey them,’ Kate ventured. He thought of someone edging out on to thin ice, testing each step, listening for the ominous cracking. He had failed her by not trusting her before. Now she was wary of how far this tolerance went.