His Christmas Countess

I must confess, tell him about Jonathan and Henry now. I can’t deceive him any longer. It will hurt him that I have left it so long, but to leave it even longer can only make things worse.

He lifted one hand and began to pull the pins from her hair, drawing his fingers through it until it fell free on her shoulders. ‘I am going to carry you off to bed and show you just how happy you make me, but before I do, I must tell you how proud I was of you tonight. I know you were nervous and unsure, but you did your best in spite of that and your best was magnificent.’

There was so much warmth and pride in his voice. If she did not know better, she might have added love. She didn’t deserve any of those feelings, and if she told him the truth about Anna, the truth about her brother, then that pride would vanish, he would despise her.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘It was far less daunting than I feared.’ It had been—once she had assured herself that there was no sign of Viscount Baybrook, or of Sir Henry Harding, blackmailing baronet, either. Surely if Jonathan was in London he would have been invited to such a magnificent event as the Larminsters’ reception? It was less likely that Henry would be there, but he might be in town if he had been both emboldened and enriched by extorting money from Jonathan, and it would be just like him to extract an invitation somehow.

Grant was working his way into the elaborate fastenings and folds of her gown and she arched her back to help him. I will tell him tomorrow, she resolved. I cannot shatter this moment. I cannot, it is too precious.

Grant used no erotic tricks, no titillating little games, only the magic of his mouth and his hands and his long, hard body, and Kate realised that she had learned to give with as much passion as she received. When he eased into her, slowly, achingly slowly, she realised that it was the exchange about their feelings that had given them this extra awareness of each other, of what they could be together.

There was no hurry, no rush to climax. Grant would stop moving and simply lie there, his heart beating over hers, his gaze locked with hers, his body filling and completing her. Then he would dip his head to take her lips and move again until Kate was lost in a spell of sensual, swirling pleasure. They were close, so close.

I love you, she thought and it was as though it was enough to tip them over into bliss, into a place where they were no longer two people, but one whole being, just as she had dreamed.

* * *

They made love again in the morning when they woke, a passionate tussle of urgency and need that left them panting and laughing. Grant ducked a flying pillow and pounced on Kate, tickling mercilessly, then subsided, pulling her against his side.

‘I needed to laugh with you, Kate.’

Yes, I needed to laugh, too. I’ll talk to him after breakfast, she thought as they subsided, breathless. ‘Grant—’

‘Hell, is that the time?’ He rolled off the bed and made for the door to his room. ‘I’m due at a meeting at the Lords at ten. Ungodly hour, I know, but I promised Pilkington. I think I will be supporting his group over several important pieces of legislation and we must discuss tactics.’ He turned back, looked at her, shook his head. ‘Incredible, I don’t deserve to be so happy.’ Then he was gone.

Kate was left staring at the door. It gave her no comfort, nor any inspiration. Finally she tugged the bell pull for Wilson. She couldn’t sit in bed all day, her mind a blank. Perhaps a complete confession was not the answer. What if telling Grant about the blackmail made him an accessory unless he reported it to the magistrates immediately? He was loyal and she could imagine he would struggle with his conscience before incriminating her in such a shameful scandal, but he was also honourable. He could not connive at extortion, so he would have to take action.

Perhaps she could establish Lord Baybrook’s situation first. If he was safely married, that was one thing—he would probably go to great lengths to avoid her. But if he were not, he would probably still be smarting from Henry’s demands, leaving aside the question of whether he would think her a loose woman on whom he could take revenge of a non-legal kind.

Once she knew the facts, then she could truthfully tell Grant that she had fallen foolishly for Jonathan Arnold, Lord Baybrook, but that, when Henry had approached him to tell him he must do the decent thing and marry her, Baybrook had revealed that he was already betrothed.

But then could she admit to Grant that Henry had known all along about Baybrook’s impending betrothal, had set up a trap from the start? That he had demanded money, not as a settlement on the child, but as hush money so that its existence was never revealed to Baybrook’s future father-in-law, the famously puritanical, and staggeringly wealthy, Lord Harlington?