LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast & spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. www.louiseallenregency.co.uk, @LouiseRegency http://janeaustenslondon.com

Linda Sole started writing in 1976 and, writing as ANNE HERRIES, won the 2004 RNA Romance Award and the Betty Neels Trophy. Linda loves to write about the beauty of nature, though they are mostly about love and romance. She writes for her own enjoyment and loves to give pleasure to her readers. In her spare time, she enjoys watching the wildlife that visits her garden. Anne has now written more than fifty books for Mills & Boon. You can visit her website at: www.lindasole.co.uk

Regency Christmas Courtship

His Christmas Countess

Louise Allen

The Mistress of Hanover Square

Anne Herries

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09883-0

REGENCY CHRISTMAS COURTSHIP

His Christmas Countess © 2015 Melanie Hilton The Mistress of Hanover Square © 2009 Anne Herries

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Note to Readers

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

 Change of font size and line height

 Change of background and font colours

 Change of font

 Change justification

 Text to speech

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

His Christmas Countess

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Mistress of Hanover Square

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Publisher

His Christmas Countess

Louise Allen

Chapter One

December 24, 1819—the Scottish Borders

Becoming pregnant had been so easy, so catastrophically simple. An unaccustomed glass of champagne, a little unfamiliar flattery, a night made for romance, a careless, innocent tumble from virtue to ruin.

Somehow that ease increased the shock of discovering just how hard giving birth to the baby was. It is because I’m alone, I’m cold, I’m frightened, Kate told herself. In a moment, when these pains stop, I will feel stronger, I’ll get up and light the fire. If I can get there, if there is any dry kindling, if I can strike a spark.

‘Stop it.’ She spoke aloud, her voice echoing in the chill space of the half-ruined bothy. ‘I will do it because I have to, because I must, for the baby.’ It was her fault her child would be born in a tumbledown cottage on a winter’s day, her miscalculation in leaving it so late to run away, her lack of attention that had allowed the pickpocket to slip her purse from her reticule in the inn yard, leaving her penniless. She should have gone to the workhouse rather than think she could walk on, hoping for some miracle and safe shelter at the end of the rough, muddy road.

Her mind seemed to have turned to mush these past few days. Only one message had been clear: get away before Henry can take my baby from me. And she would do anything, anything at all, for this child, to keep him or her safe from her brother’s clutches. Now was the time to move, while there was still some light left in the lowering sky. She tried to stand up from the heap of musty straw, but found she could not. ‘Pull yourself together, Catherine Harding. Women give birth every day and in far worse conditions than this.’ Beyond caring that she was reduced to a lumbering, clumsy creature, she managed to get on to her hands and knees and began to crawl towards the hearth and the broken remains of the fire grate.

The weakness caught her before she could move more than a few feet. It must be because she had eaten so little in the past day and night. Shaking, she dug her fingers into the dirt floor and hung on. She would gather a little strength in a moment, then she could crawl nearer to the cold hearth. Surely giving birth could not take much longer? Learning some basic facts of life would be far more useful to young women than the art of watercolours and playing the harp. Learning the wiles of hardened rakes and the consequences of a moonlit dalliance would be even more valuable. Most of all, learning that one could not trust anyone, not even your closest kin, was a lesson Kate had learned too late.

If the mother she could not remember had survived Henry’s birth… No. She caught herself up before the wishful thinking could weaken her, before the haunting fear of what her own fate might be overwhelmed her. She was still in the middle of the floor. How much time had passed since she had thought to light the fire? Hours? Only minutes, from the unchanging light. Kate inched closer to the hearth.

Something struck a stone outside, then the sound of footsteps muffled by the wet turf, the snort of a horse and a man’s voice.

‘This will have to do. You’re lame, I’m lost, it is going to snow and this is the first roof I’ve seen for the past ten miles.’ English, educated. Not an old man, not a youth. Hide.

She backed towards the heap of straw, animal instinct urging her to ungainly speed. A plank table had collapsed, two legs eaten through by rats or damp, and she burrowed behind it, her breath sobbing out of her lungs. Kate stuffed her clenched fist into her mouth and bit down.

‘At least water’s the one thing we’re not short of.’ Grant Rivers dug a broken-handled bucket from the rubbish heap outside the tumbledown cottage and scooped it into the small burn that rushed and chattered at the side of the track. His new horse, bought in Edinburgh, twitched an ear, apparently unused to forming part of a one-sided conversation.

Grant carried the bucket inside the part of the building that had once been a byre. The place was technically a but and ben, he supposed, one half for the beasts, one half for the family, the steaming animals helping them keep warm through the long Border winters. There was enough of the heather thatch to provide some shelter for the horse and the dwelling section had only a few holes in the roof, although the window and door had long gone. At least the solid wall turned its back on the prevailing wind. He could keep warm, rest up. He was enough of a doctor to know he should not ignore the headache and the occasional dizziness, the legacy of that near-fatal accident a week ago.

He lifted off the saddle, took off the bridle, used the reins as a tether and tipped the bag of oats from his saddlebag on to a dry patch of ground. ‘Don’t eat it all at once,’ he advised the chestnut gelding. ‘It’s all you are getting until we reach civilisation and I’ve half a mind to steal it to make myself porridge.’

There was sufficient light to see by to clean out the big hooves and find the angular stone that had wedged itself into the off-hind. It looked sore. He gave an apologetic rub to the soft muzzle that nudged at him. His fault for pressing on so hard even though he suspected he would be too late for his grandfather. At least he had been able to send a letter saying the things in his heart to the man who had brought him up, letting the old man know that only dire necessity kept him from his side at the end.

He must also get back to Abbeywell for Charlie’s sake. It was the last place he wanted to be, but the boy needed his father. And Grant needed his son, for that matter. Christmas was always going to be grim this year with his grandfather’s health failing, but he had not expected it to be this bad—him bedridden in Edinburgh with his head cracked open and Charlie left with his dying great-grandfather. Grant had planned to leave the city on the seventeenth, but that was the day a labourer, careless with a scaffolding plank in the New Town, had almost killed him. As soon as he had regained consciousness and realised he was incapable of walking across the room, let alone travelling, Grant had written the letter. The reply had arrived from the steward two days ago. His grandfather was not expected to last the night.

Grant had hoped to be with his son for Christmas Day. Now he might make it by that evening if the gelding was sound and the weather held. ‘We’ll rest up, let the bruising ease, stay the night if I can get a fire going.’ Talking to a horse might be a sign of concussion, but at least it made something to listen to beyond the wind whistling up this treeless Borders valley. Unless the direction of that wind changed, the makeshift stable was fairly sheltered and the horse was used to Scottish weather.

And for him the familiar cold of a Northumberland winter was no different from this. There was enough rubbish lying about the place to burn. He’d make a fire, pass the night with the food in his saddlebags and allow himself a dram from his brandy flask, or the illicit whisky James Whittaker had handed him as they’d parted yesterday in Edinburgh’s New Town.

Something in the air… Grant straightened, arms full of dry scraps of wood, nostrils flaring to catch that faint rumour of scent. Blood? Blood and fear. He knew the smell of both from those weeks in the summer of ’15. The killing days when he and his friends had volunteered to join the fight to see Napoleon finally defeated. The memory of them had saved his neck in more than a few dark alleyways before now.

A low moan made the horse shift uneasily. The wind or an animal? No, there had been something human in that faint wisp of sound. He did not believe in ghosts and that left someone hurt or in distress. Or a trap. The cottage would make a handy refuge for footpads. ‘Eat your oats,’ he said as he eased the knife from his left boot and tossed the armful of wood away.

He moved fast as the wood clattered into the far corner, then eased around the splintered jamb of the inner door to scan the single living room. It was shadowed and empty—a glance showed a broken chair, a scattered pile of mouldy straw, an overturned table, cobwebs and shadows. There was that soft, desperate sound again and the scent of fear was stronger here. Caution discarded, he took three strides across the earth floor and pulled away the table, the only hiding place.

It did not take several years of medical training to tell him that he was looking at a woman in labour and a desperate one at that. Of all the medical emergencies he might have confronted, this was the one from his nightmares. Literally. Her gaze flickered from his face to the knife in his hand as she scrabbled back into the straw.

‘Go away.’ Her voice was thready, defiant, and there was blood around her mouth and on the back of the hand resting protectively on the mound of her belly. She had bitten her fist in an attempt to muffle her cries. His stomach lurched at the sight. ‘One step more and I’ll—’

‘Deposit a baby on my boots?’ He slid the knife back into its sheath, made himself smile and saw her relax infinitesimally at his light tone. When he tossed his low-crowned hat on to the chair, exposing the rakish bandage across his forehead, she tensed again.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Her voice was English, educated, out of place in this hovel. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again the effort to stay focused and alert was palpable. ‘This baby is never coming out.’

‘First one?’ Grant knelt beside her. ‘I’m a doctor, it is going to be all right, trust me.’ There’s two lies to begin with—how many more will I need? I’m not qualified, I’ve never delivered a baby and I have no idea whether anything is going to be all right. He had, however, delivered any number of foals. Between theoretical knowledge, practical experience of female anatomy and years of managing a breeding stables, he would be better than nothing. But this child had better hurry up and get born, because he was trapped here until it was.

He was big, he was male, he seemed to fill the space and the bandage made him look like a brigand, despite the well-made clothes. But his quiet confidence and deep, calm voice seeped through Kate’s cramped body like a dose of laudanum. A doctor. The answer to her incoherent prayers. There were miracles after all.

‘Yes, this is my first child.’ And my last. No amount of pleasure is worth this.

‘Then let’s get this place warm.’ He shrugged out of his greatcoat and laid it over her. It smelt of horse, leather and man, all strangely soothing. ‘We’ll make you more comfortable when the fire’s lit.’

‘Dr…?’

‘Grantham Rivers, at your service. Call me Grant.’ He poked at the grate, went into the stable and came back with wood. His voice was pleasant, his expression, what she could see of it, unruffled, but she could sense he was not happy about this situation. For all the easy movement, the calm voice, he was on edge.

‘Grantham?’ Incredible the effect of a little warmth and a lot of reassurance, even if she was all too aware that her rescuer wished he was somewhere else entirely.

‘I was conceived there, apparently, in the course of a passionate wedding night at the Bull Inn.’ He was striking a flint on a steel cupped in his palm and surrounded by some sort of tinder. It flared up and he eased it into the wood, nursing the flame with steady, competent hands. ‘It could have been worse. It might have been Biggleswade.’

She had never imagined laughing again, ever, at anything. Her snort of amusement turned into a moan as the contraction hit her.

‘Breathe,’ he said, still tending the fire. ‘Breathe and relax.’

‘Relax? Are you mad?’ Kate lay back, panting. Breathing was hard enough.

‘No, just male and therefore designed to be unsatisfactory at times like this.’ His mouth curved into a smile that she could have sworn was bitter, but it had gone too fast to be certain. ‘What is your name?’

Caution resurfaced. She was at his mercy now. If he were not the good man he appeared to be, then there was nothing she could do about it. Her instincts, sharpened by the desperate need to protect her baby, told her to gamble and trust him. But with her life, not with her secrets. Should she lie about her name? But that would serve no purpose. ‘Catherine Harding. Miss,’ she added as an afterthought. Might as well be clear about that. ‘My friends call me Kate.’

Dr Rivers began to break the legs off the table and heap the pieces by the fire. Either it was very rotten or he was very strong. She studied the broad shoulders flexing as he worked and decided it was the latter.

‘Where’s the baby’s father?’ He did not seem too shocked by her situation, but doctors must be used to maintaining a neutral front, whatever their patients’ embarrassing predicaments.

‘Dead.’ That was a lie and it came without the need for thought. Then, hard on the heels of the single word, the wariness resurfaced. This man seemed kind and promised to help her, but he could still betray her if he knew who she was. And, almost certainly, if he knew what she had been part of. He was a gentleman from his voice, his clothes, his manner. And gentlemen not only helped ladies in distress—or she hoped they did—but they also stuck together, protected each other against criminal conspiracies.

‘I’m sorry about that.’ Grant Rivers laid the tabletop on the earth floor, heaping up the drier straw on it. He was asking her something. She jerked her mind back to dealing with the present. ‘Have you any linen with you? Shifts, petticoats?’

‘In my portmanteau. There isn’t much.’ It had been all she could carry.

He dug into it, efficiently sorting through. A nightgown went on one side, then he began to spread linen over the straw, rolling her two gowns into a pillow.

‘Dr—’

‘Grant.’

‘You are very efficient.’ A contraction passed, easier than before. He was making her relax, just as he had said.

‘I had a short spell in the army. Even with a batman, one learns to shift for oneself. Now, then.’ He eyed her and she felt herself tense again. ‘Let’s get you into something more comfortable and on to this luxurious bed.’ It was getting darker and she could not read his expression. ‘Kate, I’m sorry I’m a man, I’m sorry I’m a complete stranger, but we have got to get you into a nightgown and I have got to examine you.’ He was brisk, verging on the impatient. ‘You’re a patient and just now you can’t afford to be shy or modest.’

Think of the baby, she told herself. Think of Grant Rivers as a guardian angel. A Christmas angel, sexless, dispassionate. I have no choice but to trust him. ‘Very well.’

He undressed her like a man who knew his way around the fastenings of women’s clothing. Not sexless, then. She was out of her stained, crumpled gown and underclothing before she had time to be embarrassed. He’d placed the nightgown so it had caught a little warmth from the fire and soon she was into that and on to the bed, sighing with relief at the simple comfort of it, before she had the chance to realise her nightgown was up around her waist.

‘There, we just place this so.’ Grant swung the greatcoat over her. ‘Now a light, something hot to drink. Lie back, concentrate on getting warm.’

Kate watched from between slitted eyes as he built up the fire, brought in a bucket of water and set it by the hearth. He lit a small lantern, then dipped water into a mug, adding something from a flask balanced on a brick by the flames, and washed his hands in the bucket. His actions were rapid, yet smooth. Efficient was probably the word. A man who wanted to get things done and who wouldn’t waste time. A man who was forced to wait on this baby’s schedule. Both his efficiency and, strangely, his impatience were reassuring. She was seeing the essence of this man.

‘Where did the lantern come from?’

‘I carry one in my saddlebags. I’ll just find something else for water. We’ll need a fair bit before we’re done. Luckily the last occupants were fairly untidy and there’s a promising rubbish heap outside.’

He ought to seem less than masculine, coping so handily with domestic tasks, but he merely appeared practical. Kate studied the broad shoulders and narrow hips, the easy movement, the tight buckskin breeches. She never expected to feel the slightest flutter of sensual need for a man again as long as she lived, but if she did, purely theoretically, of course, Grant Rivers was more than equipped to provoke it. He was definitely very— ‘Ooh!’

‘Hang on, I’ll be with you in a minute.’ He came back in carrying an assortment of pots, water sloshing out on to the floor. He held out his hands to the fire. ‘My fingers are cold again.’

What has that got to do with…? Kate sucked in an outraged breath as, lantern in hand, he knelt at her feet and dived under the greatcoat tented over her knees.

‘It is remarkable how one can adapt to circumstances,’ she managed after five somewhat stressful minutes. Incredibly she sounded quite rational and not, as she felt, mildly hysterical.

Grant emerged, tousled but composed, and sat back on his heels, shaking thick, dark brown hair back out of his eyes. He smiled, transforming a face she had thought pattern-book handsome into something approaching charming. ‘Childbirth tends to result in some unavoidable intimacies,’ he said. ‘But everything seems to be proceeding as it should.’ The smile vanished as he took a pocket watch from his waistcoat and studied it.

‘How much longer?’ She tried not to make it sound like a demand, but feared it had.

‘Hours, I should think. First babies tend to be slow.’ He was at the fire, washing his hands in yet another container of water, then pouring something from a flask into a battered kettle with no handle.

‘Hours?’

‘Drink this.’ He offered the brew in a horn beaker, another of the seemingly inexhaustible contents of his saddlebags. ‘I’ll get some food in a minute. When did you last eat?’

That needed some thought. ‘Yesterday. I had breakfast at an inn.’

Grant made no reply, but when he brought her bread and cheese made into a rough sandwich, she noticed he ate nothing. ‘What are you going to eat? This is all the food you have with you, isn’t it?’

He shrugged and took a mouthful of the liquid in the horn beaker. ‘You need the energy. I can live on my fat.’

He rested his head against the rough stone wall behind him and closed his eyes. What fat? With a less straightforward man she might have suspected he was fishing for compliments, but it did not seem to be Grant Rivers’s style.

What was he doing as a doctor? She puzzled over him, beginning to slip into a doze now the food was warm in her stomach. He was educated, he had been in the army. There was no wedding ring on his finger—not that there was anything to be deduced from that—and there was an engraved signet on his left hand. His clothes were good. And yet he was riding over the Marches without a servant and prepared for a night of rough living.

A piece of wood slipped into the fire with a crackle, jerking her fully awake again. ‘How did you hurt your head?’ Was he fleeing from something?

‘A stupid accident in Edinburgh. I’d been staying with a friend in the New Town and the place is covered in building sites. Some fool of a labourer dropped a plank on me. I was out cold for a couple of days and in no state to move much after that, but there’s nothing broken.’

He closed his eyes and she did the same. She let herself drift off, reassured. She was safe while he was there.

Chapter Two

The night passed with intervals of sleep interrupted by increasing waves of contractions. At some point Kate was conscious of simply abandoning herself to Grant Rivers, to the competent hands, the confident, reassuring voice, the strength of the man. There was no choice now, but her instincts told her this was a good man, and if she was mistaken, there was nothing she could do about it. As time passed, on leaden feet, her trust grew.

She held on to his fingers, squeezing until she felt his bones shift under her grip, but he never complained. He was going to deliver her baby, he was going to save her so she could hold her child in her arms. He was her miracle. She was tired beyond anything she had ever experienced, this was more difficult than she could have imagined and she seemed to have been in this place for years. But it would be all right. Grant Rivers would make it all right.

It was taking too long. Kate was exhausted, the light was dreadful and he had no instruments. He knew full well that if there were complications, he did not have the knowledge to deal with them.

As dawn light filtered through the cobwebbed windows, Grant took a gulp of the neat whisky, scrubbed his hands over his face and faced down the fear. She was not going to die, nor was the baby. This time, at this crisis, he could save both mother and child. There was no decision to be made about it, no choice. He had only to hold his nerve, use his brain, and he would cheat death. This time. He stretched, went out to check on the horse, then saw the tree growing at the back of the bothy and smiled.

‘Talk to me, Kate. Where do you come from, why are you here, alone on Christmas morning?’

‘Not alone.’ She opened her eyes. ‘You’re here, too. Is it really Christmas?’

‘Yes. The season’s greetings to you.’ He showed her the little bunch of berried holly he had plucked from the stunted tree and was rewarded with a smile. Hell, but she looks dreadful. Her face was white and lined with strain, her hair was lank and tangled, her eyes bloodshot. She was too thin and had been for some time, he suspected, but she was a fighter.

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Talk to me,’ he repeated. ‘Where are you from? I live just over the Border in Northumberland.’

‘I’m from—’ She grimaced and clutched at his bruised hand. ‘Suffolk. My brother is a…a country squire. My mother died when he was born, my father was killed in a hunting accident a few years ago. He was a real countryman and didn’t care for London. Henry’s different, but he’s not important or rich or well connected, although he wishes he was. He wanted me to marry well.’

A gentlewoman, then, as he had thought. ‘You’re of age.’ Grant wiped her face with a damp cloth and gave her some more of the warm watered brandy to sip. It should be hot sweet tea, but this was all he had.

She was silent and he guessed she was deciding how much to tell him, how much she trusted him. ‘He controls all my money until I marry with his blessing. I fell in love and I was reckless. Naive. I suppose I had a very quiet, sheltered country life until I met Jonathan.’ She gave a twisted shrug. ‘Jonathan’s…dead. Henry said that until I had the baby I must stay at the lodge near Edinburgh that he inherited from an uncle, and then he would… He said he would find a good home. But I don’t trust him. He’ll leave my child at a workhouse or give her to some family who won’t love her…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘I don’t trust him.’

It wasn’t the entire story. Kate, he was certain, was editing it as she went along. He couldn’t blame her. This probably happened all the time, well-bred young women finding themselves in a difficult situation and the family stepping in to deal with the embarrassment, hoping they could find her an unsuspecting husband to take her off their hands later. It was a pity in this case, because Kate, with her fierce determination, would make a good mother, he was sure of that.

He settled back against the wall, her hand in his so he would know when another contraction came, even if he drifted off. He was tired enough to sleep without even the usual nightmares waking him, but Kate’s fierce grip would rouse him. How much time was this going to add to his journey? Charlie knew he was coming and he was a sensible boy for his age, but he’d been through too much and he needed his father. He needs a mother, too.

There was nothing he could do to hasten things now. He shifted, trying to find a smooth place on the craggy wall, and prodded at the other weight on his conscience, the one he could do nothing about now. Grant had disappointed his grandfather. Not in himself, but in his reluctance to remarry. Over and over again as he grew frailer the old man had repeated his desire to see Grant married. The boy’s a fine lad, he’d say. But he needs brothers, he needs a mother… You need a wife.

Time and time again Grant had repeated the same weary excuses. He needed more time, he had to find the right woman, to get it right this time. He just needed time. To do what? Somehow learn to read the character of the pretty young things paraded on the marriage mart? Discover insights he hadn’t possessed before, so he didn’t make another disastrous mistake? His own happiness didn’t matter, not any more, but he couldn’t risk Charlie. I promise, he had said the last time he parted from his grandfather. I promise I will find someone. And he had left for the Continent, yet again.

He neither needed nor wanted a wife, not for himself, but Abbeywell needed a chatelaine and Charlie needed a woman’s care.

‘What will you do when the baby is born?’ he asked, focusing on the exhausted woman beside him.

‘Do next? I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I can’t think beyond this. There is no one. But I’ll manage…somehow.’

She’s not a conventional beauty, but she’s got courage, she’s maternal. Time seemed to have collapsed, the past and the present ran together. Two women in childbed, one infant he could not help, one perhaps he would save. But even if he did, nothing would prevent this child being born illegitimate, with all the penalties that imposed.

The germ of an idea stirred. Kate needed shelter, security for her child. Would she make a good governess for Charlie? He pursued the idea around. Charlie had a tutor, he did not need someone with the ability or knowledge to teach him academic studies. But he did need the softer things. Grant remembered his own mother, who had died, along with his father, of a summer fever when he had not been much older than his own son was now. She had instilled ideas about kindliness and beauty, she had been there with a swift hug and a kiss when male discipline and bracing advice was just that bit too harsh.

A mother’s touch, a mother’s instinct. Kate was not a mother yet, but he sensed that nurturing disposition in her. Charlie didn’t need a governess, he needed a mother. Logic said…marry her.

What was he thinking? I’m too tired to think straight, my brain’s still scrambled.

In the stable the gelding snorted, gave a piercing whinny. Grant got to his feet, went to the outer door and peered through the faint mist the drizzle had left behind it. A couple of men, agricultural workers by the looks of them, were plodding along the track beside a donkey cart. He went back inside and Kate looked up at him. Her smile was faint, but it was there. Brave girl. Are you wishing for the impossible? Because I think it is walking towards us now.

‘We’re still in Scotland,’ he said, realising that his mad idea was possible to achieve. Am I insane? Or are those strangers out there, appearing right on the heels of that wild thought, some kind of sign? ‘There are two men, farmers, coming along the track.’ Witnesses. ‘Kate—marry me.’

‘Marry you?’

It was hard to concentrate on anything except what was happening to her, anything beyond the life inside that was struggling to be free. Kate dragged her mind back from its desperate focus on breathing, on the baby, on keeping them both alive. She remembered the mix of truth and lies she had told him and stared at Grant.

In the gloom of early-morning light he did not appear to have lost his mind, despite the blow to the head. He still looked as much like a respectable, handsome English gentleman as might be expected after a sleepless night in a hovel tending to a woman in childbed.

‘I am not married, I am not promised to another. I can support a wife, I can support the baby. And if you marry me before the child is born, then it will be legitimate.’ His voice was urgent, his expression in the morning light intent. He smiled, as though to reassure her, but the warmth did not reach his eyes.

‘Legitimate.’ Legitimate. Her child would have a name, a future, respectability. They would both be safe and Grant could protect her from the results of Henry’s scheming. Probably. Kate rode out another contraction, tried to think beyond the moment, recall why she couldn’t simply solve this problem by marrying a complete stranger. He could certainly hide her, even if unwittingly. She would have a new name, a new home, and that was all that mattered for the baby.

She was so very tired now, nothing else except her child seemed important. Grant was a doctor living in the wilds of Northumberland, hundreds of miles from London. That should be safe enough. But why would he? Why would he want her and her baby, another man’s child? Legitimate. We would be hidden. The tempting words swirled through her tired brain, caution fighting desperation and instinct. ‘But there’s no time.’

‘This is Scotland,’ Grant said. ‘All we have to do is to declare ourselves married before witnesses—and two are heading this way. Say yes, Kate, and I’ll fetch them and it will be done.’

‘Yes.’ He was gone before she could call the words back. She heard his voice raised to hail someone. Yes, I will do it. Another miracle to go with my good angel of a doctor. A Christmas miracle. He never need find out the truth, so it can’t hurt him. What is the term? An accessory after the fact. But if he doesn’t know…

‘Aye, we’ll help you and gladly, at that. I’m Tam Johnson of the Red House up yonder and this is my eldest son, Willie.’ The accent was broad Border Scots. ‘You’re lucky to catch us. We’re only going this way to do a favour for a neighbour.’

There was the sound of shuffling feet outside and Grant ducked back in. ‘May they come through now?’ Kate nodded and he stood aside for two short, burly, black-haired men to enter.

They seemed to fill the space and brought with them the smell of wet sheep and heather and peat smoke. ‘Good morning to you, mistress.’ The elder stood there, stolid and placid. Perhaps he attended marriages in tumbledown cottages every day of the week. Beside him the younger one twisted his cap in his hands, less at ease than the man who was obviously his father.

‘Good day,’ she managed, beyond embarrassment or social awkwardness now.

Grant produced a notebook, presumably from his capacious saddlebags. She wondered vaguely if he had a packhorse out there. ‘I assume we need a written record that you can sign?’

‘Aye, that’ll be best. You’ll be English, then? All you both need to do is declare yourselves married. To each other, that is.’ The older Mr Johnson gave a snort of amusement at his own wit.

‘Right.’ Grant crossed the small distance and knelt beside her, took her hand in his. ‘I, Grantham Phillip Hale Rivers, declare before these witnesses that I take you, Catherine—’

‘Jane Penelope Harding,’ she whispered. He was only a doctor. They did not put announcements of their marriages in London newspapers.

‘Catherine Jane Penelope Harding, as my wife.’

Another contraction was coming. She gritted her teeth and managed, ‘Before these witnesses, I, Catherine Jane Penelope Harding, declare that I take you, Grantham Phillip…Hale Rivers, to be my husband.’

‘We’ll write the record outside, I think.’

She was vaguely conscious of Grant standing, moving the Johnsons out of the room, then her awareness shrank to the pain and the effort. Something was happening, something different…

Where was Grant? She listened and heard him, still in the stable.

‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ There was the chink of coins. ‘I hope you’ll drink to our health. You’ll bring the donkey cart back down here after noon?’

‘Aye, we will, no trouble at all.’ That was the older man, Tam Johnson. ‘You’ll not find it far to Jedburgh now the rain’s stopped. You’ll be there by nightfall. Thank you kindly, sir, and blessings on your wife and bairn.’

‘Grant!’

He ducked under the low lintel and back into the inner room. ‘I’m here.’

‘Something’s happening.’

‘I should hope so.’ He took up the lamp. ‘Let’s see what this child of ours is doing.’

Grant made her feel secure, Kate thought hazily. Even in those last hectic minutes she had felt safe and when the first indignant wails rent the air he had known just what to do.

‘Here she is,’ he’d said, laying the squirming, slippery, red-faced baby on her stomach. ‘The most beautiful little girl in the world at this minute and very cross with the pair of us by the sound of her.’

Time had passed, the world had gone by somewhere outside the bubble that contained her and the child in her arms. She was conscious of Grant moving purposefully about. At some point he took the baby and washed her and wrapped her up in one of his clean shirts, then washed Kate and helped her into a clean nightgown and wrapped them both up in his coat.

There was something hot to drink, porridge to eat. Perhaps the Johnsons had left food or had come back. She neither knew nor cared. When Grant had spoken to her, asked her if she could bear to travel, she had nodded. He had sounded urgent, so she made herself agree, told herself that he would take care of them and all she had to do was hold her baby safe at her breast.

It was bumpy at first, and her nose, about all that was exposed, was cold, but that was all right because Grant was there. Then they were in his arms again and there was noise and people talking, women’s voices, warmth and a soft bed. They must have stopped at an inn to rest.

Kate looked up at him standing over her, looking dishevelled and very tired. And…sad? This was the man she had married. It seemed unreal. ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure.’ He sounded almost convincing. ‘What are we going to call her?’

‘Anna, after my mother.’ She’d decided that in the course of the bumpy journey. Anna Rivers. And I am Mrs Rivers now. We are safe and all at the cost of a few lies. Not little, not white, but she would be a good wife to him, be happy in her modest home. He would never know.

‘Anna Rosalind, then, for my mother.’ When she looked up, surprised by the possessive note in Grant’s voice, he shrugged. ‘She’s an important small person, she needs at least two names. I’ve found you a nursemaid. She’s used to newborns.’ A cheerful freckled face appeared at his side. ‘This is Jeannie Tranter and she’s happy to adventure into England with us. It isn’t far now, only across the border into Northumberland.’

‘Oh, good.’

I wonder whereabouts in Northumberland Grant lives…but it doesn’t matter, we’re safe now, both of us, hundreds of miles away from Henry, hundreds of miles away from a vengeful earl and the law. We can go anywhere and no one will take her away from me because she belongs to Grant now. That was all that mattered. We both belong to him.

The thought drifted in and she frowned. Her baby had a father, but she had a husband. A man she did not know, a man who had total control over her life, her future.

Something touched her hair and she opened her eyes. Grant was still looking down at them. She remembered to smile at him, then turned her attention back to the baby.

‘I’ll take a bath, then I’ll be in the parlour if you need me,’ Grant said to Jeannie Tranter.

The girl nodded briskly, her attention on the woman and baby in the bed. ‘Aye, sir, I’m sure we won’t need to disturb you.’

And that’s put me in my place as an unnecessary male. It had been the same the last time. Don’t think about the last time. The bathwater in front of the fire was still hot, the pleasure of scrubbing away the grime of the past twenty-four hours or so blissful. He soaped his hair, ducked under and came up streaming, then found he had no inclination to get out. Baths were good places to think.

Grant had dozed a little, then woke without any sensible thinking done at all to find the water cool. He splashed out to dry off and find something from his depleted wardrobe to change into. A childbirth used up an inordinate amount of clean linen.

By the time he was in the private parlour pouring a glass of wine, his legs stretched out on the hearthrug, his brain had woken up. Just what had he done? A good deed? Perhaps, although tying a woman, a complete stranger, to him for life was a risky act of charity. Or was it an entirely selfish act, a gesture to his guilty conscience, as though he could somehow appease his grandfather’s shade by doing what the old man had so wanted and thus fulfilling his promise? The uncomfortable notion intruded that he had found himself a wife and a stepmother for Charlie without any effort at courtship, without any agonising about choices.

The easy way out? Too late to worry about motives, I’ve done it now. And the child’s a girl, so no need to worry about the inheritance, should it ever arise, God forbid. He’d married a plain woman of genteel birth with a social-climbing brother who was going to be very pleased indeed when he discovered who his new brother-in-law was. That could be a problem if he wasn’t careful. Grant rolled the wine around his mouth as he thought it all through.

Pushing doubts aside, he had someone to look after the household, someone who appeared to be bright enough not to be a dead bore on the occasions when he was at home. And Kate had courage and determination, that was obvious enough. He had a wife and only time would tell if it had been a wise decision or a reckless gamble.

There were fifty miles to cover tomorrow, over moorland and open country. If the roads were good and the weather held, they’d do it in the day and he would be only one day later than he had hoped. The inn had a decent chaise for hire, the stables held some strong horses by the looks of them—and they’d be needed, because there wouldn’t be a change to be had until they were over the border. The gelding was sound now, it had only been a bruised hoof.

The rhyme ‘For Want of a Nail’ ran through his head. In that old poem the loss of the nail meant the loss of the shoe, the loss of the horse and its rider and, eventually, the loss of the battle and a kingdom. Because of his own haste his horse had been lamed, he’d had to stop and he’d gained a wife and child. Grant got up and rang for his supper and another bottle. He was maundering, comparing a disaster to—what? What crazy optimism made him think this marriage between two desperate strangers could be anything but a disaster?

Chapter Three

‘Mr Rivers is a very good rider, is he not, ma’am?’

‘Hmm?’ From her position lying full length Kate couldn’t see more than the occasional treetop passing by. ‘Is he?’

Jeannie, the nursemaid, stared at her. ‘But surely you’ve seen him riding, ma’am?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. I don’t know what is the matter with me.’

‘Not to worry, Mrs Rivers. My nana, who taught me all about looking after mothers and babies, she always said that the mother’s mind is off with the fairies for days after the birth.’

My mind is certainly somewhere and I wish it would come back, because I need to think. Anna was sleeping soundly in the nurse’s arms and Jeannie seemed exceedingly competent. The chaise had an extension at the front so that when the wall section below the front window was removed it could be placed in front of the seat to make a bed where a passenger could stretch out almost full length. Kate had slept heavily and although she felt weak and shaky she was, surely, in a fit state to take responsibility for herself. She should be thinking about what she had done and what the consequences would be.

I have married the man, for goodness’ sake! A complete stranger. What is his family going to say? Grant was persuasive enough, but surely he couldn’t convince them that he was the legitimate father of this child by a mother they’d heard nothing about before?

‘I want to sit up.’ Lying like this made her feel feeble and dependent. Besides, she wanted to see what Mr Rivers—what her husband—looked like on a horse.

Jeannie handed her Anna and helped her sit up. That was better. Two days of being flat on her back like a stranded turtle probably accounted for her disorientation. Kate studied the view from the chaise window. It consisted of miles of sodden moorland, four horses with two postilions and one husband cantering alongside.

Jeannie was a good judge of horsemanship. Grant Rivers was relaxed in the saddle, displaying an impressive length of leg, a straight back and a steady gaze on the road ahead. His profile was austere and, she thought, very English. Brown hair was visible below his hat brim. What colour were his eyes? Surely she should have noticed them? Hazel, or perhaps green. For some reason she had a lingering memory of sadness. But then she’d hardly been in a fit state to notice anything. Or anyone.

But she had better start noticing now. This was her husband. Husbands were for life and she had begun this marriage with a few critical untruths. But they could do Grant no harm, she told herself as she lay down again and let Jeannie tuck her in. There was this one day to regain some strength and get some sleep, then there would be a family to face and Anna to look after in the midst of strangers. But by then she would have her story quite clear in her head and she would be safe in the rustic isolation of the far north of England.

They stopped at three inns—small, isolated, primitive. Jeannie helped her out to the privy, encouraged her to eat and drink, cradled the baby between feeds. Her new husband came to look at her, took her pulse, frowned. Looked at Anna, frowned. Swung back on to his horse, frowned as he urged the postilions to greater speed. What was so urgent? Anyone would think it was life and death.

‘I think we must be here, ma’am.’ The post-chaise rocked to a halt. Kate struggled up into a sitting position and looked around. Darkness had fallen, but the house was lit and lanterns hung by the front door. Away from the light, the building seemed to loom in the darkness. Surely this was bigger than the modest home a country gentleman-doctor might aspire to?

She looked for Grant, but he was already out of the saddle, the reins trailing on the ground as he strode up the front steps. The doors opened, more light flooded out, she heard the sound of voices. She dropped the window and heard him say, ‘When?’ sharply and another voice replied, ‘In the morning, the day before yesterday.’

Grant came back down the steps. ‘In you come.’

‘Where are we?’ But he was already lifting her out, carrying her in his arms across to the steps. ‘Anna—’

‘I have her, Mrs Rivers. I’m right behind you, ma’am.’

‘This is Abbeywell Grange, your new home.’

There was a tall, lean man, all in black, who bowed as Grant swept her in through the front door. A butler, she supposed, fleetingly conscious of a well-lit hall, a scurry of footmen. The smell of burning applewood, a trace of dried rose petals, beeswax polish, leather. There were evergreen wreaths on the newel posts of the stairs, the glow of red berries in a jug. She remembered Grant’s offering of the holly sprig and smiled. This was an old, loved home, its aura sending messages of reassurance. She wanted to relax and dared not.

‘Welcome home, my lord. We are all very relieved to see you. The staff join me in expressing our deepest condolences.’

Condolences? On a marriage? Then the whole sentence hit her. ‘My lord? Grant, he called you my lord. Who are you?’

But the butler was already striding ahead towards the end of the hall, Grant on his heels. ‘Master Charles… Lord Brooke, I should say, will be happy to see you, my lord. It has been quite impossible to get him to go to bed.’

‘Who is Lord Brooke?’ she asked in a whisper as the butler opened the door into a drawing room. A fire crackled in the grate, an aged pointer dog rose creakily to its feet, tail waving, and, on the sofa, a small boy sat up, rubbing his eyes.

‘Papa!’

‘Charlie, why aren’t you in bed? You’re keeping Rambler up.’ Grant snapped his fingers at the dog. It was obviously an old joke. The boy grinned, then his eyes widened as he saw what his father was carrying.

Grant settled Kate in a deep armchair by the hearthside and Jeannie, with Anna in her arms, effaced herself somewhere in the shadows.

‘Charlie.’ There was deep affection in Grant’s voice as he crouched down and the boy hurled himself into his arms. So, this was why he had been so impatient to get back, this was what the discovery of a woman in labour had been keeping him from. He has a son. He was married? A lord? This was a disaster and she had no inkling how to deal with it.

‘You got my letter explaining about the accident?’ The boy nodded, pushed back Grant’s hair and touched the bandage with tentative fingers. She saw his eyes were reddened and heavy. The child had been crying. ‘It’s all right now, but I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me. Then on my way from Edinburgh my horse picked up a stone and was lamed with a bruised hoof, so I lost a day and a night.’

‘Great-Grandpapa died on Christmas Eve,’ Charlie said. His lower lip trembled. ‘And you didn’t come and I thought perhaps you’d… Your head… That they’d been lying to me and you were going to…’

‘I’m here.’ Grant pulled the boy into a fierce hug, then stood him back so he could look him squarely in the face. ‘I’m a bit battered and there were a couple of days when I was unconscious, which is why I couldn’t travel, but we’ve hard heads, we Rivers men, haven’t we?’

The lip stopped trembling. ‘Like rocks,’ the boy said stoutly. ‘I’m glad you’re home, though. It was a pretty rotten Christmas.’ His gaze left his father’s face, slid round to Kate. ‘Papa?’

Grant got up from his knees, one hand on his son’s shoulder, and turned towards her, but Kate had already started to rise. She walked forward and stopped beside Grant.

‘My dear, allow me to introduce Charles Francis Ellmont Rivers, Lord Brooke. My son.’

Kate retrieved a smile from somewhere. ‘I… Good evening, Charles. I am very pleased to meet you.’

He bowed, a very creditable effort for a lad of—what? Six? ‘Madam.’ He tugged at Grant’s hand. ‘Papa, you haven’t said who this lady is, so I cannot greet her properly.’

‘This is Catherine Rivers, my wife. Your stepmama.’

Kate felt the smile congeal on her lips. Of course, if Charles was Grant’s son, then she was his…

‘Stepmama?’ The boy had turned pale. ‘You didn’t say that you were going to get married again, Papa.’

‘No. I am allowed some secrets.’ Grant apparently agreed with the Duke of Wellington’s approach: never explain, never apologise. ‘You have a new half-sister as well, Charlie.’ He beckoned to Jeannie and she came forward and placed Anna in his arms. ‘Come and meet her, she is just two days old.’

The boy peered at the little bundle. ‘She’s very small and her face is all screwed up and red.’

‘So was yours when you were born, I expect,’ Kate said with a glare for Grant over Charlie’s head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she mouthed. The boy isn’t a love child. He’s the product of a first marriage. I married a widower. And a nobleman. She wrestled with the implications of Charlie having a title. It meant Grant was an earl, at least. Which meant that Anna was Lady Anna, and she was—what?

Earls put marriage announcements in newspapers. Earls had wide social circles and sat in the House of Lords. In London.

‘There never seemed to be a good time.’ Grant gave a half shrug that suddenly made her furious. He should have warned her, explained. She would never have agreed to marry him.

‘What is her name?’ Charlie asked, oblivious to the byplay. Anna woke up and waved a fist at him and he took it, very carefully.

‘Anna Rosalind.’ One starfish hand had closed on Charlie’s finger. His face was a mixture of panic and delight. ‘Would you like to hold her?’

‘Yes, please.’

Grant placed her in Charlie’s arms.

‘Very carefully,’ Kate said, trying not to panic. ‘Firm but gentle, and don’t let her head flop. That’s it—you are obviously a natural as a big brother.’ She was rewarded by a huge grin. She could only admire Grant’s tactics. The surprise of a new baby sister had apparently driven Charlie’s doubts about a stepmama right out of his head.

‘Grant,’ she said, soft-voiced, urgent, as Jeannie helped the boy to sit securely on the sofa and held back the inquisitive hound. ‘Who are you?’

‘The fourth Earl of Allundale. As of two days ago.’

‘I suppose that was something else that there was no time to mention?’ Again that shrug, the taut line of his lips that warned her against discussing this now.

Her husband was an earl. But he was also a doctor, and heirs to earldoms did not become doctors, she knew that. It was a conundrum she was too weary to try to understand now. All she could grasp was that she had married far above her wildest expectations, into a role she had no idea how to fill, into a position that was dangerously exposed and public. Even in her home village the social pages in the newspapers were studied and gossiped about, the business of the aristocracy known about, from the gowns worn at drawing rooms to the latest scandals. How could the wife of an earl hide away? But Grant had no need to fear she would make a scene in front of his son: unless they were thrown out into the dark, she found she was beyond caring about anything but warmth, shelter and Anna’s safety this night.

‘You are worn out. Charlie, give your sister back to her nurse and off you go to bed. I’ll come and see you are asleep later.’ Grant reached for the bell pull and the butler appeared so rapidly that he must have been standing right outside the door. ‘Grimswade, can you dispatch Master Charles to his tutor? And you will have prepared my wife’s rooms by now, I’ve no doubt.’

Grimswade stood aside as Charlie made a very correct bow to Kate, then ducked through the open door. ‘Certainly, my lord. His late lordship had some renovation work done. In anticipation,’ he added.

Grant stilled with his hand on the bell pull. ‘Not the old suite?’ His voice was sharp.

‘No, my lord, not the old suite. The one on the other side of your own chambers. The doors have been changed. One blocked up, another cut through. His late lordship anticipated that you would wish to retain your old rooms even after he had…gone.’

Kate wondered if she would have to stand there all night while they discussed the interior layout of the house. She didn’t care where she slept as long as it had a bed, somewhere for Anna, and the roof was not actually leaking.

‘Very well. Have you made arrangements for the child and her nurse?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Without any change in voice or expression Grimswade managed to express mild affront at the suggestion that he was in any way unprepared. ‘My lady, if you would care to follow me.’

That is me. I am—what? A countess?

‘I’ll carry you.’ Grant was halfway across the room.

‘Thank you, no. Do stay here.’ Something, Kate was not sure what, revolted at the thought of being carried. Grant Rivers’s arms—her husband’s arms—were temptingly strong, but she was tired of being helpless and he was altogether too inclined to take charge. She had to start thinking for herself again and being held so easily against that broad chest seemed to knock rational thought out of her brain.

In a daze she managed the stairs, the long corridor, then the shock of the sitting room, elegant and feminine, all for her.

‘I will have a light supper served, my lady. The men are filling your bath in the bathing chamber next to the dressing room through there.’ Grimswade gestured towards the double doors that opened on to a bedchamber, one larger than she had ever slept in. ‘And this is Wilson, your maid.’

‘Luxury,’ Kate murmured to Jeannie as the butler bowed himself out and the maid, a thin, middle-aged woman, advanced purposefully across the room. ‘Too much. This is not real.’ Fortunately the sofa was directly behind her as she sank back on to it, her legs refusing to hold her up any longer.

‘You’re just worn out, ma’am—my lady—that’s all.’ Jeannie’s soft brogue was comforting. With a sigh Kate allowed herself to be comforted. ‘It will all come back to you.’

The next hour was a blur that slowly, slowly came back into focus. Firm hands undressing her, supportive arms to help her to the bathing room, the bliss of hot water and being completely clean. The same hands drying and dressing her as though she was as helpless as little Anna. A table with food, apparently appearing from thin air. The effort to eat.

And then, as she lay back on the piled pillows of a soft bed, there was Anna in her arms, grizzling a little because she was hungry, and Kate found she was awake, feeling stronger and, for the first time in days, more like herself.

‘We might be confused and out of place,’ Kate said as she handed the baby back to Jeannie after the feed, ‘but Anna seems perfectly content.’

‘You’ve not stayed here before, then, my lady?’

‘No. I’m a stranger to this house.’ And to my husband. ‘Where are you to sleep, Jeannie?’

‘They’ve set up a bed for me in the dressing room, my lady, just for tonight. It’s bigger than the whole of the upstairs of our cottage,’ she confided with glee. ‘And there’s a proper cradle for Lady Anna.’

‘Then you take yourself off and get some rest now. I expect she’ll be waking you up again soon enough.’

The canopy over the bed was lined with pleated sea-green silk, the curtains around the bed and at the windows were a deeper shade, the walls, paler. The furniture was light and, to Kate’s admittedly inexperienced eye, modern and fashionable. The paintings and the pieces of china arranged around the room seemed very new, too. Strange, in such an old house. The drawing room, the hallway and stairs had an antique air, of generations of careful choices of quality pieces and then attentive housekeeping to deepen the polished patina.

Kate threw back the covers and slid out of bed. Deep-pile carpet underfoot, the colours fresh and springlike in the candlelight. Grant had reacted sharply when her chambers were mentioned. Interior decoration seemed a strange thing to be concerned about, given the circumstances—surely a new wife who was a stranger, another man’s baby carrying his own name, a bereavement and a son to comfort must be enough to worry about. Another puzzle.

She moved on unsteady legs about the room, admiring it, absorbing the warmth and luxury as she had with the food earlier, feeling the weariness steal over her again. In a moment she would return to the big bed and be able to sleep. Tomorrow she would think. There was a murmur of voices, just audible. Idly curious, Kate followed the sound until she reached a jib door, papered and trimmed so it looked at first glance like part of the wall it was cut into.

The handle moved easily, soundlessly, under the pressure of her hand, and it swung inwards to show her a segment of another bedchamber. Masculine, deep-red hangings, old panelling polished to a glow, the glint of gilded picture frames. Grant’s bedchamber. For the first time the words husband and bed came together in her mind and her breathing hitched.

On the table beside the door was a small pile of packages wrapped in silver paper. She glanced down and read the label on the top one. Papa, all my love for Christmas. Charlie. It was obviously his very best handwriting. Her vision blurred.

Grant’s voice jerked her back. He must be speaking to his valet. She began to ease the door closed. ‘Thank you for coming by. Tomorrow I’d be grateful if you’d take a look at my wife and the baby. They both seem well to my eye, especially given the circumstances—Kate must be very tired—but I won’t be easy until a doctor has confirmed it.’

Another doctor? Kate left the door an inch ajar. There was a chuckle, amused, masculine, with an edge of teasing to it. ‘It seems to me that you did very well, given that you’ve never been trained for a childbirth. Or were you, in the year you left Edinburgh?’

‘I observed one. I had, thank Asclepius and any other gods that look after inept medical students, studied the relevant sections of the textbooks before I did so and some of it must have stuck. I’d just about reached the limits of my book learning, though, and after the last time—’

The other man made some comment, his voice low and reassuring, but Kate did not register the words. Grant is not qualified? He is not a doctor. The embossed metal of the door handle bit into her fingers. He lied to me. The irony of her indignation at the deception struck her, which did nothing for her temper.

‘I thought perhaps so much experience with brood mares might have helped, but I can tell you, it didn’t,’ Grant confessed.

Brood mares. He thought he could deliver my baby as though she were a foal.

She heard Grant say goodnight to his visitor as she set foot in his bedchamber. He turned from closing the door and saw her. ‘Kate, what’s wrong? Can’t you sleep?’

‘You are not a doctor.’ He came towards her and it took only two steps to be close enough to jab an accusing finger into his chest. ‘You delivered my baby, you told me not to worry. You fraud!’

Chapter Four

Grant stepped back sharply, the concern wiped from his expression. ‘I have two years of medical training, which is more than anyone else within reach had. There was no one else to deliver your baby.’

‘You might have told me.’ She sat down abruptly on the nearest chair. ‘You thought you could treat me like a brood mare.’

‘Ah, you heard that. Damn. Look, Kate, you were frightened, in pain, and you hadn’t the first idea what to do. You needed to be calm, to conserve your strength. If I had told you I had never delivered a baby before, would that have helped you relax? Would that have helped you be calm?’

She glared at him, furious that he was being perfectly reasonable, when something inside her, the same something that had latched on to those words, husband and bed, wanted nothing more than to panic and make a fuss. And run away.

Grant stood there, patient—and yet impatient, just as he had been in the bothy. He was good at self-control, she realised. If he wasn’t so distracted by grief for his grandfather and worry for his son, she would not be allowed a glimpse of that edginess. And he was right, perfectly right. He had some knowledge and that was better than none. He had kept her calm and safe. Alive. Anna was healthy. Kate swallowed. ‘I am sorry. You are quite correct, of course. I am just…’

‘Embarrassed, very tired and somewhat emotional.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. And confused. Damn him for being so logical and practical and right, when I just want to hit out at something. Someone. ‘You did not tell me you are an earl.’ She had wanted to hide, go to ground. Now she was in the sort of marriage that appeared in society pages, was the stuff of gossip.

Grant ran his hand through his hair. He was tired, she realised. Very tired. How much sleep had he had since he had walked into that hovel and found her? Little, she supposed, and he was travelling with a recent head injury. ‘I didn’t think it relevant and you weren’t in any fit state for conversation.’ His mouth twisted. ‘My grandfather was dying, or had just died. I was not there and I did not want to talk about it. Or think about it. All I wanted was to get back to Charlie.’

‘Were you too late to see your grandfather because of me?’

Grant shook his head and sat down opposite her. It was more of a controlled collapse than anything, long legs sprawled out, his head tipped back, eyes closed. The bandage gave him a rakish air, the look of a pirate after a battle. ‘No, I wouldn’t have reached him in time, not after the accident in Edinburgh. But even so, there was no choice but to stay with you—he would have expected it himself.’

No, she supposed there hadn’t been a decision to make. No one could walk away from someone in the situation she had been in. No decent person, at any rate. She had married a decent man. Her agitation calmed as she looked at him, studied his face properly for the first time. She was thinking only of herself and Anna, but she owed him a debt. The least she could do was to think about his needs. ‘I’m sorry. Go to bed. You are worn out.’

Grant shook his head and opened his eyes. They were green, she realised with a jolt, seeing the man and not simply her rescuer. But a warm green verging on hazel, not the clear green of a gemstone under water… ‘Soon. I need to look in on Charlie.’

She was not going to exhaust him more by complaining about the fact he had not told her he had been married, that he had a son as well as a title. That could keep until the morning. She was certainly not going to look for any more resemblances to Jonathan. ‘I will go back to bed, then. Goodnight.’

There was silence until she was through the jib door. She wondered if he had fallen asleep after all. Then, ‘Goodnight, Kate.’ She closed the door softly behind her.

‘Goodnight, Kate. Goodnight, wife,’ Grant added in a whisper as the door closed. Perhaps he should have kissed her. Poor creature, she looked dreadful. Pale, with dark shadows under bloodshot eyes, her hair pulled back into a mousy tail, her face pinched with exhaustion and a confusion of embarrassment and uncertainty. He could only hope that when she was recovered and suitably dressed she would at least look like a lady, if not a countess.

He hauled himself to his feet and stripped off his clothes with a grimace of relief. He felt as if he’d spent the past year in them. Naked, he stood and washed rapidly, then rummaged in the clothes press and pulled out loose trousers, a shirt and a robe, dressing without conscious thought. Comfort, something he could catnap in if Charlie needed him to stay and chase away nightmares, these would do. His eye caught the glint of silver paper and he went to investigate. Christmas presents. He picked them up, torn between grief and pleasure.

When he slid quietly into Charlie’s room the mounded covers on the bed heaved and a mop of dark blond hair emerged. ‘Papa!’

‘I had hoped you were asleep by now.’ Grant sat on the edge of the bed and indulged himself with a hug that threatened to strangle him. ‘Urgh! You’re too strong for me.’

Charlie chuckled, a six-year-old’s naughty laugh, and let go. He looked up at Grant from under his lashes. ‘I’m glad you’re home.’

‘So am I. I’m sorry I was not here when Great-Grandpapa died.’

‘Dr Meldreth took me in to see him. He was very sleepy and he told me that he was very old, so he was all worn out and he wanted to go and be with Great-Grandmama, so I mustn’t be sad when he left. But I am.’

‘I know, Charlie, so am I. And we will be for a while, then we’ll remember all the good times we had, and all the things we used to talk about and do, and you won’t feel so bad. What did you do on Christmas Day?’

‘We went for a walk and to church, and then I opened my presents because Great-Grandpapa said I must do so.’ He sniffed. ‘He gave me his watch. I…I blubbed a bit, but it made me really proud, so I’m glad. And thank you very much for the model soldiers and the castle and the new boots. Then we had Christmas dinner and Mr Gough showed me how to make a toast. So I toasted absent friends, for both you and Great-Grandpapa.’

‘It sounds to me as if the household was in very good hands with you in charge, Charlie.’ Grant managed to get his voice under control, somehow. ‘I found my presents—shall I open them now?’

Grant went to retrieve the gifts and they opened them together. His grandfather had given him a miniature of his parents, newly painted, he realised, from the large individual portraits that hung in the Long Gallery. He read the note that accompanied it, blew his nose without any attempt to conceal his emotion and turned to Charlie’s gift, which he had set aside.

‘This is excellent!’ It was a large, enthusiastic and almost recognisable portrait of Rambler, his old pointer dog, framed in a somewhat lopsided, and obviously home-made, frame. ‘I will hang it in my study next to the desk. Thank you, Charlie. You go to sleep now. Do you want me to spend the night here?’

‘I’m all right now you are home, Papa. And Mr Gough let me talk to him all I wanted. He thought it would be better after the funeral when we can say goodbye again.’

The tutor had proved as sensitive as he had hoped when he hired him. ‘You know where I am if you want to come along in the night.’ Grant tucked his son in, bent down and gave him a kiss that, for once, didn’t have his son squirming away in embarrassment. He seemed to understand and to be taking it well, but he was so young. Grant felt a pang of anxiety through the haze of weariness that was closing in like fog. Perhaps he would sleep without nightmares if he was this tired.

‘I didn’t know you were going to get married again, Papa.’ The voice from under the blankets was already drowsy.

Neither did I. ‘Go to sleep, Charlie. I’ll explain in the morning.’ Somehow. And I hope to heaven that you take to your new mother and sister, and she takes to you, because if not I’ve created the most damnable mess.

‘She’s being a little angel, my lady.’ Jeannie tucked the sleeping baby back into the crib she had brought into the sitting room while Kate was feeding Anna. Fed, clean and cuddled, she truly was sleeping like a small, rather red-faced cherub.

Kate, fresh from Wilson’s best, and exhausting, efforts to turn her into something approaching a respectable lady, retreated to the sanctuary of the sofa next to the crib. Wilson was handicapped by an absence of any gowns to dress her in, to say nothing of Kate’s figure, which, it was obvious, was not going to spring back instantly into what had been before. A drab, ill-fitting gown that was seriously the worse for wear was not helped by a headful of fine mousy hair that was in dire need of the attentions of a hairdresser.

She looked a frump, and an unhealthy one at that, she knew. Her husband, once rested and with a view of her in a good light, was going to be bitterly rueing his impetuous, gallant gesture.

His knock came on the thought and Kate twitched at the shawl Wilson had found in an effort to drape her body as flatteringly as possible. A harassed glance at her reflection in the glass over the fireplace confirmed that the wrap’s shades of green and brown did nothing to help her complexion.

‘Good morning. May I come in? Did you sleep well?’ The dark smudges were stark under Grant’s eyes and the strong-boned face seemed fined down to its essentials. The rakish bandage had gone, leaving the half-healed cut and angry bruising plain across his forehead.

‘Good morning. Yes, of course.’

She was not going to huddle on the sofa, trying to hide. She might look a fright, but she had her pride. Kate swung her feet down to the floor, pushed her shoulders back, lifted her chin and curved the corners of her mouth up. That felt very strange, as though she had not smiled properly in months. Perhaps she had not, except at Anna.

‘Dr Meldreth is here, Kate. I think it would be a good idea if he checked you and Anna over.’

‘He studied with you in Edinburgh, I gather?’ He nodded. ‘But unlike you is actually qualified?’ That was a sharp retort—she could have bitten her tongue. If it were not for Grant’s time at the university, he would have been far less capable of helping her bring Anna safely into the world.

‘Exceedingly well qualified,’ Grant said before she had a chance to soften her words. He kept any annoyance out of his voice, but his expression hardened. He must think he had married a shrew. ‘I’ll show him in, shall I?’

He didn’t wait for her nod, but ushered in a short, freckled, cheerful man about his age. ‘My dear, Dr Meldreth. Meldreth—Lady Allundale. I’ll leave you together and I’ll be in my study when you’ve finished, Meldreth.’

Kate summoned her two female supporters and managed to produce a calm, friendly smile for the doctor. He examined Anna and then, swiftly and tactfully, Kate, maintaining a steady flow of conversation while he did so. Excellent bedside manner, Kate decided. She felt confident in having him as their doctor.

‘You are both in excellent health and the little one is just as she should be,’ he assured her when she rejoined him in the sitting room. ‘But you need to rest, Lady Allundale. Rivers told me what a rough time you’ve had of it and I don’t think you have been eating very well, have you? Not for quite a while.’

‘Probably not, Doctor.’

He closed his bag and straightened his cuffs with a glance at Wilson and Jeannie. It seemed he wanted privacy. Kate nodded to the other women. ‘Thank you, I will ring when I need you.’ When they were alone she made herself look him in the eye. ‘There was something you wished to say to me?’

‘I will be frank. I am aware that your marriage only just preceded little Anna’s birth. I am also aware that Grant will fudge the issue, making it seem that yours was a long-standing relationship and that the marriage took place some time ago, but was kept quiet. Probably his grandfather’s ill health can be made to account for that.’

‘I assume that, as a doctor, you will exercise professional discretion.’

‘Certainly.’ He did not appear surprised by the chill in her voice. ‘I simply wished to make the point that—’ He broke off and cursed softly under his breath. ‘This is more difficult than I thought it would be. I wanted to assure you that I will give you all the support I can. I also wonder just how much of Grant’s past history you are aware of.’

She could freeze him out, look down her nose and assume the air of a thoroughly affronted countess or she could take the hand of friendship he appeared to be offering her. She needed a friend.

‘I know nothing. I was not even aware that he was the heir to an earldom when I married him. Nor that he was a widower with a child.’

‘He will tell you himself, I am sure. But he was close to the old earl—Grant’s parents died when he was not much older than Charlie is now. His grandfather brought him up and did a good job of it, for all that he probably leaned too much on the side of tradition and duty. Grant married a suitable young lady, to please his grandfather and do what it seemed was his duty, and talked himself into believing that was how marriage should be.’ He pushed his hand through his sandy hair. ‘I am saying too much, but you have to know this—Madeleine was a disaster. Possibly the only thing that could have made the situation worse was the way she died.’

‘What happened?’ Somehow Kate made herself sit quietly attentive for the answer. She had thought she was coming to some safe, comfortable home. A doctor’s household, decent and respectable. Modestly prosperous. Instead she found herself married to an earl, with his unburied predecessor somewhere in the house. Her husband had married tragically, she had a stepson—and a new baby. And she had the overwhelming feeling that she could not cope with any of this. But she had to. Grant had thrown her a lifeline and she had a duty to repay him by being a proper wife, a good stepmother to Charlie—and, somehow, a passable countess.

‘There was a fire. Rivers was…injured, but he managed to get Charlie out. They couldn’t save Madeleine.’

‘When?’

‘Four years ago. We do not think Charlie remembers any of it, thank God.’

‘That is a blessing.’ Poor little boy. ‘Thank you. Forewarned, at least I can try not to blunder into sensitive areas.’

‘Some blundering might be a good thing, frankly.’ Dr Meldreth stood up. ‘Rivers took it too well, too stoically, for the child’s sake. I am not sure he ever really put it behind him. And now he is bone-weary, he’s exerted himself sooner than he should after a blow to the head and he’s feeling as guilty as hell because he didn’t get back in time to see his grandfather before he died.’

‘I will try to make him rest and hope he feels able to talk to me.’ Kate rose and held out her hand to the doctor. ‘Thank you. It is good to know he has a friend close by.’

‘I’ll be back in a couple of days, unless you send for me earlier.’ Meldreth shook hands briskly. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to mention anything, but Rivers said you’ve got courage, so…’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll see myself down to the study. Good day, Lady Allundale.’

After that it was hard to sit with any composure. So, the situation was such that the good doctor would not have said anything unless he thought she had courage. That was hardly reassuring.

But perhaps it was time she started drawing on that courage, assuming she did actually possess any. If only she did not feel so ignorant. She had experienced the upbringing of any country gentlewoman, with the neighbouring wives doing their best to support a motherless girl. But, although her manners would not disgrace her, she had no experience of the kind of social life Grant would be used to. Now she was presumably expected to know how to greet a duke, curtsy to a queen, organise a reception and look after scores of tenants and staff.

Well, there was no time like the present to begin. Kate rang for Wilson. ‘I do not know when the funeral will be, but I must have respectable mourning clothes.’ If they were going to have to improvise and dye something with black ink, then the sooner they started, the better.

‘It is tomorrow, my lady. His lordship said not to disturb you about it. There’ll just be gentlemen there, no ladies, so you can stay in your rooms.’

Her little burst of energy deflected, Kate sat down again and gazed out at the grey skies, trying to make sense of the world she found herself in and her place in it, and failing miserably. Luncheon was brought up. Grimswade delivered a pile of novels, journals and newspapers. She fed Anna and cuddled her, dozed a little, tried to pay attention when Wilson suggested they make a list of all the essentials she needed to buy. Dinner arrived, a succession of perfect, luxurious little courses. Kate refused the red wine, but found she had the appetite to demolish virtually everything else that was put in front of her. The doctor had been correct. She had been neglecting herself out of worry.

Grimswade appeared as the footman was carrying out the dishes. ‘Is there anything else you require, my lady?’ Butlers, she knew, cultivated a bland serenity under all circumstances, but she thought he looked strained. The whole household seemed to be holding its breath.

Was there anything she could do? Nothing, Kate concluded as the door closed behind the butler. Just keep out of the way. Charlie was with his father and a stranger’s clumsy sympathy would be no help to them. She should have asked Grimswade when the rest of the family would arrive. At least they could take some of the burden off Grant’s shoulders. How lonely this felt, to be in the middle of so many people and yet completely cut off from their fears, their hopes.

She gave herself a brisk mental shake for the self-pity. She and her child were safe, protected and, at least for a few days, hidden. They had a future, even if it was shrouded in a fog of unknowns. Grant and Charlie were mourning the loss of someone dear to them and the best thing she could do was to intrude as little as possible. Grant had made it clear he did not want her involved or he would have confided in her, wouldn’t he?

Chapter Five

She had slept well, Kate realised as she woke to the sound of curtain rings being pulled back. In the intervals when Jeannie had brought her Anna to feed she had listened for sounds from Grant’s bedchamber, but none had reached her.

The light was different. She sat up and saw the heavy snow blanketing the formal gardens under a clear, pale grey sky. ‘What a heavy fall there must have been in the night, Wilson. Is the house cut off?’

The maid turned and Kate saw her eyes were rimmed with red. She had been crying. Of course, the funeral. She felt helpless.

‘Very heavy, but the turnpike road is open, my lady, and the men have cleared the path to the church.’ Wilson brought a small tray with a cup of chocolate and set it on the bedside table, then went to make up the fire. ‘I’ll be back with your bathwater in half an hour, my lady.’

The luxury, the unobtrusive, smooth service, suddenly unnerved her. She was a countess now, yet she was the daughter of an obscure baronet, a girl who had never had a Season, who had been to London only three times in her life, who was the mother of a child conceived out of wedlock and the sister of a man who had embroiled her in unscrupulous criminality. I can’t do this…

The door opened as she took an incautious gulp of hot chocolate and burned the inside of her mouth. ‘Wilson?’

‘It is us. Good morning.’ The deep voice held grief and weariness under the conventional greeting. ‘I came to tell you that we will be leaving for the church at ten o’clock. The procession will go past the window, if you wish to watch.’ Grant stood just inside the room, one hand resting on Charlie’s shoulder, the boy pulled close to his side. Charlie’s eyes were red and he leaned in tight to his father, but his chin was set and his head high. Grant looked beyond exhausted, although he was clean-shaven, his dark clothes and black neckcloth immaculate.

‘I am so very sorry.’ The cup clattered in the saucer as Kate set it down and Grant winced. She threw back the covers, slid out of bed and then just stood there in her nightgown. What could she do, what right had she to think she could even find the comforting words? Her instinct was to put her arms around the pair of them, hug them tight, try to take some of the pain and the weariness from them, but she was a stranger. They would not want her.

‘There will be local gentlemen in church, those who can make it through the snow. And the staff, tenants and so on. There will be a small group returning for luncheon, but the staff have that well in hand and you should not be disturbed.’ He might as well be speaking to some stray guest who deserved consideration, but was, essentially, an interloper. ‘There will be no relatives, no one to stay. We only have cousins in the West Country, too far to attend in this weather, and a great-aunt in London, who likewise could not travel.’

Kate sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I am so sorry,’ she repeated. ‘Is there anything I can do? Letters to write, perhaps? You will want to spend your time with Charlie.’

‘Thank you. My grandfather’s… My secretary, Andrew Bolton, will handle all the correspondence. There is nothing for you to do.’ Grant looked down at the boy as they turned towards the door. ‘Ready? We should go down to the hallway now.’

‘I’m ready.’ Charlie’s straight back, the determined tilt of his head, were the image of his father’s. He paused and looked back at Kate. ‘Good morning, Stepmama.’

Kate watched the procession from her window. The black-draped coffin was carried on the shoulders of six sturdy men, cushions resting on it with decorations and orders glittering in the pale sunlight. Grant walked behind, his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, the two of them rigidly composed and dignified. Behind paced a crocodile of gentlemen in mourning clothes followed by tenants in Sunday best and a contingent of the male staff.

She found a prayer book on a shelf in the sitting room and sat to read the burial service through quietly.

By the time luncheon had been cleared away Kate decided that she was going to have to do something. She had cracked the jib door into Grant’s bedchamber open a fraction so that she would know if he had come up to rest, and by four o’clock he had not. She handed a fed, gurgling Anna to Jeannie, cast a despairing glance in the mirror at her appearance and set off downstairs.

‘Have the guests left?’ she asked the first footman she encountered. He was wearing a black armband, she noticed with an inward wince for her own lack of mourning.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘And where is my husband?’

‘In his study, my lady.’

‘Will you show me the way, please?’

He paused at the end of the hallway outside a dark oak door. ‘Shall I knock, my lady?’

It looked very much closed. Forbiddingly so. ‘No, I will. Thank you…’

‘Giles, my lady.’

She tapped and entered without waiting for a response. The room was warm, the fire flickering in the grate, the curtains closed against the winter chill. There were two pools of light, one over a battered old leather armchair where Charlie slept, curled into a ball like a tired puppy, the other illuminating the papers spread on the desk.

It lit the hands of the man behind the desk, but left his face in shadow. ‘Grant, will you not come to bed?’ she asked, keeping her voice low.

There was a chuckle, a trifle rusty. ‘My dear, that is a most direct suggestion.’

Kate felt her cheeks flame. ‘I was not trying to flirt, my lord.’ I would not know how and certainly not with you. ‘Surely you need to rest, spend a few hours lying down. You must be exhausted.’ She moved closer, narrowing her eyes against the light of the green-shaded reading lamp. The quill pen was lying on its side on top of the standish, the ink dry and matte on the nib. Grant had run out of energy, she realised, and was simply sitting there, too tired to move.

‘Perhaps I am.’ Grant sounded surprised, as though he had not realised why his body had given up. He made no attempt to stand.

‘Why did you marry me, if you will not allow me to help you?’ Kate sat down opposite him, her eyes on the long-fingered, bruised hands lying lax on the litter of papers. They flexed, then were still. Beautiful hands, capable and clever. She had put those discoloured patches on the left one. She had a sudden vision of them on her skin, gently caressing. Not a doctor’s hands any longer, but a lover’s, a husband’s. Could he see her blush? She hated the way she coloured up so easily, was always consumed with envy for those porcelain-fair damsels who could hide their emotions with ease.

‘You felt sorry for me, I can see that. It was a very generous act of mercy, for me and my child,’ she went on, thinking aloud when he did not answer. ‘And, for some reason, your grandfather was anxious to see you married again and you would do anything to make him happy.’ Still silence. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. ‘But I cannot sit upstairs in my suite for the rest of my days.’

‘Not for ever, no. But for now you are still a new mother. You also require rest. Is there anything you need?’ he asked.

At least he was not sleeping where he sat. Kate did not wish to bother him with trivial matters, but he was talking to her, maybe she could distract him enough to consider sleep… ‘I have no clothes.’ His expressive fingers moved, curled across a virgin sheet of paper. ‘Other than two gowns in a sad state and a few changes of linen,’ she added repressively. ‘I need mourning.’

‘It can wait.’ The words dropped like small stones into the silence, not expecting an answer.

At least he was not sleeping where he sat. If she could rouse him enough, she might persuade him to get up and go to his bed. ‘Not for much longer. I cannot appear like this, even if it is only in front of the servants.’

He focused on her problem with a visible effort. ‘The turnpike is clear. Tomorrow, if the snow holds off, Wilson can go into Hexham and purchase enough to tide you over until you are strong enough for a trip into Newcastle.’

‘Thank you.’ Kate folded her own hands in her lap and settled back in the chair. If he thought he could send her back to her room with that, he was mistaken. The silence dragged on, filled with the child’s breathing, the soft collapse of a log into ash, her own pulse.

‘Are you going to sit there for the rest of the afternoon and evening?’ Grant enquired evenly when another log fell into the heart of the fire.

‘Yes, if you will not go and rest.’ She kept her tone as reasonable as his. ‘You will be no good to Charlie if you make yourself ill with exhaustion.’

‘So wise a parent after so few days?’ There was an edge there now.

‘One needs no expertise, only to be a human being, to know that the boy will need your attention, your presence, while he grieves. You are in no fit state for anything now, after so many days without proper rest. And you cannot deal with your own grief by drugging yourself with tiredness.’

‘How very astringent you are, my dear.’ Grant moved suddenly, sat up in his chair and gathered together the papers in front of him. ‘No soft feminine wiles to lure me upstairs, no soft words, only common-sense advice?’

‘If you wanted the sort of wife who deals with a crisis by feminine fluttering, who feels it necessary to coax and wheedle, then you have married the wrong woman, my lord.’ She kept her voice low, conscious of Charlie so close. But she could not rein in the anger entirely and she knew it showed. ‘I do not know what your first wife was like, although I am sure she was raised to be a far more satisfactory countess than I will be, I am afraid. But I will try to enact little scenes of wifely devotion for you from time to time, as you obviously seem to expect them.’ His first wife was a disaster, Dr Meldreth said. I will be one, too, although a very different kind of disaster.

‘Demonstrations of wifely devotion would certainly be a novelty. However, if you can refrain from enacting scenes of any kind, I would be most grateful.’ Grant pushed back his chair, went to lift Charlie in his arms and murmured, ‘If I could trouble you for the door?’

I must make allowances for his exhaustion, for his bereavement, Kate told herself as she followed the tall figure through the hallway and up the stairs. Giles the footman was lurking in the shadows and she beckoned him over. ‘His lordship is going to rest. Please let the rest of the household know that he is not to be disturbed until he rings. It may well be that this disrupts mealtimes, so please pass my apologies to Cook if that is the case. Perhaps she can be ready to provide something light but sustaining at short notice?’

The footman’s gaze flickered to Grant’s unresponsive back. Kate waited, eyebrows raised as though she found it hard to understand his hesitation. She had never had to deal with superior domestic staff of this calibre and she suspected he knew it. The way she looked wouldn’t help. But, like it or not, it seemed she was mistress of this household now and she must exert some authority or she would never regain it.

‘My lady.’

‘Thank you, Giles.’ She nodded as though never doubting his obedience for a moment and climbed the stairs. By the time she reached the landing Grant had turned off down a side passage. She followed him to the doorway of what must be the boy’s bedchamber. A tall, fair-haired young man came out of an inner doorway and turned down the covers. Between them they got the child out of most of his clothes and into bed, exchanged a few words, and then Grant came out.

‘That’s his tutor, Gough. He’ll sleep in the side chamber in case Charlie wakes.’ Grant kept going into his own rooms. Without conscious thought Kate followed him. ‘I do not require tucking up in bed, Kate.’

‘I do not know what you require, my lord.’ She turned abruptly, in a way that should have sent her skirts whirling in a dramatic statement of just how strained her nerves felt. They flopped limply about her ankles, adding to her sense of drabness. ‘Your son has both more sense and better manners, from what I can see.’

She reached the jib door to her room, pulled it open, and a hand caught the edge of it, pushed it back closed. Grant frowned down at her. ‘What is wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ Would the man never give up and just lie down and sleep? Kate turned back, raised one hand and began to count off on her fingers. ‘Let me see. You do not tell me you had just inherited an earldom. You do not tell me you are a widower with a son. You drive yourself to the brink of collapse trying to do everything yourself. I find myself mistress of a great house, but the servants do not appear to expect me to give them orders…’ I need to hide and I find myself a member of the aristocracy.

‘You have just given birth, you should be resting.’ Grant pushed the hair out of his eyes with one hand, the other still splayed on the door. She rather suspected he was holding himself up.

‘I am quite well and I have a personal maid and an excellent nursery maid. I do not expect to talk about all those things now, but I do expect my husband to go and rest so we can discuss them sensibly in the morning.’

‘Very well.’ He turned back through the door with all the focus of a man who was very, very drunk with lack of sleep. He walked to the bed. Kate followed him and watched as he sat down and just stared at his boots as though he was not certain what they were.

‘Let me.’ Without waiting she straddled his left leg with her back to him and drew off the boot. Then switched to the other leg. ‘Now your coat.’

Grant’s mouth twitched into the first sign she had seen of a smile for days. ‘Undressing me, wife? I warn you, it is a waste of effort just now.’

Is he flirting again? Impossible. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, a drab creature with a lumpy figure, a blotchy complexion and a frightful gown, next to Grant’s elegant good looks. Mocking her was more likely. ‘Stand up. I am not going to clamber about on the bed.’

He stood, meekly enough, while she reached up to push the coat from his shoulders. She was slightly above average height for a woman, but he was larger than she had realised, now she was standing so close. No wonder he had lifted her so easily. She found herself a little breathless. Fortunately the coat, like the boots, was comfortable country wear and did not require a shoehorn to lever off. The fine white linen of his shirt clung to his arms, defining the musculature. He had stripped off his coat in the bothy, she recalled vaguely. Doubtless the other things she had to focus on had stopped her noticing those muscles. Ridiculously she felt the heat of a rising blush. Kate unbuttoned his waistcoat, pushed that off, then reached for his neckcloth.

Grant’s hand came up and covered her fingers as she struggled with the knot. She looked up and met his gaze, heavy-lidded, intent. ‘You have very lovely blue eyes,’ he murmured. ‘Why haven’t I noticed before?’

He was, it seemed, awake. Or part of him was, a sensual, masculine part she was not ready to consider, although something fundamentally feminine in her was certainly paying attention.

It is my imagination. He is beyond exhausted, too tired to be flirting. Certainly not flirting with me. Kate shot another glance at the mirror and resisted the urge to retort that at least there was something about her that he approved of.

‘I was quite right about you.’

‘What?’ she demanded ungrammatically as she tugged the neckcloth off with rather more force than necessary, pulling the shirt button free. The neck gaped open, revealing a vee of skin, a curl of dark hair. It looked…silky.

‘You have courage and determination.’

Kate began to fold up the length of muslin with concentration. ‘I am trying to get you to rest. What about that requires courage?’

‘You don’t know me.’ He sat down. ‘I might have a vicious temper. I might hit out at a wife who provoked me.’

‘I think I am a reasonable judge of character.’ She had wound the neckcloth into a tight knot around her own hand. Patiently, so she did not have to look at him, Kate began to unravel it. This close she could smell his skin, the herbal, astringent soap he used, the tang of ink on his hands, the faint musk that she recognised as male. But Grant smelt different, smelt of himself.

She walked to the dresser and placed the neckcloth on the top, distancing herself from the sudden, insane urge to step in close, lay her head on his chest, wrap her arms around the lean, weary body. Why? To comfort him perhaps, or because she wanted comfort herself, or perhaps a mixture of the two.

When she turned back Grant was lying down on top of the covers, still in shirt and breeches. He was deep, deep asleep. She stood looking down at him for a moment, studied the fine-drawn face relaxed into a vulnerability that took years off his age. How old was he? Not thirty-two or -three, as she had thought. Twenty-eight, perhaps. His hair flopped across his forehead, just as Charlie’s did, but she resisted the temptation to brush it back from the bruised skin. The long body did not stir when she laid a light blanket over him, nor when she drew the curtains closed slowly to muffle the rattle of the rings, nor when she made up the fire and drew the guard around it.

My husband is a disturbingly attractive man, she thought as she closed the jib door carefully behind her. Anna was crying in the dressing room, she could hear Jeannie soothing her.

‘Mama will be back soon, little one. Yes, she will, now don’t you fret.’

A husband, a stepson, a baby. Her family. She had a family when just days before all she had was a scheming brother who had always seen her as wilful and difficult and the babe inside her, loved already, but unknown.

Anna, Charlie, Grant. When her husband woke, refreshed, he would see her differently, realise he had a partner he could rely on. She owed him that, she owed Anna the opportunity to grow up happily here. The anxiety and the exhaustion had made her nervy, angry, but she must try to learn this new life, learn to fit in. As the pain of the funeral eased, she would be there for them all. Charlie would learn to like her, perhaps one day to love her. And somehow she would learn how to be a countess. She shivered. How could a countess stay out of the public eye?

When tomorrow comes, it will not seem so overwhelming, I’ll think of something. ‘Is that a hungry little girl I can hear? Mama’s coming.’

Chapter Six

Hunger woke Grant. One minute he had been fathoms down, the next, awake, alert, conscious of an empty stomach and silence. Gradually the soft sounds of the household began to penetrate. The subdued crackle of the fire, someone trudging past in the snow, the distant sound of light, racing feet and the heavier tread of an adult in pursuit. Charlie exercising his long-suffering tutor, no doubt. Close at hand an infant began to cry, then stopped. Anna. I have a daughter. And a wife.

There was daylight between the gap in the curtains, falling in a bright snow-reflecting bar across the blanket someone had draped over his legs. Grant pushed the hair out of his eyes, winced and sat up, too relaxed to tug the bell pull and summon food and hot water.

Now, today, he must take up the reins of the earldom. That was perhaps the least of the duties looming before him. He had known for nearly twenty years, ever since his father died, that he would inherit. His grandfather had run a tight ship, but had taught Grant, shared decisions as he grew older, explained his thinking, given him increasing responsibilities. There were no mysteries to discover about the estates, the investments or the tenants and he had inherited an excellent bailiff and solicitor along with the title.

Charlie was going to be all right, given time and loving attention. Which left Kate. His new wife. What had he been thinking of, to marry her out of hand like that? She was certainly in deep trouble, all alone with a new baby and no means of support, but he could have found her a cottage somewhere on one of the estates, settled some money on her. Forgotten her.

His grandfather had been fretting himself into a state over Grant’s first marriage. Blaming himself for ever introducing Grant to Madeleine Ellmont, worrying that Grant was lonely, that Charlie had no mother, that the future of the earldom relied on a healthy quiverful of children. So much so that Grant had come to hate the house that had always been his home. But he could have lied to him, made up a charming and eligible young woman whom he was about to propose to, settled the old man’s worries that way.

What had prompted that impetuous proposal when he already knew his grandfather must be beyond caring about his marital state? Something about Kate had told him he could trust her, that she was somehow right. He had glimpsed it again yesterday when he had looked into her eyes and seen a spark there that had caught his breath for an instant.

A clock struck ten. Lord, he’d slept more than twelve hours. Grant leaned out of bed and yanked the bell pull. He had to somehow get everything right with Kate. She was unsettled to discover she was a countess with a stepson and that was understandable. He had an edgy feeling that he had disconcerted her when she was helping him to undress. He kept forgetting that while she might be a mother she seemed quite sheltered, not very experienced. What had he said? Nothing out of line, he hoped. For the first time he wondered about Anna’s father and just what that love affair had been—a sudden moment of madness, a lengthy, illicit relationship, or…

‘You rang, my lord?’ said Giles the footman.

Grant frowned at him for a second. It took some getting used to, being my lord now. ‘Hot water, coffee. Ask Cook to send up some bacon, sausage… Everything. She’ll know.’

When the water came he washed and then shaved himself while Giles found him clean linen and laid out plain, dark clothes. That was something else to add to the list, a valet.

When he tapped on the jib door and went through into Kate’s suite he found her in the sitting room, the baby in the crib by her side, her hands full of a tangle of fine wool. She was muttering what sounded like curses under her breath.

‘Good morning. Cat’s cradles?’

‘Oh!’ She dropped the wool and two needles fell out of it. ‘Mrs Havers, the housekeeper, brought me this wool and the knitting needles. She thought I might like to make a cot blanket, which was very thoughtful of her. I didn’t like to tell her I haven’t tried to knit since I was six.’ She grimaced at the tangle. ‘And tried was the correct word, even then. Did you need me, my lord?’

‘Grant, please. I came to see how you are and to thank you for persuading me into bed yesterday. I had gone beyond being entirely rational on the subject.’ There was colour up over her cheeks and he remembered making some insinuating comment about luring him into bed. Damn.

‘I hope you feel better this morning.’ She bent her head over the knitting once more, catching up the dropped stitches. ‘Charlie was up and about quite early, testing the bounds of his tutor’s patience. He seems a pleasant young man, Mr Gough.’

‘He’s the younger brother of a friend from university. I thought he would be a good choice as a first tutor—he has plenty of energy and Charlie seems to have taken to him.’

Kate picked up the wool and began to wind it back into a ball, her gaze fixed on her hands. ‘You slept well?’

‘Yes, excellently. How is Anna this morning?’

Grant sat down and retrieved a knitting needle from the floor as Kate answered. He might as well order the teapot to be brought and some fancy biscuits—this seemed like a morning call, complete with stilted, meaningless polite chat, achieving nothing.

‘Tomorrow, I intend going down to London. I must present myself at the House of Lords, the College of Heralds and at Court.’ He was escaping.

‘Oh.’ She set down the wool and sat up in the chair as though bracing herself. ‘I am sorry, I had not realised we would be leaving so soon. I am not certain I feel up to the journey yet.’

Surely that was not panic he saw in her eyes? He shook his head and realised Kate had taken that as a refusal to listen to her objection.

‘But…if we must, may we stop in Newcastle on the way? Then I can buy a respectable gown or two to tide me over.’ She looked around, determined, it seemed, to obey his wishes. ‘Where have Jeannie and Wilson got to? I am sure we can be ready in time.’

‘There is no need for you to disturb yourself. I had no intention of dragging you away. I will take Charlie and Gough with me, I don’t want to leave the boy without me yet. They can come back on the mail after a few weeks, once I am certain he is all right.’ Kate closed her eyes for a moment and he felt a jab of conscience at not realising how exhausted she must be. ‘When you feel up to it you will find Newcastle will serve for all your needs while you require only mourning clothes.’

‘Very well. As you wish, my lord.’ Kate picked up the wool and needles again with a polite smile that seemed to mask something deeper than relief. ‘And you will send Charlie back, you say?’

‘The moment I am certain he doesn’t need me. In the longer term I will be too occupied with business to give him the company he needs and the house and servants will be unfamiliar to him. He will be better here, where he feels secure. I will send for him again after a month or two—travelling long distances will be no hardship for him, he’ll find it an adventure—but I want him based here.’

‘Of course. As you think best. I can see that London might not be a good place for a small boy in the longer term if you cannot be with him most of the time.’

Grant told himself he should be pleased to have such a conformable wife, such an untemperamental, obliging one. Perversely, he felt decidedly put out. Through yesterday’s fog of tiredness he seemed to recall the sparkle that temper had put in Kate’s eyes, the flush on her cheeks, the stimulus of a clash of wills. Women were moody after childbirth, he knew that. This placidity was obviously Kate’s natural character.

‘Grant?’ She was biting her lip now. ‘Grant, will you put a notice about the marriage in the newspapers? Only, I wish you would not. I feel so awkward about things…’

Newspaper announcements had been the last thing on his mind, but he could see she was embarrassed. ‘No, I won’t. An announcement of the birth, yes, but it will give no indication of the date of the marriage. “To the Countess of Allundale, a daughter.” All right?’ Kate nodded and he hesitated, concerned at how pale she had gone. Then she smiled and he told himself he was imagining things. ‘If you’ll excuse me, my dear, I have a great deal to do.’ She would no doubt be delighted to see the back of him—and why should it be otherwise?

May 5, 1820

Home. Warmth on his back, clean air in his lungs, the sun bathing the green slopes of the Tyne Valley spread out before him. Grant stood in his stirrups to stretch, relishing the ache of well-exercised muscles. However ambiguous his feelings about Abbeywell, he had been happy here once and perhaps he could be again, if only he could blank out his memories and find some sort of peace with his new wife.

His staff had obviously thought he was out of his mind to decide to ride from London to Northumberland instead of taking a post-chaise, but he knew exactly what had motivated him. This had been a holiday from responsibility, from meetings and parties, from political negotiating and social duty. And a buffer between the realities and reason of London and the ghosts that haunted this place.

If he was honest, it had also been a way of delaying his return to his new wife and facing up to exactly what his impulse on that cold Christmas Day had led to.

‘I like her,’ Charlie had pronounced on being questioned when he came on a month’s visit to the London house in March. But he was too overexcited from his adventurous trip on the mail coach with Mr Gough to focus on things back in Northumberland. He wanted to talk to his papa, to go with him to the menagerie, to see the soldiers and the Tower. And Astley’s again, and…

‘You get on together all right?’ Grant had prompted.

‘Of course. She doesn’t fuss and she lets me play with Anna, who is nice, although she’s not much fun yet. May we go to Tatt’s? Papa, please?’

Doesn’t fuss. Well, that would seem to accord with Kate’s letters. One a week, each precisely three pages long in a small, neat hand. Each contained a scrupulous report on Charlie’s health and scholastic progress, a paragraph about Anna—she can hold her head up, she can copy sounds, she can throw her little knitted bunny—and a few facts about the house and estate. Millie in the kitchen has broken her ankle, the stable cat caught the biggest rat anyone had seen and brought it into the kitchen on Sunday morning and Cook dropped the roast, it has rained for a week solidly…

They were always signed Your obedient wife, Catherine Rivers, each almost as formalised and lacking in emotion as Gough’s reports on Charlie or his bailiff’s lengthy letters about estate business. And never once did she ask to come to London or reproach him for leaving her alone.

He replied, of course, sending a package north weekly, with a long letter for Charlie, a note for Gough, answers to Wilkinson’s estate queries. And there would always be a letter one page long for Kate, with the kind of gossip that Madeleine, his first wife, had expected. What the royal family were doing, what the latest society scandal was—omitting the crim. con. cases, naturally—the latest fads in hem lengths and bonnets as observed in Hyde Park. Signed Your affct. husband, Grantham Rivers.

The parkland rolled before him like a welcome carpet and the road forked, the right hand to the house, the left to the rise crowned with the mausoleum his great-grandfather had built in the 1750s. The chestnut gelding was trotting along the left-hand way before Grant was conscious of applying the reins. No rush, it was only just noon, no one was expecting him to arrive on any particular day.

The classical monument sat perfectly on its hillock, turning the view into a scene in an Arcadian painting. It was a Greek temple with its portico facing south, its basement full of the ancestors his great-grandfather had removed from the church vault, its inner walls made with niches for the future generations of Rivers. ‘So we can admire the view,’ the first earl had reportedly announced. ‘I’m damned if I’m spending eternity in that damp vault with some dullard of a preacher sermonising on top of me.’ The countess of the day had had mild hysterics at the sentiment and had been ignored and now she, too, shared the prospect.

Grant tied the gelding to a ring on the rear wall of the building and strolled round to the front. There were stone benches set under the portico and it would be good to rest there awhile and think about his grandfather.

The sound of laughter stopped him in mid-stride. He recognised Charlie’s uninhibited shrieks, but there was a light, happy laugh he did not recognise at all. He walked on, his boots silent on the sheep-cropped turf, and stopped again at the corner.

A rug was spread out on the grassy flat area in front of the temple steps and a woman in a dark grey gown was sitting on it, her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes shaded by a wide straw hat as she watched Charlie chasing a ball. An open parasol was lying by her side.

‘Maman, look!’ Charlie hurled the ball high, then flung himself full length to catch it.

The woman clapped, the enthusiasm of her applause tipping her hat back off her head to roll away down the slope. Long brown hair, the colour of milky coffee, glossy in the sunlight, tumbled free from the confining pins and she laughed. ‘Catch my hat, Charlie!’

Maman? Grant started forward as Charlie caught the hat, turned and saw him. He rushed uphill shrieking, ‘Papa! Papa! Look, Maman—Papa’s home.’

The woman swung round on the rug as Charlie thudded into Grant, his hard little head butting into his stomach. He scooped him up, tucked him under his arm and strode down to her. She tilted her head back, sending the waves of hair slithering like unfolding silk and giving him an unimpeded view of an oval face, blue eyes, a decided chin and pink lips open in surprise.

‘My…my lord, we did not expect to see you for another day at least.’ Her face lost its colour, her relaxed body seemed to tighten in on itself.

Kate? Of course it is Kate, but… He did something about his own dropped jaw, gave himself a mental shake and managed to utter a coherent sentence. ‘I made good time.’ He set Charlie on his feet. ‘Maman?’

‘Stepmamas are in fairy stories and they are always wicked. So I asked Mr Gough for the words for mama in lots of languages and we looked them up and I chose maman. Maman likes it,’ his son assured Grant earnestly. ‘She said it was elegant.’

‘Will you not sit down?’ It was extraordinary how it was possible to sound quite calm outwardly when her insides were in a jumble of feelings, the overriding one of which was confusion. Kate gestured towards the open basket and managed what she hoped was a welcoming smile. ‘Do have some luncheon. We have enough food to withstand a siege. Charlie, as always, assured Cook that we might be lost in the woods for days. We never are, but Cook does not like to take the risk.’

When in doubt when dealing with a man, feed the beast, her mother had always said with a chuckle. Kate kept her tone serious and was rewarded by the slight upward tilt of one corner of Grant’s mouth. He had a sense of humour, then. It had not been possible to detect it in his dutiful letters, which had not been made any less dry by the fact they contained nothing but gossip. Presumably that was all wives were supposed to be interested in.

Wives, of course, were perfectly capable of reading the news-sheets and keeping informed that way, although that simple fact did not seem to occur to men. Her brother, Henry, had always been amazed when she revealed an opinion on anything from income tax to child labour and he firmly believed that thinking led to weakening of the feminine brain. Kate pushed away the resentment and watched her husband as he moved round to drop to the rug at her side and discovered Anna lying under the parasol, kicking her legs and chewing on a bone ring.

Grant reached over and tickled her and the resentment retreated some more. He was good with the children, she must remember that.

‘She has grown and she looks to be thriving. As do you,’ he added. ‘I scarcely recognised you.’

From the way Grant shut his mouth with a snap he realised that was a less than tactful remark. Instead of saying so Kate wrestled her hair into a twist and jammed the hat back on top. ‘Babies tend to grow in the natural course of things. But she is very well, as am I.’ She sent him a considering, sideways glance, making sure he saw it. ‘You look much better than I remembered.’

That very forward remark obviously caught him by surprise. Grant tossed his low-crowned hat aside and shifted round to look directly at her, eyes narrowing. ‘Thank you. I think.’

She had known him to be a good-looking man when she married him, but not this attractive, with a London gloss on his hair and clothes, his face tanned from his long ride north. ‘In December you looked haggard, bruised and exhausted. You were recovering from a blow to the head and you were grieving,’ Kate said with a slight shrug. His eyes moved down to her breasts as she moved and she caught her breath at the answering flare of heat in her belly. The fact that she had a figure obviously interested him. No doubt it was the transformation of her bosom; men could be very predictable.

It was nearly five months since Anna’s birth now. She had passed through exhaustion to a conviction that when she felt stronger she never wanted a man to touch her again. After all, her first, and only, experience had not been so pleasurable as to have her yearning for more.

And that comfortable state had lasted for three months until the moment when she had looked up from the dinner table to see Grant’s portrait hanging on the opposite wall, just as it had since the day she arrived. It had been part of the decoration of the house, hardly regarded, but that evening she had felt a startling stab of attraction as she met the direct green gaze. The feeling had been so visceral, so unashamedly physical, that she’d choked on her fish terrine and Mr Gough had rushed round the table to offer her water.

Since the arrival of Grant’s letter announcing his return she had been in an unseemly state of confusion, alarm and anticipation. This was her husband—and husbands expected their rights.

Chapter Seven

‘After all, I was in the process of giving birth,’ Kate continued calmly, hoping the frankness of her words accounted for the heat in her cheeks. The thought of Grant exercising his husbandly rights made her positively breathless. ‘It is hardly surprising that we both now appear to be tolerably well looking in comparison. Of course, I could tell that you were a well-favoured man, even then, but it must be a relief for you to discover that I am not quite as bracket-faced as you feared.’

‘It is difficult to know how to reply to that.’ Grant was not used to being left at a loss for words, she could tell. Possibly he was slightly flattered, although he must be accustomed to being regarded as good-looking. Possibly also he was feeling a trifle awkward about letting her see what he had thought of her before.

‘There is no need to say anything.’ She was not a conventional beauty, she never had been, but she thought that these days she looked at least tolerable, and, if Grant now thought so, too, she was content with that.

‘I have been away a long time, longer than I intended.’ He had decided to get all the apologising over at once, it seemed. Kate wondered if the length of his absence had anything to do with his mental image of his new wife. Had he escaped to London and the arms of a beautiful mistress? As apologies went, it was not very effusive, more a statement of fact than of regret.

‘We have managed very well and you were a most regular correspondent.’ Not that I understand you any better now than before you left. And you are a man, not a saint, so I must not feel jealous of a mistress—she is only to be expected. But if you take one up here, one that I know about, that will be a different matter. The stab of jealousy was unexpected and she diverted it into a vicious cut at the pastry in front of her. ‘Would you care for a slice of raised pie?’ she enquired to cover the impulse to snap out a demand to know all about this theoretical other woman. ‘It is chicken and ham.’

‘Papa, are you home for long?’ Charlie had been sitting almost on his father’s feet, obviously on the point of bursting with the effort to Be Good and not interrupt the adults.

‘For the summer. Ough!’ Grant fell back on the rug under the impact of Charlie’s flying leap and hug. ‘You are too big for jumping on your poor father. Big enough to come out with me and start learning about the estate, I think, provided you keep up your lessons to Mr Gough’s satisfaction. Now, sit quietly and eat your picnic while I talk to your stepmama.’ Grant settled the boy between them and against her side Kate could feel her husband’s encircling arm and the child’s skinny little body quivering with happiness like an overexcited puppy.

The arm was warm and it was tempting to lean into it, to feel the muscled strength braced to support her. Kate sat up straight and filled a plate for Grant from the picnic basket.

‘Thank you. Have you heard from your brother yet?’ he asked as he took the food from her.

‘No. I have not written to him and I would, of course, have mentioned it in my letters if I had. I do not want him to know of this marriage. I do not want him to know where I am. To be perfectly frank, we were not close. We did not part on good terms and it would be awkward…’ She’d scoured the newspapers daily, looking for the arrest or trial of Sir Henry Harding, baronet, for blackmail. But perhaps aristocrats had other ways of dealing with the potentially explosive matter of extortion. She shivered. But there had been no notice of Henry’s death, either.

‘Awkward to have him asking questions about our marriage?’

She nodded, grateful that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. She did not want Henry to know about her marriage because, beside him embroiling her any deeper in his schemes, she had no idea how he would react. At best, he would attempt to borrow money from his new brother-in-law. At worst, he could cause the most dreadful scandal and she could not inflict that on Grant.

‘I would be much happier if you did not make contact with him.’ And find out who Anna’s father is and realise just how I came to lose my virginity to the man and became an accomplice in blackmail. Grant was the kind of principled gentleman who would never allow such dishonesty to go unpunished, whatever the scandal. Let sleeping dogs lie…

Grant shrugged. ‘We are going to have to deal with him sooner or later. In the meantime, are you opposed to entertaining a small house party? It had not occurred to me to propose it, but now I see you looking—’

‘More the thing?’ Kate suggested, swallowing the hurt. Had he really thought to shut her away up here, an unpaid housekeeper and guardian for his son, simply because he considered her plain and awkward? Now, it seemed, he did not fear she would embarrass him in front of his friends. The fact that she had welcomed the seclusion was neither here nor there.

‘More rested,’ Grant supplied smoothly. ‘And from your letters it sounds as though you have the household well in hand.’

‘Your staff are well chosen and well trained. Once they had accepted that I really was your wife, and not some stray you had picked up on the moors, they have proved most cooperative.’ Not that she would have stood for any nonsense. She had been used to helping run a small household, so she knew the principles, and she was all too aware that if she did not secure the respect and loyalty of the staff of this much larger one right from the start, then she never would. It was another mark in Grant’s favour, the loyalty and affection they showed for him.

‘How small a house party?’ she enquired, leaning away from him to give Anna a quick kiss and to hide the uncertainty that she could manage the sort of gathering an earl might hold. Provided it was here, on what had become her own turf, she was not too anxious.

‘No more than three close friends of mine, potentially with partners. I’ve had enough formal socialising in London to last me several months. Charlie, do you remember Lord Weybourn?’

‘Uncle Alex?’

‘Yes. He was married in January. I thought to ask him and his wife to stay. And, if they are still in the country, Lord Avenmore and Lord Edenbridge. They are old friends,’ he added for Kate’s benefit. ‘The two bachelors might bring their unmarried sisters, perhaps, to balance out the men.’

‘That sounds delightful.’ Kate took a bread roll from the basket, then sat with it in her hands, wondering why she had picked it up. The longer Grant sat beside her, the more her appetite deserted her. It was nerves, that was all. She was happy that he was back, for Charlie’s sake if nothing else—only, there was a hollow feeling of anticipation, as though the air had been sucked out of her lungs. This was her husband and he was going to expect to begin a normal married life, with all that entailed. Part of that hollowness was apprehension, but a good part was excitement and she had been making herself face that ever since the arrival of the letter announcing his return.

She put the bread roll back untasted, handed Charlie an apple turnover and smiled as he ran off, mouth full, to retrieve his ball. Beside her Grant was silent and she sought for small talk to fill the void. ‘It has been…quiet. I am glad you are back. The children are very absorbing, of course.’

‘But they are not adults. You have been lonely.’ When she murmured agreement he asked, ‘Have none of our neighbours called?’

‘Dr Meldreth and his wife and the vicar and his sister, that is all. Please, do not make too much of it. I am in mourning, after all, and in the country people do observe that very rigorously. I see them in church on Sunday, naturally, and I usually dine with Mr Gough.’

‘Now I am back I will visit all our neighbours, let the ladies know we are not in strict mourning any longer. You should get any number of calls within days.’

Charlie’s voice floated down from the portico of the mausoleum. ‘…and now Papa’s back I will help him with the estate, just like he helped you, Great-Grandpapa. You’ll be proud of me when I do that, I expect, Mama.’

‘What the devil?’ Grant swung round, sending the lemonade jug rocking. ‘Who is he talking to? My grandfather, his mother? Is the child delusional?’

‘Of course not.’ Kate grabbed his arm as he began to get to his feet. Grant shot her a frowning look, but settled back down beside her when she did not relax her grip. ‘He missed his great-grandfather, so we started coming down here so that he could talk to him. And then he realised that his mama was here, too. He understands that we do not know what happens after death and he doesn’t think he is talking to ghosts or anything unhealthy like that. But it comforts him, helps him to sort out his feelings. Rather like writing a diary, I suppose.’ Kate came up on her knees beside Grant, her hand on the unyielding arm braced to push him to his feet. ‘Did I do wrong? He is not at all morbid about it and this is a lovely place. A peaceful place, where he can remember happy times.’

‘He cannot remember his mother, he never really knew her, she died when he was only just two.’ Grant stayed where he was, but the tension radiated off him. Had he loved his first wife so much that he could not bear any mention of her? But that was not what Dr Meldreth had implied. The staff in the house acted and spoke as though Charlie’s mother was a grief that could not be spoken about, becoming thin-lipped and awkward if Kate made any reference to her. There were no portraits, not even in Charlie’s room.

‘He says he remembers her scent and the fact that she always wore blue, but that is all. I have no idea whether it is accurate, but it helps him to have that faint image. He is certain that she was beautiful.’

‘She was.’ Grant’s voice softened. ‘Blonde and blue-eyed, which is why she favoured blue in her dress. She always wore jasmine scent and on a warm evening it lingered in the air like the ghost of incense…’ Kate closed her eyes at the hint of pain beneath the reminiscent tone. ‘Charlie would do well to forget she ever existed,’ he said and turned so his back was to the little temple.

‘Grant!’ Kate stared at him, then scooped up Anna as the baby began to cry, as unsettled by his abruptly harsh tone as she was.

‘She was a disaster as a mother.’

And a disaster as a wife? ‘He need not know that,’ Kate said fiercely.

‘Of course not, what do you take me for?’

‘I do not know. I do not know you. But he needs the confidence of knowing he had a mother who loved him, even if she was not very good at it in your eyes. What does it matter if you do not like it, if it is best for Charlie?’

‘Damn it, Kate. You presume to lecture me on my own child?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’ She glared back at him over the top of Anna’s bonneted head, aware that she was bristling like a stable cat defending her kittens. Then she saw the darkness in Grant’s eyes, the memory of goodness knew what past miseries. ‘I am sorry, but I am his stepmother and you left him with me to look after. He is still only a little boy, not ready for harsh truths.’ She rocked the baby, trying to soothe her. ‘What did she do that was so unforgivable?’

Grant got to his feet in one fast movement, a controlled release of pent-up tension. ‘I am sorry, but I have no intention of raking over old history. Madeleine is in the past and there is nothing you need to know.’ He bent to pick up his hat. ‘If you will excuse me, Kate, I will ride on to the house and take Charlie with me. I assume a footman is coming out in the gig to collect you and bring the basket back?’

‘Yes, I expect him very soon.’ Kate was glad of Anna grizzling in her arms, demanding her attention. She did not want to look into those shadowed eyes and see his anger with her, or his pain over his beautiful, lost wife.

He called to Charlie and the boy came running to be hoisted up into the saddle in front of his father. Grant gave him the reins. ‘Wave goodbye to your stepmama.’

When the sound of hooves died away and Charlie’s excited chatter faded amongst the trees, Kate fed and changed Anna, packed away the baby things in one basket and the remains of the picnic in the other and got to her feet, too restless to wait for the footman and the gig.

She had to think about Grant, but not about what would happen that night. If she began to imagine that, then she would be in more of a state of nerves than a virgin on her wedding night. The virgin might have a little theoretical knowledge, but Kate knew exactly what would happen and the thought of being in Grant’s bed made her mind dizzy and her body ache.

She had lain with Jonathan just once and she had believed herself in love with him, a delusion she now knew was born out of ignorance, a desperation to get away from home and the lures of an accomplished rake. And the experience had been a sadly disappointing one, even though she had not truly understood what to expect. But she hardly knew Grant, the man, at all, he had never so much as kissed her hand and she was most certainly not tipsy with moonlight and champagne. And yet, just the thought of him made her breath come short and an ache, somewhere between fear and anticipation, form low down. Goodness knew how she had managed a rational conversation with him appearing like that.

Kate tucked Anna more snugly into her little blanket, settled her into the folds of her shawl to make a sling and began to walk back to the house. It would take almost half an hour with her arms full of her wriggling, chubby baby. Time enough to think about something other than how long Grant’s legs had looked, stretched out on the rug, how the ends of his hair had turned golden brown in the sunlight.

Time, in fact, to consider that locked door on the other side of Grant’s suite of rooms in the light of what he had said about Madeleine, the beautiful wife who had been such a bad mother and who had died in a fire.

She had realised almost from the beginning that the forbidden suite must have been her predecessor’s rooms. She could understand that the chambers would hold difficult memories for Grant, but even so, it was surely long past the time when they should have been opened up, aired, redecorated and put to use. What would happen when Charlie was old enough to be curious about the locked door? It was unhealthy to make a mystery out of his mother like that, and if he ever discovered that was where she had died, he might well have nightmares about it.

None of the keys on her chatelaine fitted the lock and all the servants denied having the right one, either. Eventually Grimswade told her that neither his late lordship nor his young lordship had wanted the rooms opened. ‘The earl holds the only key, my lady,’ he told her, his gaze fixed at a point over her head.

Since then Kate had tried hard not to allow the locked room to become a Bluebeard’s chamber in her imagination, applying rigorous common sense to keep her own nightmares at bay. She had found her way around the house without looking at the door if she could help it, she had asked no further questions of the staff, but it refused to be forgotten. There were times when she seriously considered picking the lock with a bent hairpin, or seeing if a slender paperknife would trip the catch, then told herself to not even think about something so unseemly.

Now she wondered just what Madeleine’s crimes had been. A disaster as a mother. That, somehow, did not make sense. Surely she could not have beaten the child—neither Grant nor his grandfather would have allowed her unsupervised access if they feared violence. And being a distant and cold mother was nothing unusual amongst the nobility, Kate knew. Many a child was raised almost entirely by servants without anyone accusing the parents of being a disaster.

The only explanation Kate could think of was that she was a failure as a wife and therefore morally unfit to be a mother. Had she taken a lover—had Grant found them together in her bedchamber? It was an explanation, but it was difficult to imagine Grant being cuckolded. In fact, her mind refused to produce an image of a more attractive alternative who might have tempted his wife to stray.

‘Which is very shallow of me,’ she admitted to Anna. The baby stared back at her with wide green eyes. ‘Grant is intelligent, good-looking, and he was the heir to an earldom when she married him. But good looks and position are not everything. If Madeleine had found her soulmate…’

Then she should have resisted temptation. Madeleine was married, she had made vows, she had a child. Which is easy enough for me to say. Despite being a well-brought-up, respectable young lady, I gave my virtue easily enough. Of course, having a scheming brother who put her in the way of a man who could be trusted to yield to temptation when it was offered and who could not afford a scandal had helped her along the path to ruination. Her becoming pregnant was, as far as Henry was concerned, the perfect gilding on his plan to blackmail her lover. What if Jonathan came back now, walked around that bend in the path ahead?

Kate watched the bend approach. No one appeared around it, of course, least of all the rakish Lord Baybrook. And if he did, he would not be coming with protestations of undying love, with explanations of how she had entirely misunderstood his flat refusal to marry her when Henry had confronted him two months later, after she had been forced to confess her predicament.

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 the 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.’

‘Society can be like that, I find. The prospect of gossip and scandal sharpens even the most respectable tongue.’ He shrugged. ‘But it plays into our hands. They’ll spread the tale and provided no one has the effrontery to demand to know the date of the wedding it will soon become of no matter, and even if some conclude that we anticipated the wedding, no one will hold that against you. It will soon be old history.’

‘They won’t hold it against me because too many of them have done the same, no doubt.’ His lips twitched at the tartness of her tone. ‘Did you tell people who I am?’ she asked, trying not to sound as worried as she was. ‘And what is supposed to be the reason for your grandfather’s disapproval?’

‘I mentioned that you were from a respectable minor gentry family in Suffolk.’ She managed not to let out a long sigh of relief. ‘The fact that your father was merely a country squire without connections or an established place in society was sufficient explanation for Grandfather to oppose the match. The old man was a product of his generation—nothing less than the daughter of an earl, and one bringing a substantial dowry and influence with her into the bargain, was good enough for the Earl of Allundale.’

‘I see.’ Kate unpicked the knot she had just set, which had become unaccountably tangled. So presumably Madeleine had been Lady Madeleine, even though she was married to a mere Mr Rivers.

‘That was his view,’ Grant said. ‘I do not share it. Having married a lady with just those qualifications as my first wife, I know all too well they are no guarantee of anything. However, it makes a perfectly plausible reason.’

‘Of course,’ she agreed. And the old earl was quite correct—what do I bring to this marriage? We could have a good marriage, as long as I can keep my secrets, but if they become public knowledge, it will make a scandal that would rebound on Grant and on the children. She was pleased at how composed she sounded.

‘Kate, you must write to your brother soon,’ Grant said.

‘No. I will not write to him. I do not want him knowing anything of my marriage.’

‘Kate, why ever not? I would have asked you for his direction and done so myself if I had realised you would neglect to do so. I need to talk to him about the settlements,’ Grant said. ‘And I assume he is holding money for you that will be released on your marriage. I seem to recall you saying something.’

Did I? How foolish. ‘There is virtually nothing. I do not want to make a fuss about it. He has control until I marry with his approval, that is all.’

‘You think he will object to me? He may not know me by reputation, but he is hardly likely to turn up his nose at an earl.’

‘He would be delighted with an earl,’ Kate said drily. ‘But he will be unpleasant. If you must have the truth, Henry has an expensive wife and ambitions beyond his means. He is quite unscrupulous.’ That was all true enough. ‘If he discovers who I have married, he would ask to borrow money—which I doubt you would ever see again. To encourage him to sponge off you would not be right.’

That was harsh, but it was a mild version of the truth. Henry would hold the scandal of Anna’s parentage over Grant, try to entangle him in that mire. He would get a surprise if he tried it, she thought grimly. Grant would probably throttle him. But then there was the blackmail. What if Grant thought he must inform the magistrate? He was an honest, straightforward man. There was no way he could ignore it, surely? Then he would be smeared by association, by his marriage.

‘He is my brother-in-law. I would not like to be unreasonable. Do not sound so apologetic, my dear. Brothers-in-law are almost expected to hang on one’s coat-tails.’ The tolerant amusement in Grant’s voice was no help. ‘Besides, there is the matter of the settlements, which I really should discuss with him. You should have what is yours.’

‘It is very little, a few hundreds.’

‘Settle it on Anna if you do not want it. It is always a mistake to neglect financial matters, however minor.’

Kate wondered suddenly just how wealthy Grant was. There was no stinting about the household, the land was obviously in good heart. But that might simply be because he was expending all he had on keeping things just so. Now, on top of the risk of her dubious brother touching him for loans, which would never be repaid, she had saddled him with the expense of a wife and a child. She had removed his opportunity for a much more advantageous marriage and all she could offer were the skills of any competent mistress of a country house.

For how much longer could she put Grant off about contacting Henry? Or could she add to her deceit, tell Grant that she had written to her brother, but that he had cut the connection?

But then Grant would still want to pursue her money for her and, she suspected, he would try to heal the breach. And behind those fears was the lurking terror that sooner or later he would ask her to accompany him to London, take her place beside him in society as his hostess. Inwardly she quailed. A country mouse contemplating life amidst the birds of prey of fashionable London could not have felt as inadequate. She could not even dance the waltz, Kate reflected with a descent into gloom. The faint smile felt as though it was pinned to her face. She would manage if she had to. Somehow. But if Lord Baybrook was there…

‘Kate, is something wrong?’ Grant had obviously noticed the artificiality of her expression.

‘No, of course not.’ She made the effort to smile with her eyes when all she felt was queasiness.

‘There is no need to be anxious.’ There was something warm in his expression, some meaning in his tone. Kate stared back, puzzled, as he added, ‘About tonight, I mean.’

He is talking about bed, about making love. Does he mean not to be anxious because he will come to me…or that he will not? I hope he comes. There was no hiding the truth from herself that she was attracted to this man, this stranger-husband. She felt the blush rising up her face and with it the shame that Grant would see her eagerness, think her a wanton. Or perhaps he would welcome that, expect her to be very experienced and to possess sophisticated skills in bed.

It was difficult to understand this feeling. After all, her skills were non-existent and she had no idea what would be involved in sophisticated lovemaking.

‘I am not anxious about tonight,’ she said, rather too loudly.

‘Dinner is served, my lady.’ Grimswade somehow managed to sound even more smoothly efficient and bland than normal. When had he appeared in the doorway behind her? Had he heard? She wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer embarrassment. Henry always said that one should treat the servants as though they were furniture and would discuss anything and everything in front of them—from an embarrassing rash to his gaming losses.

‘Thank you, Grimswade.’ She found a smile for the butler as she began to rise to her feet, then almost jumped in surprise to find her husband by her side, his hand outstretched.

‘My dear.’

My dear. A conventional phrase, that is all. He means nothing by it. She put her fingertips on his wrist and resisted the urge to curl them around the strong tendons, to feel the jut of his wristbone. When she had seen him this morning her eyes had been drawn to his bare, tanned hands, a sharp contrast with her smaller, paler hands beside his on the rug. What would those long fingers look like on her body? How would they feel? Now she told herself that she could detect nothing through the fine kid of her evening gloves, not his body heat, not the pulse of his blood.

‘I do hope you like the new recipe for veal ragout Cook has been trying,’ Kate remarked as they walked through to the dining room. ‘It is an old family one I remembered.’ Discussing the food was utterly banal. He would think her so dull. But it was safe.

Giles the footman stepped forward to pull out her chair at the foot of the table for her, but Grant was before him. He pushed it in carefully as she sat, then laid one hand on her shoulder in a fleeting caress before taking his own place at the head of the long board. ‘I am certain that whatever you suggest will be delightful.’ That warmth was back in his eyes and behind it a question that had not been there before. Or perhaps a doubt.

Conscious of the attendant footmen, of Grimswade bringing the decanter to fill Grant’s wine glass, Kate closed her lips on the impulsive questions—What do you want of me? What do you expect of me?—and focused her attention on the dishes arrayed on the table. At least her husband would have no reason to complain of her supervision of the kitchen, whatever he felt about her presence in his bed.

Chapter Nine

Kate was nervous. That blush when he had mentioned tonight had not been the faint glow of anticipated pleasure, but the embarrassment or nerves that Grant might have expected from a virgin. But she was not untouched—the presence of little Anna was proof enough of that. So what was it? An aversion to him, or painful shyness? One would be easy enough to overcome, the other, less so.

‘Have you been dining here in lonely state every night?’ he asked, casting round for some innocuous topic to discuss in front of the servants. He could send them away, of course, but that might only aggravate whatever fears Kate was harbouring.

‘Usually I invite Mr Gough to join me. I find he is an intelligent conversationalist. Once a week we have an early supper with Charlie in the small dining room with all the leaves taken out of the table. He enjoys the grown-up treat.’

Grant felt a jab of something unpleasantly like jealousy and instantly regretted it. His wife had been lonely, Gough was a gentleman, intelligent and doubtless pleasant company, and he, too, was probably lonely and welcomed the opportunity for conversation.

But something in his expression must have betrayed that instinctive, possessive reaction. Kate bit her lip and glanced uneasily at the footmen as though expecting a rebuke in front of them.

‘An excellent idea,’ Grant said with casual approval. ‘My grandfather would dine with Gough when he did not have company visiting and often when he did. I am glad you had congenial adult companionship.’

‘We had a lot to discuss about Charlie’s lessons. Mr Gough follows your instructions carefully, of course, but there is so much day-to-day detail. I hope you do not feel I am encroaching?’

It was a question, not an apology, and Grant was careful to keep his own tone light. ‘Certainly not. You are his stepmama, after all, as I am sure you would have reminded me if I had objected to your involvement.’

Kate flushed up at that, but her voice was confident as she raised it to give an order. ‘Grimswade, that will be all. We will serve ourselves and ring when we require dessert.’

‘My lady.’ The butler gestured to the footmen and closed the door softly behind the last liveried back.

Kate put down her fork and fixed him with a direct gaze, compelling his attention. ‘My lord, I think we should be frank. I have a great deal of experience of being a daughter and a sister and of the limits of my authority and freedom in those roles. Since I have been here at Abbeywell I have gained several months’ worth of knowledge of how to run a large country house. But I have no experience of a husband, of the limits he will impose on my actions, of his expectations of me.’

Ah, so now the recriminations come. Grant chewed his mouthful of beef, swallowed and decided that dodging the issue would not help. ‘In effect you feel I abandoned you.’ He had done just that, but he was damned if he was going to justify himself. Which was a good thing, because he was not certain that he could. He had left Abbeywell because he knew, once he was not drugged with exhaustion and grief, that he could not bear to be there. Now he was going to have to make himself endure. He owed it to Charlie, to the estate and to his neglected wife.

Part of him had been running away from confronting what he had done by marrying a woman without the qualifications necessary for a countess. He was beginning to suspect he was wrong about that judgement, but confessing that he had believed it could only be deeply wounding to Kate.

‘You had a great deal to do in London, many responsibilities in connection with the earldom. I am not reproaching you, my lord.’ Her smile was sudden, vivid, and took him completely by surprise. ‘I merely explain my own…limitations.’

‘I wish you would use my given name.’ Grant smiled back, charmed, and realised he had never seen that open, uncomplicated smile from Kate before. She smiled at the children, at the servants, but never at him.

But why would she? He had hardly seen her except as a desperate woman in the throes of labour, or an exhausted one in its aftermath. Even that morning her smile had been polite and dutiful. But this expression transformed her. Strangely it did not enhance her beauty, as a smile usually did for a woman. Instead it emphasised the slight irregularity of her face, it crinkled up her blue eyes and showed the little gap between very white, otherwise even, front teeth. And yet…charmed was the only word for his reaction. This was a real woman, not a pretty, regimented society doll. A real woman he knew not at all.

‘I see no limitations, Kate. There is nothing we cannot deal with by a little discussion, an exchange of views, greater familiarity.’ He chose the final word deliberately.

That produced a blush that he had no difficulty interpreting as anything but one of sensual awareness. Kate’s lips were parted and she did not meet his gaze, but glanced up, above his head, blushed even more rosily and reached for her water glass.

Grant suppressed the instinctive movement to turn and look at the wall behind his chair. Of course, that was where his own portrait hung. So what was there about that to make her colour up? Unless she had spent every mealtime sitting just there, looking at his image and liking what she saw. He bit his lip to repress a grin that could only be unworthily smug. He was used to hearing himself described as a good-looking man, women seemed to like to flirt with him, but he felt no conceit about that. He looked like his grandfather at the same age, which was good fortune and no merit of his. He could feel some satisfaction at the appreciation shown by his lovers, however, because he was confident that was due to practice and an interest in his partner’s pleasure as well as his own, rather than to heredity.

His first wife had been more prone to burst into tears or tantrums at the sight of him than to blush prettily. The marriage had been an arranged one and they had hardly known each other before it. Grant had come to the conclusion that Madeleine was simply averse to sex and hoped that he was not the cause, but that it was something inbuilt in her character. She had been stiff and unresponsive in bed from the first, informing him, when he had asked her what was the matter, that her mama had explained to her that she must endure her marital duty and that was what she was doing. Enduring. It was hard work being a sensitive and imaginative lover in the face of that. And then he had made the grave tactical error of getting her pregnant too soon…

Grant pushed away the memory and focused on the very different wife facing him down six foot of polished mahogany. It occurred to him that it would be a pleasant novelty to be wed to a woman who took an interest in the physical side of marriage. He allowed himself to smile and decided that Kate was decidedly flustered.

Slowly, slowly, don’t startle her, you are almost a stranger in her eyes, he reminded himself. Just because she showed sensual awareness did not mean that she was not shy. He must court this woman even though she was already his countess. ‘I hope you will always feel free to discuss any thoughts you have about Charlie. As for the household, it is yours to command, and if the allowances I give you for those expenses and your own expenditure are inadequate, I will certainly amend them.’

‘Thank you.’ Kate had recovered her composure, it seemed. She took a sip of wine. ‘It would be helpful to know when we might have regular discussions about day-to-day issues.’

‘Of course. Would around ten each morning suit you? I am usually back from my morning ride about then and the steward and estate manager come to see me after luncheon.’ She nodded, apparently happy with the proposal. ‘Of course, we will have much more time together to discuss more…intimate matters.’

The charming smile vanished, but the equally charming blush persisted. How far down did it go? Below the decorous dip of her black silk evening gown? Down far enough to tint those sweet curves with rose? Grant shifted in his chair, feeling again the lash of his own arousal. Slowly, slowly might be wise, but the seduction of his countess promised to be a leisurely pleasure.

Kate watched her husband’s face and tried to read the thoughts behind that handsome, intelligent surface. She suspected that he was clever enough to hide whatever emotions he did not want her to read, although the warmth in his gaze and the faint curve of his lips when that gaze strayed downwards from her face were less revealing of deep thoughts than of basic masculine instincts, that was certain.

She wanted him, although now the man was before her in the flesh and not simply as a fantasy fuelled by a two-dimensional image, that wanting was tinged again with apprehension. Kate reached for the silver bell that stood before her place. ‘Time for dessert, I think, my lord.’

One dark brow lifted.

‘In front of the servants I should not be too familiar, Grant,’ Kate said repressively and was rewarded by a fleeting, wicked smile that vanished into an expression of aristocratic calm when the footmen re-entered.

Somehow Kate’s increasingly fevered imagination had carried her directly from the dining table to the bedchamber and it came as a shock to see Grimswade setting the decanters on the sideboard when the dessert dishes were cleared, just as he always did when Mr Gough dined with her.

‘I will leave you to your port, my lord.’ She rose and Grant stood, too. She caught his reflection in the glass of the watercolour that hung by the door as she left and saw he was still on his feet, watching her. The glimpse of dark, shadowed eyes made her shiver deliciously.

Now what? Mr Gough would linger only long enough to drink one glass, more out of custom than pleasure, she suspected. Then he would join her for an hour, bringing journals with items he thought might interest her, or some written exercise of Charlie’s that he knew she would approve.

She had come to enjoy the harmless, companionable interludes that were such a pleasant novelty. Her brother had never scrupled to leave the ladies waiting for him if he had a male companion to talk to or when he found a female guest tiresome. Sometimes, he would not join his wife and sister at all, disappearing to a cockfight in the village or to join his cronies for a game of cards without as much as a by-your-leave.

Kate picked up her embroidery, regarded the unsteady line of French knots with dismay and began to unpick them.

‘If you scowl at that unfortunate piece of work much longer, it will scorch,’ a deep voice remarked from just behind her.

She jumped, drove the needle into the ball of her index finger and said a naughty word under her breath. She switched the glare to Grant, who moved, soft-footed, to stand in front of her.

‘You have pricked yourself. My fault for startling you.’ He hunkered down, the silk of his evening knee breeches straining tight over muscular thighs, and took the wounded hand in his. ‘Let me kiss it better.’

‘I— Oh!’ He lifted her hand, pressed his lips to the tiny bead of blood and then sucked the whole top joint of her finger into his mouth. Kate stared down at the fashionably barbered dark head bent over her hand, the wide shoulders in their blue superfine, the elegance of the man performing a small, insignificant, utterly indecent act.

Because it was indecent, she had not the slightest doubt of it. His fingers clasped lightly around her wrist, the ends over her pulse as if to monitor the effect he was having on her. She was shackled by the encircling grip as securely as if by iron manacles, because she could no more have moved her hand away than flown.

The sensitive tip of her finger was encased in the wet heat of Grant’s mouth. His tongue caressed the pad until the sting of the needle prick was lost in the soft touch. She could sense the sharp edge of his teeth, carefully kept from her flesh as gradually, so very gradually, he drew her finger into his mouth as far as the middle joint. The suction pulsed, moving it in and out, his tongue tip curled and the heat rose through her as she realised what this action mimicked.

She needed to move, to squirm in her chair and push him away, draw him closer. She needed—

Grant sat back and she jerked her hand back against her bodice, the damp finger leaving a mark on the silk for a moment. ‘Has that taken the sting away?’ His lids were half closed, his eyes dark, his parted lips a little moist.

As if he has been kissing me, she thought wildly. This is what he will look like when he holds me in his arms, when his body comes down over mine, pressing it into the bed. His naked body over mine, hot and hard and aroused.

Somehow she found the composure to murmur, ‘Perfectly, thank you’, as though he had merely dabbed at the little puncture with his handkerchief. ‘So careless of me. I might have got blood on the linen.’

Grant’s lids lifted, his lips closed as he smiled and he stood up, looming over her for a moment. Kate found her eye level was precisely right for her to see that whatever he said, however coolly he might smile at her and however steadily he got to his feet, he was aroused. Impressively, alarmingly, aroused. Just like my fantasies.

‘I think I will retire now.’ It was the instinct to escape, to be alone to come to terms with what his touch was doing to her, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she saw that Grant had interpreted them as an invitation, a direct response to what had just happened. Kate folded her embroidery into a careful square, put it into the sewing box and made herself rise with leisurely grace. Anything but let Grant see how excited and panicked he made her. Why she must hide it, she was not sure, because instinct told her he would welcome her awareness. It was pride, perhaps, or apprehension of her own limited experience disappointing him. Or was it fear that her own confused and heated fantasies would prove false and she would feel as let-down and unsatisfied as she had with Jonathan?

‘Goodnight, my… Goodnight, Grant.’

His crooked smile was teasing. ‘Goodnight, Kate.’

He doesn’t mean it as a farewell. He’ll come to my room, she told herself as she climbed the stairs and hurried to the nursery for Anna’s goodnight kiss and a quick word with Jeannie. Then to Charlie’s room, her fingers crossed that he would be asleep and there would be no battle over lights out. But he hardly stirred as she brushed the hair back from his forehead, kissed the smooth skin and pulled his tumbled covers back over his sprawled body.

Wilson, her maid, was already in Kate’s bedchamber, alerted by the downstairs staff. ‘The new lawn nightgown—’ Kate began, then saw that it was already laid out on the bed, its matching robe beside it. Of Kate’s usual comfortable plain cotton nightgown there was no sign. ‘You already have it,’ she observed lamely.

‘Yes, my lady. With his lordship being home, I assumed this would be the right one.’ The woman said it without the slightest hint of embarrassment. Apparently she took it as a matter of course that her master would visit his wife’s bedchamber and that her mistress would want to look her best.

And why shouldn’t she? Kate told herself, attempting to look as nonchalant as the maid about the fact she was preparing to receive her husband. She thinks we are an established married couple who have been separated for months, not two virtual strangers who have not even exchanged a kiss.

She submitted to the bath and the hair brush, made a choice at random from the array of scent bottles presented to her, rejected the robe and climbed into bed, wishing she had not read so many Gothic tales where the heroine, a virgin sacrifice clad all in white, awaits the arrival of the mysterious dark man, who may be the villain, or, perhaps, the hero.

She tried to calm herself with thoughts of her youthful fantasies about marriage. It had been a sheltered life in the Essex countryside. Motherless, her behaviour had been subject to more scrutiny by her father and brother and the neighbouring matrons than it might otherwise have been. So flirtations were very mild, her social circle limited, her daydreams of a husband vague and romantic. No wonder she had fallen so hard for Jonathan.

Minutes passed. Kate reached for the novel she had been reading and tried to focus on it so that she would not look too eager, or too nervous, when Grant came in. She read the same page four times. The clock struck the half hour. He would have gone to look in on Charlie and perhaps also Anna. He would have bathed, or at least washed. Shaved, perhaps. He was, she suspected, a fastidious man. Another half hour, he’ll come within the next half hour, she told herself and frowned at the small print that seemed to dance before her eyes.

She pushed one shoulder strap down, then pulled it back. Ting, went the clock on the mantelshelf. Ting, ting… Kate counted to eleven. Grant was not coming. She tossed aside the book and made herself go through all the perfectly acceptable reasons why he might not. Then she threw back the covers and slid out of bed.

No patience with slippers, no patience with a wrapper and certainly no patience with a husband who’d left her for months, then behaved in a manner enough to fluster a nun, let alone a wife, and who then left the aforesaid wife to a lonely bed and a very silly novel.

Kate opened the connecting door without bothering to knock. Grant was sitting up in bed, bare-chested, the evening beard still shadowing his chin and what appeared to be a most absorbing book in his hands.

He looked up as she stepped into the room, but he did not let go of the book.

‘What are you reading?’ Kate demanded.

‘Constitutional procedure,’ he said so calmly that she wished she was wearing slippers so she could throw one. How dared he be all relaxed when she was a positive tangle of emotions? ‘I am attempting to get my head around some of the trickier aspects of the working of Parliament.’ He closed the volume. ‘Why? Are you looking for something interesting to read?’

‘No. I am attempting to get my head around the trickier aspects of marriage,’ Kate retorted. ‘I see I may have to consult an encyclopaedia.’ The door, when she turned and stalked back into her bedchamber, slammed with the most satisfying bang.

It opened again before she reached the bed. ‘Perhaps I might assist,’ her husband offered.

Chapter Ten

Kate kept walking on shaky legs, climbed into bed and only then turned. Grant was dressed, somewhat sketchily, in a heavy green silk robe, belted loosely at the waist over what appeared to be nothing but bare skin.

She took a strengthening breath down to her diaphragm. ‘Assist? You, my lord, are the source of my confusion.’

‘Because I did not come to your bed?’ He moved to the foot of it, sat with his back against the post, legs stretched out parallel with hers, and studied her face.

Kate made herself lie still and not acknowledge the insidious pressure of his body. One long, bare, elegant foot pressed against her hip bone. She wanted to run a finger along the sharp cords of tendon, the curve of his instep. Instead she said, ‘I told myself that Charlie might have had a nightmare, or that you were so tired after your journey that you had fallen asleep or that a crisis might have occurred on the estate. All those were perfectly reasonable excuses for flirting with a wife you had not seen for months and then failing to…to join her. But constitutional procedure? I am not a vain woman, but really, I had not placed myself below turgid reading matter of that sort.’

‘I was employing it to take my mind off your presence in the next room. It was not very successful, and if I had been aware of that nightgown, it would have been even less so.’ As Grant leaned back, the front of his robe gaped open to reveal the side of his muscular chest, dusted in dark hair.

‘Why?’ It seemed she was only capable of enough breath for one word at a time.

‘I thought you were nervous. Shy. Flustered.’ He shrugged and the robe gaped more. Kate held her breath. ‘I did not want to pressure you.’

‘Of course I was…am shy. I do not know you. We have never even kissed, let alone…that. How am I supposed to feel?’

‘You are not a virgin,’ Grant pointed out. He looked faintly wary, she was glad to see. So he should be. He is lucky I am not throwing The Caledonian Bandit by Miss Smith at his head. It is all it is fit for.

‘Clearly not.’ She had her breath back now the robe had ceased its descent. ‘But I am not at all experienced. I…I became pregnant very quickly.’ She tried to recall what she had told him about her lover. Lying was so alien and so difficult. ‘And we could not meet often.’

‘I’m not a virgin, either, of course. I don’t expect you to hold that against me. But you are not at all experienced?’ He seemed to be pleased by that. Men were strange creatures.

‘Yes. I mean, no.’ It had been lovely to be in Jonathan’s arms, to be able to show her feelings for him, of course it had. While it lasted, before disillusion set in. But even at the height of her short-lived infatuation he had never made her feel so agitated, so confused as this did. And it had not been such a wonderful experience that she was desperate to repeat it, so why did she want Grant to shrug off that robe, come to bed and just— ‘So, yes, I was apprehensive. I am still. But now I think it would be better to simply get it over with.’

‘Get it over with,’ Grant repeated, his voice flat. ‘Your expectations do not appear to be very high.’ His hands had gone to the ties of his robe. Now they stilled.

‘I am sure you make love very nicely,’ Kate said politely, wishing the soft feather mattress would simply swallow her up. Now she had insulted him. No man was going to take well the suggestion that his lovemaking was anything but magnificent. Very nicely? Of all the things to say…

‘I have not had any complaints recently.’ Grant straightened up from his relaxed slouch against the bedpost.

Recently? From his mistress, I suppose. Does that mean his late wife… Pride made her bite back the question. ‘I just thought it would be better to—’

‘Get it over with. Yes, I grasp the point that flirting and courting and giving you time to get accustomed to me may not be the best way to go about this and that you really wish it was all over.’ He stood up and tugged the knot in the sash free. ‘But you do wish me to come to your bed?’

‘Yes. Of course. Lights?’ It came out as a squeak. The branch of candles was still alight on her dressing table and the little oil lamp by the bed cast a warm, but revealing, glow over the snowy expanse of sheets.

‘We have confided that neither of us is a virgin. I think we can cope with the shock of nudity.’ Grant shrugged off the robe. He sounded less than happy.

Kate closed her eyes, then, when there was no sound of movement, opened them again. Grant was standing there, hands on lean hips, waiting, she supposed, for her to faint, scream or dive under the covers. She did none of those things, just stared at his admirably flat stomach, then, when she thought her breathing was under control, let her gaze slide lower.

He was not as aroused as he had been in the drawing room when he had been sucking her finger, but then he was probably finding her so infuriating that it was killing his desire. Kate realised suddenly that she did not want that. She wanted Grant to make love to her, here, now and with enthusiasm. His eyebrows lifted as she threw back the covers, reached for the hem of her nightgown and dragged it over her head in one ungainly movement.

When she made herself meet his gaze she found he had not moved, but the green eyes were dark beneath lowered lids and his mouth was curved into a crooked smile that held both approval and a promise.

‘Right from when we first met, I knew you had courage,’ Grant said as he closed the distance between them. He lay down beside her and, to her enormous relief, pulled the covers up over their bare bodies. She was very aware that the last time she had lain with a man she had not given birth to a child and that this man had once been married to a woman who, if Kate had discovered nothing else about her, had been a beauty.

The warmth of his body as he lay beside her was comforting, but her nerves were jangling and she just wished he would get on with it. ‘Have you changed your mind?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Grant turned so he was on his side facing her and moved closer, until the evidence of just how much he had not thought better of this was branding itself to her hip. ‘I was giving you the opportunity to dive out of the other side of the bed if you had changed yours.’

Afterwards Kate had no idea whether it had been nerves, hysteria or simply her old sense of the ridiculous reasserting itself, but she found herself laughing. ‘Like a scene in a French farce,’ she managed between gasps of mirth. ‘In and out of bedrooms, in and out of bed…’

‘You have obviously been watching far more risqué farces than I have,’ Grant said with a grin, and then, before she had stopped laughing, before the nerves could seize her again, he rolled her on to her back and kissed her.

Kate was open-mouthed on a gasp of laughter and Grant took advantage of her parted lips to take possession, his tongue sliding in to stroke hers, his lips warm and firm and demanding. For a first kiss it was anything but tentative, but nor was it impatiently demanding. Here I am, Grant seemed to be saying. I want you, you want me. Shall we?

Her body knew the answer, it seemed. Her arms curled around his neck, pulling him closer as her tongue stroked against his. Yes. He felt so different, so new. Taller and more muscular than Jonathan, his hands slower, yet more assured, his taste absolutely new and very arousing. Her hands slid over his shoulder and the right one encountered long, rough tracks of scar tissue. Grant shrugged away from her touch and she took the hint, curling her fingers around his neck instead. Then she forgot all about scars.

When Grant broke the kiss, gathering her in against his chest, she rubbed her cheek against the dusting of coarse hair, learning his scent. Citrus from the soap he had washed with, a faint hint of leather, a distant tang of brandy, a musk that was very male, very much him. The scent she remembered from that long desperate night when he had sat close beside her and she had clung to his hand, patterning it with bruises, spiced now with arousal.

‘That tickles,’ he said, his voice a rumble under her cheek. His hands were beginning to stray, down over her hips, up across her ribs, curving around her buttocks. Kate let her own fingers wander, exploring the flat stomach, dipping into his naval, which made him gasp with laughter, running up and down the thicker line of hair, not daring to follow it all the way.

Grant seemed content to let her roam, but his own hands became more purposeful, stroking up over the curve of her breasts, rubbing across her nipples just enough to make them peak and tingle, then down to brush the curls at the apex of her thighs.

Kate began to move, restless, and found her fingers were gripping Grant’s hips. Jonathan had been faster, more urgent, rougher. Did Grant not want her with the same desire?

His lips closed over one aching nipple and she moaned, arching up against him. She felt his lips curve into a smile and then shivered with nerves as he shifted and pressed one hand gently between her thighs, opening her.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, the words vibrating against the puckered skin of her nipple, and his teeth nipped gently as he slid one finger into her. Then his thumb found the place that Jonathan had rubbed against so impatiently. Only, Grant was gentle, teasing, and the raw, almost intolerable sensation became one of pulsing sweetness mixed with a desperation that had her squirming against his hand.

‘Shh, slowly, slowly,’ he murmured against her neck.

But she did not want to be slow. She wanted him now, wanted the more that she could sense, just out of her reach. Her right hand moved from his hip, stroked down, touched the heated flesh and stroked again until he groaned aloud.

‘If you do that—’

‘Yes,’ Kate urged. ‘I want… I don’t know. I need…’

Grant’s weight was a fresh arousal as their bodies touched down their entire lengths, hot skin against hot skin. He shifted, lifted on his elbows and then, holding her gaze with his, sheathed himself within her.

‘Ah…sweet Kate.’ He closed his eyes, dropped his head so his forehead rested on hers and held still. She felt the tension vibrating through him as she grasped the broad shoulders, tilted her head so her lips found his. The urgent need to move became a longing for peace as she lay there, so close, so much at one with him. She let her body encompass his, ease around it, holding him within her.

When he began to move it was at first so slow, so gentle, that she hardly realised that her own body was rocking with his, yielding to the slow thrusts, the need building again as she released the hard flesh only to accept him back with a soft gasp of pleasure. The rhythm increased until she was clinging to him, gasping as they rode the gathering, building storm together.

Grant shifted, lifted her against him, and the pressure built until she was curled around him, her ankles locked at the small of his back, striving desperately to catch hold of whatever it was that was tormenting her so deliciously, promising something that was just out of reach. And suddenly she broke apart, heard herself cry out, felt Grant tense and arch over her, and then the world went black, save for the lights in the darkness behind her lids as she let go and flew.

What had just happened? Kate lay in the circle of Grant’s arm, her cheek against his chest. His skin was damp, his heartbeat strong, rapid, but slowing as she sensed him drifting into sleep.

What had happened? she asked herself again, lying wide-eyed in the flickering candlelight. She hardly knew this man except as the Good Samaritan who had saved her that bleak Christmas. Saved her, saved her child, turned her life upside down. Yes, he was an attractive man, but a man with secrets, a man with barely hidden darkness in his soul.

She had married him, accepted the protection of his name, his status and his wealth. Accepted, too, that she had a duty as his wife to lie with him and perhaps, if she was fortunate, to bear a child of his. And I had become excited by the thought of him, she admitted to herself. Aroused. Which was good, because it would have been hard to accept lovemaking with a man for whom she could feel no attraction.

But this wonderful physical experience—where had that come from? She had known Jonathan a little, liked him, thought she loved him, considered him a handsome man and had been eager to go to his arms. Yet his passion had left her strangely untouched, unsatisfied, confused. I talked myself into love with him, didn’t I? Kate told herself. But she did not love this man, either, so what was the difference? Why did I not burn up in Jonathan’s arms as I did with Grant?

Because Grant is the better lover, of course. So it was all a matter of technique, of arousal, and in her imaginings when she met Jonathan she had told herself the romantic lies that it was all about love.

Kate turned away from the comfort of the warm, strong body beside her to lie on the edge of the bed on cold sheets. I deserve the chill, the nagging little voice of her conscience chided. Wanton. ‘Jonathan,’ she whispered. What a fool she had been, how eager to experience love, when really what she had been seeking was this, this physical delight. And as a result of her naivety and Henry’s cynical scheming she had been ruined and was now hundreds of miles from home, living a lie.

That had been…incredible. Grant let himself drift in utterly relaxed drowsiness, his body boneless with sensual pleasure. He had never expected it, never thought that Kate would catch alight in his hands, that her body would answer his with that joyful, urgent sensuality.

She curled against him now, warm, soft. Kate, his wife, who did not react to his kisses and caresses as though forcing herself to yield to her duty, but as though she wanted to join him in creating magic. To find a compatible lover was not such a novelty, but to find that, quite by chance, he had married a woman who took and gave with such sweet, almost innocent, eroticism, that was a miracle.

Kate moved, turned away, and he woke fully to see she was lying, her back to him, on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh, Jonathan…’ He caught the faint whisper and even with that thread of sound, the unhappiness.

Something cold and heavy lodged in his stomach. Disappointment? Jealousy? So, Kate was still in love with Anna’s father, still mourning him, which must explain her shyness and confusion earlier. Now she was feeling guilty for enjoying making love with her husband.

Because she had enjoyed it, that was not arrogance on his part—even the most accomplished courtesan could not have feigned that reaction. Grant reached out his hand to touch her shoulder, then drew it back before his fingers reached the curve of exposed skin. Reluctant to intrude, he turned on his side away from Kate’s tense body and pulled the covers up over both of them. If he touched her now, she would think it was a demand for more sex. If he tried to console her, then she would know he had heard that whisper. He had no idea what to say to make things any better. At least now he understood her strange mood, the evidence of interest, of arousal, and yet the fear that forced her to ask for his presence in her bed had driven her to want to get it over with.

Grant got up, went to snuff the candles, doused the bedside lamp, pretended that he believed Kate was fast asleep as he fought down the dark mood that threatened to grip him. It was unreasonable, to feel…hurt. He was not in love with Kate and she had made no pretence of marrying him for anything other than the protection of his name for her child, so in no sense was he betrayed or deceived. She did not dislike him, he was certain, and she was certainly not repelled by him. It was simply that she had been in love with someone else, someone for ever out of her reach. And now she was making the best of the circumstances. In effect he had married a widow and done so before she’d had a proper chance to mourn.

But how to mend this marriage? He had the summer and the autumn, that was all. Then they must go to London, he would take his seat in the House of Lords and Kate must learn to be a peer’s wife, a society hostess. They could do it as virtual strangers—after all, many marriages functioned like that—but it was not how he wanted his marriage to be and it was not how he wanted the children to grow up, in a household with parents who were distant and cool with each other.

A hideous accident had taken Madeleine before Charlie’s life could be blighted by his parents’ unhappiness, but Grant was not prepared to risk it again. He could live without a wife’s affection, certainly without her love, but somehow, for the sake of the children, he was going to have to make this work and make Kate happy, or, at the very least, content.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.