His Christmas Countess Read online

  ‘Grant! Are we the first?’ It was Alex.

  ‘Yes, you are. Welcome.’ A figure in green wavered beside Alex and he broadened the smile, painfully. ‘Tess, you are more than welcome to Abbeywell. Come and meet my wife.’

  Then they were up the steps and beside them. He managed not to retch at the waft of rose scent as Tess stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Alex gripped his hand and, turning, tucked it through his own. ‘Migraine?’ he murmured. Then he raised his voice. ‘And this must be Lady Allundale, you clever devil, Grant. Ma’am, I am Alex Tempest and this is my wife, Tess. I am delighted to meet you at last.’

  Alex swung round, taking Grant with him to stroll into the hall. ‘Ladies, you will excuse us, but I must be off to consult Grant’s valet this minute—I have a hideously uncomfortable nail working through the sole of these new boots.’

  Grant found himself climbing the stairs and managed to get out, ‘What the blazes—’

  ‘You are blind with a migraine, Lady Allundale is as white as a sheet and Grimswade looks as though he has sat on a poker. What’s wrong? No, don’t try to talk. Same room as usual?’

  Alex steered Grant into his bedchamber, pushed him on to the bed, pulled off his boots. ‘Lie down, I’ll send your valet in.’

  Grant tried to sit up and was ruthlessly shoved back. ‘I can’t… You are guests, Cris and Gabe will be arriving…’

  ‘We’re friends, not guests. Leave it to me.’ There was a rattle of curtain rings, the light against his eyelids was reduced. Then silence, broken only by the soft-footed entrance of Griffin, who pressed a glass into Grant’s hand.

  ‘Willow-bark powder, my lord.’

  He gulped it down, wincing at the bitter taste, lay back and tried to make his mind blank, relax his tense muscles. As soon as he could see, he would have to go downstairs and, somehow, come to terms with Kate.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Here they are.’ Lady Weybourn turned to the door. ‘Or, rather, here is mine. Where is Grant, Alex? I didn’t think he looked well.’

  ‘Migraine.’ Alex Tempest strolled in to the drawing room and smiled reassuringly at Kate. ‘Haven’t seen him blind with one for a while. I’ve sent his valet to him,’ he added as Kate jumped to her feet with a murmur of distress. ‘He’ll be fine as long as he’s quiet. There’s nothing to be done.’

  With him on his feet the only courteous thing to do was sit down. Griffin would send for her if she was needed and probably the last thing Grant wanted was his unsatisfactory wife fussing over him. She sat and Alex dropped his elegant length into a chair. ‘He is subject to migraines? I did not know.’ It was his anger at discovering her trespass into the forbidden rooms that had triggered it. And Lord Weybourn said he was blind with it.

  ‘Only occasionally. It is very stressful situations when he can’t act to resolve things, that’s what usually sets them off. If he can act and do something, then Grant copes with anything.’ Alex Tempest smiled his lazy, reassuring smile again. ‘And he’s a stubborn so-and-so. He’ll be on his feet the minute he can see clearly, even if his head still hurts. I don’t expect that blow he got in New Town helped any.’

  ‘No, probably not.’ She wrenched her thoughts away from guilt and worry and focused on her guests. ‘Now, would you like to take some refreshment, or shall I show you to your rooms first?’

  ‘Some tea would be very welcome.’ Lady Weybourn unpinned her hat and set it aside, then peeled off her gloves as Kate rang for Grimswade.

  ‘Tea and some food, Grimswade. Do you know where Lord Brooke has got to?’

  ‘I do not, I regret to say, my lady. However, I venture to suggest that the production of cake will cause him to appear.’

  ‘Uncle Alex!’ Charlie erupted into the room and leapt at Lord Weybourn, who caught him, stood up and held him upside down by his heels.

  ‘Good afternoon, Lord Brooke.’

  His wife rolled her eyes at Kate. ‘Do put him down, darling. He’ll be sick.’

  Eventually order was restored, Charlie was silenced by the threat of the withdrawal of cake and Kate once more embarked on making polite conversation with these two very informal strangers.

  ‘You have known Grant for a long time, Lord Weybourn?’

  ‘Alex, please. Yes, since university, along with Cris de Feaux and Gabriel Stone. We were known as the Four Disgraces, but I assure you we are sober and responsible now.’

  Lady Weybourn snorted inelegantly. ‘Nonsense, darling. You are merely better at hiding the insobriety and irresponsibility these days.’ She turned to Kate. ‘I think we are very brave, taking on two of them. We must see what we can do about finding nice civilising wives for the others, don’t you think, Lady Allundale?’

  ‘Oh, Kate, please. I don’t know the others, so I really can’t say.’ The thought of Grant being a Disgrace would be funny if she wasn’t feeling so apprehensive and guilty.

  ‘These days we think of ourselves more as the Four Elementals, because of our names,’ Alex continued, ignoring a whisper of, And because that’s the name of the inn in Ghent they meet up in, from Tess. ‘Tempest—wind, de Feaux—fire, Stone—earth, and Rivers—’

  ‘Water,’ Kate finished, relaxing a little. It was almost impossible not to, around these two. They would be good for Grant, she knew it.

  ‘Two more carriages are approaching, my lady.’

  ‘Thank you, Grimswade. We had better have more tea and cake brought in.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Even if they are wrong. Yes, I know. I do not want to be a husband like that. Will you come here, Kate?’

  She stood up, looking demure, except for the hint of a smile, and he realised with a flash of insight that she was relieved and something more positive than that. Happy? The relief at being able to understand her made his own lips curve in response.

  ‘You have a headache,’ she said.

  ‘So don’t bounce.’ Grant opened his arms and Kate curled up on his lap, her head on his shoulder, and he gathered her in tight, tucked her head under his chin and thought how right she felt there, how perfect her weight on him was.

  ‘Have you had these headaches all the time we have been married?’

  ‘No. When we first got here I was so busy that I was too tired to dream. I had them in London, now and again, but they are always worse here.’ He felt the familiar guilt at his own weakness, even as the rational part of his brain, the part that had studied medicine, told him that it was not something he could control by willpower.

  He could almost hear Kate working it out. ‘You have slept with me every night since you returned from London and you have not had nightmares, not ones that disturbed your sleep and woke me.’

  ‘I suspect that sex helps,’ Grant said, hoping he had not shocked her. It had occurr
ed to him, these past few days when he woke refreshed after a solid night’s sleep.

  ‘Of course!’ Kate sat up, bumped his chin with her head, murmured an apology. ‘The night you woke me up because you were dreaming and I went into your bedchamber and found the key was the first time since we had been sleeping together that we…haven’t…’ She seemed to find it difficult to select the right word. ‘Made love.’

  ‘Well, there’s the answer,’ he said, feeling, for the first time since that confrontation upstairs, like smiling. ‘Lovemaking as often as possible.’

  ‘It will cure the symptoms,’ Kate said seriously, apparently not ready to joke about it. ‘But not the cause. Have you talked to anyone about what happened when Madeleine died?’

  ‘My grandfather, when it first happened. The other three.’ He gestured at the ceiling, but she knew what he meant. The other three of the close band of four friends.

  ‘Did you tell them what happened or how you feel?’ Kate asked.

  ‘How I feel? No, of course not. I told them the facts.’

  Kate pushed at his chest until she was sitting upright, her expression wry. ‘Men! Tonight, when we go to bed, tell me what happened and tell me how you felt, how you still feel.’

  ‘I realise I owe you an explanation, that I can’t make a mystery of this any longer, but what the devil do my feelings have to do with it?’

  ‘I want to understand,’ she said as she slid off his knee and stood up. ‘How is your migraine now?’

  ‘Better.’ He rolled his head and flexed his shoulders. ‘My neck’s stiff, but that’s usual afterwards.’

  ‘You should take a hot bath.’ He almost smiled again at the confident tone. Planning and making decisions seemed to cheer Kate up as much as it did him. ‘And we’ll take our time changing for dinner. Let’s look in on Anna and Charlie on our way up,’ she suggested. ‘With our guests and our plans for later, I think this should be an evening for adults, don’t you?’