His Christmas Countess
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.