Regency Christmas Courtship. Louise Allen

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