His Christmas Countess. Louise Allen

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