His Christmas Countess. Louise Allen

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