Читать книгу Regency Christmas Courtship - Louise Allen - Страница 17

Kate was nervous. That blush when he had mentioned tonight had not been the faint glow of anticipated pleasure, but the embarrassment or nerves that Grant might have expected from a virgin. But she was not untouched—the presence of little Anna was proof enough of that. So what was it? An aversion to him, or painful shyness? One would be easy enough to overcome, the other, less so.

‘Have you been dining here in lonely state every night?’ he asked, casting round for some innocuous topic to discuss in front of the servants. He could send them away, of course, but that might only aggravate whatever fears Kate was harbouring.

‘Usually I invite Mr Gough to join me. I find he is an intelligent conversationalist. Once a week we have an early supper with Charlie in the small dining room with all the leaves taken out of the table. He enjoys the grown-up treat.’

Grant felt a jab of something unpleasantly like jealousy and instantly regretted it. His wife had been lonely, Gough was a gentleman, intelligent and doubtless pleasant company, and he, too, was probably lonely and welcomed the opportunity for conversation.

But something in his expression must have betrayed that instinctive, possessive reaction. Kate bit her lip and glanced uneasily at the footmen as though expecting a rebuke in front of them.

‘An excellent idea,’ Grant said with casual approval. ‘My grandfather would dine with Gough when he did not have company visiting and often when he did. I am glad you had congenial adult companionship.’

‘We had a lot to discuss about Charlie’s lessons. Mr Gough follows your instructions carefully, of course, but there is so much day-to-day detail. I hope you do not feel I am encroaching?’

It was a question, not an apology, and Grant was careful to keep his own tone light. ‘Certainly not. You are his stepmama, after all, as I am sure you would have reminded me if I had objected to your involvement.’

Kate flushed up at that, but her voice was confident as she raised it to give an order. ‘Grimswade, that will be all. We will serve ourselves and ring when we require dessert.’

‘My lady.’ The butler gestured to the footmen and closed the door softly behind the last liveried back.

Kate put down her fork and fixed him with a direct gaze, compelling his attention. ‘My lord, I think we should be frank. I have a great deal of experience of being a daughter and a sister and of the limits of my authority and freedom in those roles. Since I have been here at Abbeywell I have gained several months’ worth of knowledge of how to run a large country house. But I have no experience of a husband, of the limits he will impose on my actions, of his expectations of me.’

Ah, so now the recriminations come. Grant chewed his mouthful of beef, swallowed and decided that dodging the issue would not help. ‘In effect you feel I abandoned you.’ He had done just that, but he was damned if he was going to justify himself. Which was a good thing, because he was not certain that he could. He had left Abbeywell because he knew, once he was not drugged with exhaustion and grief, that he could not bear to be there. Now he was going to have to make himself endure. He owed it to Charlie, to the estate and to his neglected wife.

Part of him had been running away from confronting what he had done by marrying a woman without the qualifications necessary for a countess. He was beginning to suspect he was wrong about that judgement, but confessing that he had believed it could only be deeply wounding to Kate.

‘You had a great deal to do in London, many responsibilities in connection with the earldom. I am not reproaching you, my lord.’ Her smile was sudden, vivid, and took him completely by surprise. ‘I merely explain my own…limitations.’

‘I wish you would use my given name.’ Grant smiled back, charmed, and realised he had never seen that open, uncomplicated smile from Kate before. She smiled at the children, at the servants, but never at him.

But why would she? He had hardly seen her except as a desperate woman in the throes of labour, or an exhausted one in its aftermath. Even that morning her smile had been polite and dutiful. But this expression transformed her. Strangely it did not enhance her beauty, as a smile usually did for a woman. Instead it emphasised the slight irregularity of her face, it crinkled up her blue eyes and showed the little gap between very white, otherwise even, front teeth. And yet…charmed was the only word for his reaction. This was a real woman, not a pretty, regimented society doll. A real woman he knew not at all.

‘I see no limitations, Kate. There is nothing we cannot deal with by a little discussion, an exchange of views, greater familiarity.’ He chose the final word deliberately.

That produced a blush that he had no difficulty interpreting as anything but one of sensual awareness. Kate’s lips were parted and she did not meet his gaze, but glanced up, above his head, blushed even more rosily and reached for her water glass.

Grant suppressed the instinctive movement to turn and look at the wall behind his chair. Of course, that was where his own portrait hung. So what was there about that to make her colour up? Unless she had spent every mealtime sitting just there, looking at his image and liking what she saw. He bit his lip to repress a grin that could only be unworthily smug. He was used to hearing himself described as a good-looking man, women seemed to like to flirt with him, but he felt no conceit about that. He looked like his grandfather at the same age, which was good fortune and no merit of his. He could feel some satisfaction at the appreciation shown by his lovers, however, because he was confident that was due to practice and an interest in his partner’s pleasure as well as his own, rather than to heredity.

His first wife had been more prone to burst into tears or tantrums at the sight of him than to blush prettily. The marriage had been an arranged one and they had hardly known each other before it. Grant had come to the conclusion that Madeleine was simply averse to sex and hoped that he was not the cause, but that it was something inbuilt in her character. She had been stiff and unresponsive in bed from the first, informing him, when he had asked her what was the matter, that her mama had explained to her that she must endure her marital duty and that was what she was doing. Enduring. It was hard work being a sensitive and imaginative lover in the face of that. And then he had made the grave tactical error of getting her pregnant too soon…

Grant pushed away the memory and focused on the very different wife facing him down six foot of polished mahogany. It occurred to him that it would be a pleasant novelty to be wed to a woman who took an interest in the physical side of marriage. He allowed himself to smile and decided that Kate was decidedly flustered.

Slowly, slowly, don’t startle her, you are almost a stranger in her eyes, he reminded himself. Just because she showed sensual awareness did not mean that she was not shy. He must court this woman even though she was already his countess. ‘I hope you will always feel free to discuss any thoughts you have about Charlie. As for the household, it is yours to command, and if the allowances I give you for those expenses and your own expenditure are inadequate, I will certainly amend them.’

‘Thank you.’ Kate had recovered her composure, it seemed. She took a sip of wine. ‘It would be helpful to know when we might have regular discussions about day-to-day issues.’

‘Of course. Would around ten each morning suit you? I am usually back from my morning ride about then and the steward and estate manager come to see me after luncheon.’ She nodded, apparently happy with the proposal. ‘Of course, we will have much more time together to discuss more…intimate matters.’

The charming smile vanished, but the equally charming blush persisted. How far down did it go? Below the decorous dip of her black silk evening gown? Down far enough to tint those sweet curves with rose? Grant shifted in his chair, feeling again the lash of his own arousal. Slowly, slowly might be wise, but the seduction of his countess promised to be a leisurely pleasure.

Kate watched her husband’s face and tried to read the thoughts behind that handsome, intelligent surface. She suspected that he was clever enough to hide whatever emotions he did not want her to read, although the warmth in his gaze and the faint curve of his lips when that gaze strayed downwards from her face were less revealing of deep thoughts than of basic masculine instincts, that was certain.

She wanted him, although now the man was before her in the flesh and not simply as a fantasy fuelled by a two-dimensional image, that wanting was tinged again with apprehension. Kate reached for the silver bell that stood before her place. ‘Time for dessert, I think, my lord.’

One dark brow lifted.

‘In front of the servants I should not be too familiar, Grant,’ Kate said repressively and was rewarded by a fleeting, wicked smile that vanished into an expression 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 aforesaid wife to a lonely bed and a very silly novel.

Kate opened the connecting door without bothering to knock. Grant was sitting up in bed, bare-chested, the evening beard still shadowing his chin and what appeared to be a most absorbing book in his hands.

He looked up as she stepped into the room, but he did not let go of the book.

‘What are you reading?’ Kate demanded.

‘Constitutional procedure,’ he said so calmly that she wished she was wearing slippers so she could throw one. How dared he be all relaxed when she was a positive tangle of emotions? ‘I am attempting to get my head around some of the trickier aspects of the working of Parliament.’ He closed the volume. ‘Why? Are you looking for something interesting to read?’

‘No. I am attempting to get my head around the trickier aspects of marriage,’ Kate retorted. ‘I see I may have to consult an encyclopaedia.’ The door, when she turned and stalked back into her bedchamber, slammed with the most satisfying bang.

It opened again before she reached the bed. ‘Perhaps I might assist,’ her husband offered.