Louise Allen - His Christmas Countess

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?’