Louise Allen - Regency Christmas Courtship

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.

Kate kept walking on shaky legs, climbed into bed and only then turned. Grant was dressed, somewhat sketchily, in a heavy green silk robe, belted loosely at the waist over what appeared to be nothing but bare skin.

She took a strengthening breath down to her diaphragm. ‘Assist? You, my lord, are the source of my confusion.’

‘Because I did not come to your bed?’ He moved to the foot of it, sat with his back against the post, legs stretched out parallel with hers, and studied her face.

Kate made herself lie still and not acknowledge the insidious pressure of his body. One long, bare, elegant foot pressed against her hip bone. She wanted to run a finger along the sharp cords of tendon, the curve of his instep. Instead she said, ‘I told myself that Charlie might have had a nightmare, or that you were so tired after your journey that you had fallen asleep or that a crisis might have occurred on the estate. All those were perfectly reasonable excuses for flirting with a wife you had not seen for months and then failing to…to join her. But constitutional procedure? I am not a vain woman, but really, I had not placed myself below turgid reading matter of that sort.’

‘I was employing it to take my mind off your presence in the next room. It was not very successful, and if I had been aware of that nightgown, it would have been even less so.’ As Grant leaned back, the front of his robe gaped open to reveal the side of his muscular chest, dusted in dark hair.

‘Why?’ It seemed she was only capable of enough breath for one word at a time.

‘I thought you were nervous. Shy. Flustered.’ He shrugged and the robe gaped more. Kate held her breath. ‘I did not want to pressure you.’

‘Of course I was… am shy. I do not know you. We have never even kissed, let alone…that. How am I supposed to feel?’

‘You are not a virgin,’ Grant pointed out. He looked faintly wary, she was glad to see. So he should be. He is lucky I am not throwing The Caledonian Bandit by Miss Smith at his head. It is all it is fit for.

‘Clearly not.’ She had her breath back now the robe had ceased its descent. ‘But I am not at all experienced. I…I became pregnant very quickly.’ She tried to recall what she had told him about her lover. Lying was so alien and so difficult. ‘And we could not meet often.’

‘I’m not a virgin, either, of course. I don’t expect you to hold that against me. But you are not at all experienced?’ He seemed to be pleased by that. Men were strange creatures.

‘Yes. I mean, no.’ It had been lovely to be in Jonathan’s arms, to be able to show her feelings for him, of course it had. While it lasted, before disillusion set in. But even at the height of her short-lived infatuation he had never made her feel so agitated, so confused as this did. And it had not been such a wonderful experience that she was desperate to repeat it, so why did she want Grant to shrug off that robe, come to bed and just— ‘So, yes, I was apprehensive. I am still. But now I think it would be better to simply get it over with.’

‘Get it over with,’ Grant repeated, his voice flat. ‘Your expectations do not appear to be very high.’ His hands had gone to the ties of his robe. Now they stilled.

‘I am sure you make love very nicely,’ Kate said politely, wishing the soft feather mattress would simply swallow her up. Now she had insulted him. No man was going to take well the suggestion that his lovemaking was anything but magnificent. Very nicely? Of all the things to say…

‘I have not had any complaints recently.’ Grant straightened up from his relaxed slouch against the bedpost.

Recently? From his mistress, I suppose. Does that mean his late wife… Pride made her bite back the question. ‘I just thought it would be better to—’