is no need to be anxious.’ There was something warm in his expression, some meaning in his tone. Kate stared back, puzzled, as he added, ‘About tonight, I mean.’
He is talking about bed, about making love. Does he mean not to be anxious because he will come to me…or that he will not? I hope he comes. There was no hiding the truth from herself that she was attracted to this man, this stranger-husband. She felt the blush rising up her face and with it the shame that Grant would see her eagerness, think her a wanton. Or perhaps he would welcome that, expect her to be very experienced and to possess sophisticated skills in bed.
It was difficult to understand this feeling. After all, her skills were non-existent and she had no idea what would be involved in sophisticated lovemaking.
‘I am not anxious about tonight,’ she said, rather too loudly.
‘Dinner is served, my lady.’ Grimswade somehow managed to sound even more smoothly efficient and bland than normal. When had he appeared in the doorway behind her? Had he heard? She wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer embarrassment. Henry always said that one should treat the servants as though they were furniture and would discuss anything and everything in front of them—from an embarrassing rash to his gaming losses.
‘Thank you, Grimswade.’ She found a smile for the butler as she began to rise to her feet, then almost jumped in surprise to find her husband by her side, his hand outstretched.
‘My dear.’
My dear. A conventional phrase, that is all. He means nothing by it. She put her fingertips on his wrist and resisted the urge to curl them around the strong tendons, to feel the jut of his wristbone. When she had seen him this morning her eyes had been drawn to his bare, tanned hands, a sharp contrast with her smaller, paler hands beside his on the rug. What would those long fingers look like on her body? How would they feel? Now she told herself that she could detect nothing through the fine kid of her evening gloves, not his body heat, not the pulse of his blood.
‘I do hope you like the new recipe for veal ragout Cook has been trying,’ Kate remarked as they walked through to the dining room. ‘It is an old family one I remembered.’ Discussing the food was utterly banal. He would think her so dull. But it was safe.
Giles the footman stepped forward to pull out her chair at the foot of the table for her, but Grant was before him. He pushed it in carefully as she sat, then laid one hand on her shoulder in a fleeting caress before taking his own place at the head of the long board. ‘I am certain that whatever you suggest will be delightful.’ That warmth was back in his eyes and behind it a question that had not been there before. Or perhaps a doubt.
Conscious of the attendant footmen, of Grimswade bringing the decanter to fill Grant’s wine glass, Kate closed her lips on the impulsive questions—What do you want of me? What do you expect of me?—and focused her attention on the dishes arrayed on the table. At least her husband would have no reason to complain of her supervision of the kitchen, whatever he felt about her presence in his bed.
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
