His Christmas Countess

by Louise Allen

  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.

  Chapter Ten

  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—’

  ‘Get it over with. Yes, I grasp the point that flirting and courting and giving you time to get accustomed to me may not be the best way to go about this and that you really wish it was all over.’ He stood up and tugged the knot in the sash free. ‘But you do wish me to come to your bed?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Lights?’ It came out as a squeak. The branch of candles was still alight on her dressing table and the little oil lamp by the bed cast a warm, but revealing, glow over the snowy expanse of sheets.

  ‘We have confided that neither of us is a virgin. I think we can cope with the shock of nudity.’ Grant shrugged off the robe. He sounded less than happy.

  Kate closed her eyes, then, when there was no sound of movement, opened them again. Grant was standing there, hands on lean hips, waiting, she supposed, for her to faint, scream or dive under the covers. She did none of those things, just stared at his admirably flat stomach, then, when she thought her breathing was under control, let her gaze slide lower.

  He was not as aroused as he had been in the drawing room when he had been sucking her finger, but then he was probably finding her so infuriating that it was killing his desire. Kate realised suddenly that she did not want that. She wanted Grant to make love to her, here, now and with enthusiasm. His eyebrows lifted as she threw back the covers, reached for the hem of her nightgown and dragged it over her head in one ungainly movement.

  When she made herself meet his gaze she found he had not moved, but the green eyes were dark beneath lowered lids and his mouth was curved into a crooked smile that held both approval and a promise.

  ‘Right from when we first met, I knew you had courage,’ Grant said as he closed the distance between them. He lay down beside her and, to her enormous relief, pulled the covers up over their bare bodies. She was very aware that the last time she had lain with a man she had not given birth to a child and that this man had once been married to a woman who, if Kate had discovered nothing else about her, had been a beauty.

  The warmth of his body as he lay beside her was comforting, but her nerves were jangling and she just wished he would get on with it. ‘Have you changed your mind?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ Grant turned so he was on his side facing her and moved closer, until the evidence of just how much he had not thought better of this was branding itself to her hip. ‘I was giving you the opportunity to dive out of the other side of the bed if you had changed yours.’

  Afterwards Kate had no idea whether it had been nerves, hysteria or simply her old sense of the ridiculous reasserting itself, but she found herself laughing. ‘Like a scene in a French farce,’ she managed between gasps of mirth. ‘In and out of bedrooms, in and out of bed…’

  ‘You have obviously been watching far more risqué farces than I have,’ Grant said with a grin, and then, before she had stopped laughing, before the nerves could seize her again, he rolled her on to her back and kissed her.

  Kate was open-mouthed on a gasp of laughter and Grant took advantage of her parted lips to take possession, his tongue sliding in to stroke hers, his lips warm and firm and demanding. For a first kiss it was anything but tentative, but nor was it impatiently demanding. Here I am, Grant seemed to be saying. I want you, you want me. Shall we?

  Her body knew the answer, it seemed. Her arms curled around his neck, pulling him closer as her tongue stroked against his. Yes. He felt so different, so new. Taller and more muscular than Jonathan, his hands slower, yet more assured, his taste absolutely new and very arousing. Her hands slid over his shoulder and the right one encountered long, rough tracks of scar tissue. Grant shrugged away from her touch and she took the hint, curling her fingers around his neck instead. Then she forgot all about scars.

  When Grant broke the kiss, gathering her in against his chest, she rubbed her cheek against the dusting of coarse hair, learning his scent. Citrus from the soap he had washed with, a faint hint of leather, a distant tang of brandy, a musk that was very male, very much him. The scent she remembered from that long desperate night when he had sat close beside her and she had clung to his hand, patterning it with bruises, spiced now with arousal.

  ‘That tickles,’ he said, his voice a rumble under her cheek. His hands were beginning to stray, down over her hips, up across her ribs, curving around her buttocks. Kate let her own fingers wander, exploring the flat stomach, dipping into his naval, which made him gasp with laughter, running up and down the thicker line of hair, not daring to follow it all the way.

  Grant seemed content to let her roam, but his own hands became more purposeful, stroking up over the curve of her breasts, rubbing across her nipples just enough to make them peak and tingle, then down to brush the curls at the apex of her thighs.

  Kate began to move, restless, and found her fingers were gripping Grant’s hips. Jonathan had been faster, more urgent, rougher. Did Grant not want her with the same desire?

  His lips closed over one aching nipple and she moaned, arching up against him. She felt his lips curve into a smile and then shivered with nerves as he shifted and pressed one hand gently between her thighs, opening her.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, the words vibrating against the puckered skin of her nipple, and his teeth nipped gently as he slid one finger into her. Then his thumb found the place that Jonathan had rubbed against so impatiently. Only, Grant was gentle, teasing, and the raw, almost intolerable sensation became one of pulsing sweetness mixed with a desperation that had her squirming against his hand.

  ‘Shh, slowly, slowly,’ he murmured against her neck.

  But she did not want to be slow. She wanted him now, wanted the more that she could sense, just out of her reach. Her right hand moved from his hip, stroked down, touched the heated flesh and stroked again until he groaned aloud.

  ‘If you do that—’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate urged. ‘I want… I don’t know. I need…’

  Grant’s weight was a fresh arousal as their bodies touched down their entire lengths, hot skin against hot skin. He shifted, lifted on his elbows and then, holding her gaze with his, sheathed himself within her.

  ‘Ah…sweet Kate.’ He closed his eyes, dropped his head so his forehead rested on hers and held still. She felt the tension vibrating through him as she grasped the broad shoulders, tilted her head so her lips found his. The urgent need to move became a longing for peace as she lay there, so close, so much at one with him. She let her body encompass his, ease around it, holding him within her.

  When he began to move it was at first so slow, so gentle, that she hardly realised that her own body was rocking with his, yielding to the slow thrust
s, the need building again as she released the hard flesh only to accept him back with a soft gasp of pleasure. The rhythm increased until she was clinging to him, gasping as they rode the gathering, building storm together.

  Grant shifted, lifted her against him, and the pressure built until she was curled around him, her ankles locked at the small of his back, striving desperately to catch hold of whatever it was that was tormenting her so deliciously, promising something that was just out of reach. And suddenly she broke apart, heard herself cry out, felt Grant tense and arch over her, and then the world went black, save for the lights in the darkness behind her lids as she let go and flew.

  What had just happened? Kate lay in the circle of Grant’s arm, her cheek against his chest. His skin was damp, his heartbeat strong, rapid, but slowing as she sensed him drifting into sleep.

  What had happened? she asked herself again, lying wide-eyed in the flickering candlelight. She hardly knew this man except as the Good Samaritan who had saved her that bleak Christmas. Saved her, saved her child, turned her life upside down. Yes, he was an attractive man, but a man with secrets, a man with barely hidden darkness in his soul.

  She had married him, accepted the protection of his name, his status and his wealth. Accepted, too, that she had a duty as his wife to lie with him and perhaps, if she was fortunate, to bear a child of his. And I had become excited by the thought of him, she admitted to herself. Aroused. Which was good, because it would have been hard to accept lovemaking with a man for whom she could feel no attraction.

  But this wonderful physical experience—where had that come from? She had known Jonathan a little, liked him, thought she loved him, considered him a handsome man and had been eager to go to his arms. Yet his passion had left her strangely untouched, unsatisfied, confused. I talked myself into love with him, didn’t I? Kate told herself. But she did not love this man, either, so what was the difference? Why did I not burn up in Jonathan’s arms as I did with Grant?