His Christmas Countess. Louise Allen

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      He neither needed nor wanted a wife, not for himself, but Abbeywell needed a chatelaine and Charlie needed a woman’s care.

      ‘What will you do when the baby is born?’ he asked, focusing on the exhausted woman beside him.

      ‘Do next? I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I can’t think beyond this. There is no one. But I’ll manage...somehow.’

      She’s not a conventional beauty, but she’s got courage, she’s maternal. Time seemed to have collapsed, the past and the present ran together. Two women in childbed, one infant he could not help, one perhaps he would save. But even if he did, nothing would prevent this child being born illegitimate, with all the penalties that imposed.

      The germ of an idea stirred. Kate needed shelter, security for her child. Would she make a good governess for Charlie? He pursued the idea around. Charlie had a tutor, he did not need someone with the ability or knowledge to teach him academic studies. But he did need the softer things. Grant remembered his own mother, who had died, along with his father, of a summer fever when he had not been much older than his own son was now. She had instilled ideas about kindliness and beauty, she had been there with a swift hug and a kiss when male discipline and bracing advice was just that bit too harsh.

      A mother’s touch, a mother’s instinct. Kate was not a mother yet, but he sensed that nurturing disposition in her. Charlie didn’t need a governess, he needed a mother. Logic said...marry her.

      What was he thinking? I’m too tired to think straight, my brain’s still scrambled.

      In the stable the gelding snorted, gave a piercing whinny. Grant got to his feet, went to the outer door and peered through the faint mist the drizzle had left behind it. A couple of men, agricultural workers by the looks of them, were plodding along the track beside a donkey cart. He went back inside and Kate looked up at him. Her smile was faint, but it was there. Brave girl. Are you wishing for the impossible? Because I think it is walking towards us now.

      ‘We’re still in Scotland,’ he said, realising that his mad idea was possible to achieve. Am I insane? Or are those strangers out there, appearing right on the heels of that wild thought, some kind of sign? ‘There are two men, farmers, coming along the track.’ Witnesses. ‘Kate—marry me.’

      * * *

       ‘Marry you?’

      It was hard to concentrate on anything except what was happening to her, anything beyond the life inside that was struggling to be free. Kate dragged her mind back from its desperate focus on breathing, on the baby, on keeping them both alive. She remembered the mix of truth and lies she had told him and stared at Grant.

      In the gloom of early-morning light he did not appear to have lost his mind, despite the blow to the head. He still looked as much like a respectable, handsome English gentleman as might be expected after a sleepless night in a hovel tending to a woman in childbed.

      ‘I am not married, I am not promised to another. I can support a wife, I can support the baby. And if you marry me before the child is born, then it will be legitimate.’ His voice was urgent, his expression in the morning light intent. He smiled, as though to reassure her, but the warmth did not reach his eyes.

      ‘Legitimate.’ Legitimate. Her child would have a name, a future, respectability. They would both be safe and Grant could protect her from the results of Henry’s scheming. Probably. Kate rode out another contraction, tried to think beyond the moment, recall why she couldn’t simply solve this problem by marrying a complete stranger. He could certainly hide her, even if unwittingly. She would have a new name, a new home, and that was all that mattered for the baby.

      She was so very tired now, nothing else except her child seemed important. Grant was a doctor living in the wilds of Northumberland, hundreds of miles from London. That should be safe enough. But why would he? Why would he want her and her baby, another man’s child? Legitimate. We would be hidden. The tempting words swirled through her tired brain, caution fighting desperation and instinct. ‘But there’s no time.’

      ‘This is Scotland,’ Grant said. ‘All we have to do is to declare ourselves married before witnesses—and two are heading this way. Say yes, Kate, and I’ll fetch them and it will be done.’

      ‘Yes.’ He was gone before she could call the words back. She heard his voice raised to hail someone. Yes, I will do it. Another miracle to go with my good angel of a doctor. A Christmas miracle. He never need find out the truth, so it can’t hurt him. What is the term? An accessory after the fact. But if he doesn’t know...

      ‘Aye, we’ll help you and gladly, at that. I’m Tam Johnson of the Red House up yonder and this is my eldest son, Willie.’ The accent was broad Border Scots. ‘You’re lucky to catch us. We’re only going this way to do a favour for a neighbour.’

      There was the sound of shuffling feet outside and Grant ducked back in. ‘May they come through now?’ Kate nodded and he stood aside for two short, burly, black-haired men to enter.

      They seemed to fill the space and brought with them the smell of wet sheep and heather and peat smoke. ‘Good morning to you, mistress.’ The elder stood there, stolid and placid. Perhaps he attended marriages in tumbledown cottages every day of the week. Beside him the younger one twisted his cap in his hands, less at ease than the man who was obviously his father.

      ‘Good day,’ she managed, beyond embarrassment or social awkwardness now.

      Grant produced a notebook, presumably from his capacious saddlebags. She wondered vaguely if he had a packhorse out there. ‘I assume we need a written record that you can sign?’

      ‘Aye, that’ll be best. You’ll be English, then? All you both need to do is declare yourselves married. To each other, that is.’ The older Mr Johnson gave a snort of amusement at his own wit.

      ‘Right.’ Grant crossed the small distance and knelt beside her, took her hand in his. ‘I, Grantham Phillip Hale Rivers, declare before these witnesses that I take you, Catherine—’

      ‘Jane Penelope Harding,’ she whispered. He was only a doctor. They did not put announcements of their marriages in London newspapers.

      ‘Catherine Jane Penelope Harding, as my wife.’

      Another contraction was coming. She gritted her teeth and managed, ‘Before these witnesses, I, Catherine Jane Penelope Harding, declare that I take you, Grantham Phillip...Hale Rivers, to be my husband.’

      ‘We’ll write the record outside, I think.’

      She was vaguely conscious of Grant standing, moving the Johnsons out of the room, then her awareness shrank to the pain and the effort. Something was happening, something different...

      Where was Grant? She listened and heard him, still in the stable.

      ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ There was the chink of coins. ‘I hope you’ll drink to our health. You’ll bring the donkey cart back down here after noon?’

      ‘Aye, we will, no trouble at all.’ That was the older man, Tam Johnson. ‘You’ll not find it far to Jedburgh now the rain’s stopped. You’ll be there by nightfall. Thank you kindly, sir, and blessings on your wife and bairn.’

       ‘Grant!’ СКАЧАТЬ