LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t think they were relevant. I certainly did not envisage that within two years they’d be orphaned and homeless, and I don’t know what the hell I’d have done about either if you hadn’t been here to step into the breach.’

      ‘I’m eternally grateful that I was in a position to do so.’

      ‘I believe you—though at the time I confess I had serious misgivings about burdening you with them.’

      ‘I remember. You said that you’d get your lawyer to find someone to take them on. As if I would dream of doing anything other than taking them in. I’ve often said if we had not already been married I would have married you for that reason alone. And I have never,’ Kate said vehemently, ‘told the girls that you considered any other outcome.’

      ‘Thus awarding me a great deal more credit than I deserve. I am sorry, Kate, but I won’t be swayed.’

      ‘Aren’t you even curious to see how the marriage you arranged turned out? You say you know nothing of the girls, but you gleaned enough from my letters to know that Alexander and Eloise would suit very well.’

      ‘I don’t respond to emotional blackmail, you know.’

      Kate flinched. ‘You’re right, that was unworthy of me.’

      ‘You care a great deal for them. You think it’s in their interests to know me. I’m telling you it’s not. You need to trust me to know best.’

      Her throat worked as she mulled this over. ‘Your work is a great deal more dangerous than you ever led me to believe, isn’t it?’

      Until the recent debacle, from which he was still recovering, Daniel had never considered his own mortality, but he wasn’t a man who needed to be taught anything twice. He had come close to death. The next time—and he was bloody well determined to be given the chance of a next time—he might not be so lucky.

      Which reminded him—whatever else he did while he was in England he must sort out the provisions of his last will and testament. Now that he no longer had a nephew to inherit Elmswood, he had no clue as to who would currently be his next of kin. Some distant cousin, no doubt. But he was damned if Elmswood would be taken from Kate if he had anything to do with it.

      ‘Kate…’

      ‘Was it always dangerous? Even when we first married?’

      ‘Kate, I can’t—’

      ‘Can’t answer that. Except you already have. I wonder that you suggest we get to know one another better. You’re not afraid that I’ll become too attached, I take it? Are you imagining that I’m longing to be a merry widow?’

      ‘I think the last nine months have proved rather conclusively otherwise, don’t you?’

      She sighed, her shoulders sagging. ‘I’m not usually such a shrew, you know. I’m sorry you don’t want to meet the girls, for their sake, but I can’t force you, and I do understand, though I’m not looking forward to explaining it to them.’

      ‘I’ll likely be gone before you see them.’

      She got to her feet. ‘Then I suggest you utilise the time you have to recuperate. I’m heading over to the Estate Office to make a start on catching up. I’ll have Cook send up some soup for you—or is there something else you’d prefer? What do you like to eat?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not hungry.’

      ‘You should go to bed and rest. No…what I should say is don’t go to bed, I suppose, and then you will.’

      He surprised them both by taking her hand in his. ‘This situation is as strange and awkward for me as it is for you.’

      ‘But, as you have pointed out several times, at least I’m on home turf and, unlike you, happy to be here,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Your hand is freezing. I really do think you should go back to bed and try to get some rest, Daniel.’

      And get out of her way. She was right. There was as little point in him getting to know his wife as his nieces. Yet he was strangely reluctant to let her hand go.

      ‘I’d better not detain you any longer.’

      She hesitated, her wide-spaced blue eyes scanning his face as if she was trying to read his mind, before giving him a brief nod, disentangling her hand, and quitting the room.

      He listened out for the oddly familiar scrape of the front door on the flagstones—one thing in the house she hadn’t remedied—before sinking back into the fireside chair, closing his eyes, and falling into a sudden deep sleep.

      Chapter Two

      Alone in the Estate Office, Kate found it impossible to settle. Just over eleven years ago she had proposed to Daniel here. She’d been twenty-two years old and the future, as far as she had been concerned then, had stretched a year into the distance, two years at most.

      She’d been far more interested in the present, eking out every available moment with dear Papa and, when he’d finally passed away, hurling herself into planning the modernisation of the estates and the renovation of the house and gardens.

      Then had come the unexpected arrival of the girls into her already busy life and the years had sped by, leaving her no time to worry about what lay ahead.

      But now Elmswood Manor and the grounds were fully restored, the estate was a model of modern farming, and the girls had flown the nest. Kate was thirty-three years old and the future loomed—a vast, unpopulated space that she had no idea how she was going to fill. Eleven years ago thirty-three had seemed to her the age of an old crone, but now, despite her newly acquired lines, she felt every bit as young and untested as she had done when sitting here watching the clock all those years ago, waiting for Daniel to arrive.

      Of course that was nonsense. The girls—young women! She really must stop thinking of them as ‘the girls’!—would testify to the passing years, as would Elmswood Manor itself. She allowed herself a mocking smile. Both had blossomed under her care. But while she’d been tending to her husband’s nieces, and Elmswood’s gardens, she’d neglected herself.

      Who was Kate Fairfax?

      The last nine months had taught her that she was more intrepid than she’d imagined. Until Daniel’s masters had called on her she’d always thought Elmswood the beginning and the end of her world, but having perforce seen a great deal more of the world since then, she would now like to see still more—though under more auspicious circumstances!

      She was naïve, she was far from worldly-wise, but years of managing the estates had given her a confidence and a shrewdness that had helped her navigate many potentially daunting aspects of foreign travel. If she was honest, she envied Estelle her freedom now. It wasn’t that Elmswood was a burden, exactly, but it was no longer a challenge.

      Kate closed the ledger, where the numbers had been dancing about in front of her eyes, and got to her feet to gaze out of the window. Time to put her pragmatic head on again. Why worry about the future when she had the present to deal with?

      She had never forgotten that she was married, but her experience of marriage had been husband-free. Until now. She had been too impatient with Daniel. It wasn’t like her to be so easily riled, but there was something about him that set her on edge.

      It had been different when he was ill—easier, in a sense—for she had known how to care for him, had been clear about her role as his nurse. And while he had not been lucid,—which had been most of the time—she had been able to tend to him without embarrassment, thinking of him simply as a patient in need of care.

      Only when he had become conscious had she become self-conscious, aware of him as a man.

      A very attractive man. There, she could admit that. She’d always found him attractive. Yes, but from afar. Nursing him had brought her into intimate contact with

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