Page 71 of Kathryn

“No, no, just a goose walking across my grave. The, er, Countess of Grimsby lives here?” she asked faintly.

“She only spends a portion of each summer here,” the vicar said. “And these past two years not even that. She has been on the Continent with Lord Jasper, her grandson, and his wife—who was very ill and unfortunately died. We’ve recently heard her ladyship will arrive at the end of the month.”

Jasper’s wife was dead?

“Do you know the countess?” Miss Nicholson asked politely.

“Er, no, we have never met,” Katie said.

The vicar turned to the duke and started talking about something else.

Katie blocked out the man’s voice, her thoughts on Jasper’s grandmother. Or Jasper, rather. Would he be accompanying his grandmother?

Good God. That would be a disaster! She was finding it difficult to get enough air. What were the chances she would move right next door to Jasper’s grandmother?

When Katie had first gone to London, she’d been terrified every day for a month that she would encounter Jasper. Thankfully, he had taken his new wife off on a Grand Tour and she’d neither seen him nor even heard any gossip about him in almost five blissful years.

If the countess rarely came to her estate for more than a brief visit it was unlikely that she would bring her grandson with her. Wasn’t it?

Out of the corner of her eye Katie saw the woman who’d been in the private box. Rather than stop and speak to the vicar or Dulverton, she slipped past without a word. Mrs. Nicholson followed the woman’s progress with narrowed eyes, her lips tightly pursed and her cheeks a fiery pink.

What on earth was that about?

Katie didn’t have a chance to think about Jasper or the mysterious woman as the next twenty minutes were consumed with nonstop introductions to at least forty people who had waited to meet her and greet the duke.

Not until she was back in the carriage with Dulverton did she recall the woman. “Who was the woman in the private box across the aisle?”

Dulverton’s jaw flexed and he said, after a pause, “That was Mrs. St. Clare, one of my tenants.”

Katie wanted to ask why a mere tenant had a private box, which were usually reserved for neighborhood gentry, but his expression was even more forbidding than usual, so she held her tongue and tried to think of anything other than the possibility of Jasper showing up on her doorstep this summer.

Less than ten minutes later Dulverton was handing her out of the coach. “Will an hour be enough time to change into your riding clothing?”

“A quarter of an hour will be plenty of time.”

His eyebrows rose, but after a brief hesitation he nodded and said, “Very well,” before turning away to say something to one of the grooms.

Becky was not in Katie’s room when she reached it, so she rang the bell. She’d just removed her spencer when her maid arrived, no longer garbed in her church finery.

“You must have hurried back,” Katie said as Becky helped her out of her gown. “I’ll want the dark green habit as I’m going riding,” she added.

Becky nodded. “We didn’t have to face the neighborhood gauntlet that you did after the service.” She disappeared into the dressing room with Katie’s gown.

Katie sat and removed her earrings.

Becky returned and laid the habit out on the bed. “It is a pretty little church, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Mr. Court said that His Grace’s grandfather purchased the windows.”

“Oh, you rode with him to church?”

“Yes, along with Mr. and Mrs. Cranston.”

Katie smiled at her friend’s red face and defensive tone; clearly Mr. Court was a sensitive subject.

A glance in the mirror showed Katie that her own face was more than a little flushed with excitement. She was delighted to be going riding—it had been more than a week.