A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) by Cecilia Grant

Author:Cecilia Grant [Grant, Cecilia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
Publisher: Cecilia Grant
Published: 2014-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

Lucy paused at the door to the kitchen. If she were at Hatfield Hall she might be going into the breakfast room now. She would be well-rested and wearing her hair in some more artful arrangement than she’d been able to manage this morning on her own. She’d enter the room to find pretty china, silver forks and spoons, and, with luck, a place at the table beside some jolly young man who would tell stories that made her laugh. He might flirt a bit, in an easy manner, leaving it to her to decide whether she wished to respond. And the room would be warm, and the food would be sumptuous, and everyone would be in fine holiday spirits.

She allowed herself two seconds to wish, wholeheartedly, she were at Hatfield Hall. Then she fixed a smile on her face and crossed the threshold.

“Happy Christmas, Mrs. Porter.” With as much ebullience as she could muster, she went to the table where the woman stood at work. “Thank you so much for having your maid bring up that hot water, and the shaving things. I don’t believe there’s a gift on earth that could have pleased Mr. Blackshear more than the sight of soap and a razor.”

“Happy Christmas to you too.” Mrs. Porter wore her sleeves rolled up. Flour dusted her forearms almost to the elbows. She was doing something with a lump of dough. “Did you sleep well? The room wasn’t too cold?”

“It was perfectly cozy. I slept very well indeed. So did Mr. Blackshear. May I ask what you’re making?” Her pulse galloped and her cheeks felt warm. She hadn’t slept well; neither had Mr. Blackshear; and the room had most certainly not been cozy—indeed that was how the trouble had started, with Mr. Blackshear so cold and miserable on the floor that she’d had to go and fetch him back to the bed.

“This is just a loaf of bread. But after I set the dough to rise, I thought I’d make a pie.” Mrs. Porter pressed the dough with the heel of her hand as she spoke, leaning a good part of her weight into it before turning and folding it and pressing again. “We didn’t make a Christmas pudding this year, since it was only to be Mr. Porter and me. Nor do I have any mincemeat ready. I have dried apples, though, and I think a pie of any sort is a good addition to a Christmas dinner.”

No Christmas pudding! All of yesterday’s melancholy sympathy came flooding back at this latest evidence of what a meager holiday the Porters had planned for, with their reduced circumstances and their absent daughter.

Well, shame on her if she couldn’t put her troubles and disappointments aside for a few hours, and bring what youthful Christmas cheer she could to this house. “A dried-apple pie sounds lovely.” It did, now that she thought of it. “Is there some easy part with which I can help? I’ve always wished I could be in the kitchen when the Christmas cooking went on.

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