Christmas Revels VI by Hannah Meredith

Author:Hannah Meredith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical romance, regency romance, christmas stories, second chance at love, holiday anthology, dukes, earls, english lords and ladies
Publisher: Hannah Meredith

Chapter Two

The Christmas house party at Wolfbrook Hall was a large one, and Frances hated large parties. She was always made to feel clumsy and unattractive and, according to her mother when Frances tore herself away from the Gospel of St. Matthew to get dressed for dinner, unfashionably late.

“You’re wearing that?” her mother asked, followed by a long sigh. “I suppose you don’t have much choice in color with your auburn hair. It comes from your father’s side, you know.”

Frances knew. She’d heard it often enough. With a sigh, she said, “What’s wrong with lilac?”

“It’s a spring color, not a Christmas color.” Georgina smirked at her sister. Georgina was dressed in red velvet, so of course, with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and svelte figure, she looked lovely.

Frances stepped to the other side of her mother so not to be too close to the color that made her skin turn ruddy and her hair turn muddy. Once Georgina had realized how Frances looked around red, she had worn it at every opportunity. Tonight was no exception.

“I’m walking in with your father. Go stand next to your sister, Frances,” her mother ordered.

Georgina smirked. Walking next to Frances would guarantee Georgina would look especially beautiful, and Frances knew it. She suspected their mother planned their entrance for the first dinner this way, being determined to find her younger daughter a suitable spouse.

Their mother had given up on Frances years ago.

Their father joined them, gave them all equal smiles followed by a wink to Frances, and they paraded downstairs to the hall outside the dining room.

“How unfortunate, that lilac,” Lady Crawford whispered to her son, Henry, as she glanced at Frances, who couldn’t help but overhear. Lady Crawford whispered as if she wanted the entire room to hear her every thought.

“Sorry. I was looking elsewhere,” Henry said and gave Georgina a wide smile. His eyes never wavered toward Frances.

Hurt and shame tightened the muscles in Frances’s face and throat until she was certain her expression must be a frightening grimace. She breathed a sigh of relief when the doors to the dining room opened and the group strolled inside.

The table was huge, easily accommodating the guests. Gleaming silverware and sparkling glassware were spread on white linen at every place. Candles burned from candelabras placed around the table and along the edges of the room. Frances barely had time to appreciate the elegance before she found herself seated between Colonel Sir Robert Willard of the British Army and Lord Ramsey of the Foreign Office.

Both men were over forty and married, unlike her sister’s dinner partners, the youthful and unmarried Henry Crawford and the young and eligible Lord Wethers. Frances wondered if this was at the request of the wives of her dinner partners who weren’t worried about their husbands straying with her, or her sister’s dinner partners who wanted a potential parti to dine with.

Frances glanced at the head of the table where Walter Ogilvy sat. She didn’t see the masked earl she’d met earlier.

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