by Deborah Hale
She brightened. “What kind of present?”
“A surprise.”
“Oh, good. I like surprises.”
“So do I!” Frost bounded up from the window seat, lifted his aunt off the floor and twirled her round and round until she squealed with giddy laughter. “And you have given me a lovely surprise just now.”
“Me?”
Frosted nodded and pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “One quite as nice as any gift.”
At least he hoped it would be... for all of them.
“Mama,” called Colly Wilton on the afternoon of Twelfth Night, “there’s someone at the door!”
Christabel glanced up from sewing a button eye onto a handsome brown hobbyhorse. “Will you let them in please, dearest? I expect it’s that nice man from the shop in Manchester.”
When Samuel had delivered her and Colly home a few days ago, he had insisted he could not leave until he’d given Christabel a purse of money from his master. At first she had been reluctant to take the gift. It felt too much like pay for her services in the bedchamber to suit her conscience. But seeing she might have Samuel as a permanent houseguest if she refused, she had made up her mind to accept this final token of Mr. Frost’s generosity with good grace.
Besides, an idea had been brewing in the back of her mind for a way she might provide for her son. All she needed was a small amount of capital to get started. A trip to Manchester had yielded both the necessary supplies and orders from two shops for her hobbyhorses. It would take hard work and good luck to make a small income from the venture, but Christabel felt some of her old optimism returning. Besides, she needed a task to occupy her energies so she would not brood about Mr. Jonathan Frost any more than she could help.
She heard Colly pull open the door, followed by the sound of a man’s footsteps approaching.
“Just a moment!” she called. “I’m almost finished this one, then you can have the lot.”
“I’m afraid I am not in the market for a hobbyhorse,” a familiar voice answered.
“Pardon me!” Christabel rose abruptly, dropping the poor beast she had been working on. “I thought you were someone else.” Why hadn’t Colly warned her it was Mr. Frost?
As if he read her thoughts, Frost said, “I sent him out to pet the horses and eat ginger biscuits with Samuel. Who were you expecting, pray?”
She explained briefly about her business venture and the order she meant to dispatch to Manchester that day.
Frost nodded his approval. “Most enterprising of you. Aunt Fanny is quite devoted to the one you gave her from Christmas. Sleeps with it every night. Seems to remember it from one day to the next. She remembered you, too... for a little while at least.”
That thought brought a pang to Christabel’s heart. “She may forget me, but I will not soon forget her, I promise you.”
She picked up the hobbyhorse from the floor then resumed her seat and began sewing again. Mr. Frost or no Mr. Frost, she had an order she’d promised to fill. “May I ask why you’ve come? I thought we’d said everything there was say before we parted on New Year’s Day.”
“So did I.” Frost strode toward the hearth then stooped to chafe his hands before the fire. “But afterward I began to wonder if, for all our talking, we truly understood one another. That is one of the reasons that has brought me here. The other is... this.” He pulled a letter out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Abandoning any pretense of work, Christabel propped the hobbyhorse up beside her chair then took the letter. “What is this? And where did you get it?”
“It is from a solicitor employed by your late father. I met him in London. He was very pleased to hear of your whereabouts. He has been trying to find you ever since your father’s death.”
“What were you doing in London at this time of year?” She opened the letter and began to read it. “Oh my!” she said at last. “Oh, my word! Can this be true?”
“I assure you it is. It appears Major Wilton was right about your father after all. Not long before his death, he made provision in his will for you and the boy, but you could not be found.”
“Do you see what this means?” Christabel fanned her face with the paper. Suddenly she felt as if her fever had returned. “My father forgave me. He did not die angry and disappointed with me.” Almost as much as the prospect of a comfortable life for her and Colly, that knowledge elated her.
“I was tolerably certain that would be the case,” said Frost, “which was why I sought out your father’s solicitor, with the help of my own.”
She was almost too overcome to speak, but she did manage to murmur, “How can I ever thank you?”
“By listening.” He sank to his haunches before her and reached for her hand. “Truly listening, I mean. Not hearing what you think I must be saying. For my part, I will make myself more plain, as I should have from the beginning.”
For man who meant to make himself plain, he was certainly talking in riddles. But if he had something to tell her, she owed it to him to listen... not that it would change anything between them. No doubt she was a fool to hope that might be the reason he’d come.
“Mrs. Wilton... Christabel... my dear Christabel, for six years I have striven to put you out of my heart and carry on with my life. If it had not been for Aunt Fanny’s situation, good sense might even have persuaded me to woo and wed some other lady. Or perhaps I was only using my aunt as an excuse to keep from doing something I secretly could not bear to.”
Christabel could hardly bear to listen. Jonathan Frost had loved her? Under different circumstances that knowledge might have brought her the greatest joy. But how could she rejoice at the thought of having broken his heart? She’d bitterly repented her treatment of him when she had believed herself guilty of nothing worse than injuring his pride.
Her feelings for him, so fresh and tender, and her heartache in believing them unreturned, gave her a harsh taste of what he must have suffered. How could she begin to forgive herself?
Frost looked a trifle daunted by the anguish he must have seen on her face, but he did not falter. “When Fate thrust you back into my life again, I tried to keep my distance and thwart any return of those old feelings. But you rekindled them a hundred times warmer. You were a merry, kind-hearted girl when we were first acquainted, but the years and perhaps your misfortunes have refined those virtues.”
Was this how sinners felt in the face of compassionate eternal judgement? Christabel wondered. Feeling the pain of every offence and the crushing certainty that they were not worthy of forgiveness? Yet it waited, ready to wrap them in its cleansing embrace of rebirth if only they could find the faith to accept.
“I am not sorry I made love to you on New Year’s Eve,” Frost continued with gentle defiance. “Only that I did not first tell you of my feelings and ask once again for the honor of your hand. Then you would have had no cause to suppose I’d been compelled to propose by some other consideration.”
This provoked Christabel to master her voice. “No! You have nothing to reproach yourself for! I should have confessed my feelings so you would not suppose I had tried to entrap you to secure a comfortable home for myself and my son.”
“Your feelings? And what are those, pray? When you refused my proposal, I thought you meant you could not countenance a marriage in which you did not love. Then Aunt Fanny said something that made me hope I might have been mistaken. And that is the other reason I went to London.”
He placed a second folded paper upon her lap. “Now that your father’s will has secured the future for you and your son, you will have no need to wed again. Unless...”
With trembling fingers, Christabel unfolded the paper. It was a special license that would grant them leave to marry immediately rather than waiting the accustomed three weeks for banns to be read in the parish church.
There it was, represented by a single piece of paper—the kind of love that bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things. Th
e kind of love that was the most rare and precious gift in the world.
“Unless,” said Christabel fighting back tears, “I loved a man with all my heart and wanted nothing more in the world than to make a home with him.”
There was a suspicious moisture in Frost’s eyes when he shrugged and chuckled. “Yes, I suppose that would be adequate reason. Do you know of such a fortunate fellow?”
Christabel flung her arms about his neck. “If you do not know the answer to that, Jonathan Frost, then you have taken leave of all your good sense! Will you do me the honor of accepting my hand in marriage?”
Frost cradled her face in his hands and gazed deep into her eyes. “Here is my answer.” He pressed his lips to hers in a kiss of tender passion that set Christabel all a-tingle and eager for their wedding night.
When at last he drew back, he had one final word to add. “I know Aunt Fanny will never get better. If you would rather wait...”
“Not another moment!” Christabel sprang from her chair and hoisted her bridegroom to his feet. “I am certain if we stop in at Gosslyn vicarage on the way back to Candlewood, Vicar Jessup will be pleased to marry us. And his sister more than pleased to stand as a witness. I am eager to help you make a happy home for your aunt and my son... and the children I hope we will have together!”
Frost’s handsome face broke into a smile of such glowing, transparent joy it quite took Christabel’s breath away.
“On the twelfth day of Christmas,” he whispered, “My true love gave to me a gift beyond compare.”
And from that moment onward, not a day went by that did not bring some small gift of happiness to the Frost family. And it was said by all who knew them that everyday in their home was as happy as Christmas.
Dear Reader,
From my youngest years, books have been a special part of my Christmas. The one picture book I still have from my childhood is a lovely story about three children and a snowman. When my own children came along, I started a collection of Christmas books for them, which has grown to many cherished volumes. On dark December nights we would often snuggle on the sofa to read our favorites.
When I began writing, Christmas scenes and chapters often crept into my romance novels. I was thrilled to be invited to write a novella for Harlequin Historical’s 2006 Regency Christmas anthology along with Diane Gaston and Elizabeth Rolls. I recently got back the rights to that story in time to reissue it on the tenth anniversary of its original publication.
Christabel Wilton and her young son face the prospect of a bleak Christmas until a man from her past returns, bearing the precious gift of a warm family celebration and perhaps a second chance at love.
Thank you for making Her Mistletoe Kiss part of your Christmas!
Deborah Hale
Snowbound with the Baronet
A second chance to say yes?
Sir Brandon Calvert has spent the past four years trying to forget the woman who broke his heart by rejecting his marriage proposal. Just when he thinks he has finally succeeded, a fateful snowstorm strands him in the company of Lady Cassandra Whitney. Now Brandon must confront the past and the dangerous attraction her nearness threatens to revive!
The last person Cassandra expected to encounter on a snowy road to Bath is the one man she has never succeeded in banishing from her heart. Her reasons for refusing Sir Brandon’s proposal are not what he believes. But how can she tell the rigorously truthful baronet that she deceived him? And how can she reveal the truth without exposing shameful family secrets?
In the depths of a Regency winter, warm affections are quickly rekindled. But can the flame of true love light the way for two lost hearts to find one another again, before the snow melts and they must go their separate ways?
Excerpt
“The stage coach!” Evie squealed. “I see it coming.”
Viola’s fair complexion grew paler in contrast to the frost-nipped apples of her cheeks. Though she lowered her voice, it took on a tone of increasing desperation. “A woman capable as Mrs. Davis could surely find another position if you were to change your mind. And Evie is not pining for a Season. Ours brought no great joy to the rest of us, in case you have forgotten.”
“Forgotten?” Cassandra drew herself up. “No indeed. I remember all too well, but it would be different for Evie... with Father gone.”
Their late father had managed to spoil the first tender romances of his three eldest daughters. Vi might not resent him for it, but Cassandra lacked her sister’s forbearance.
Viola opened her mouth to protest but Cassandra set hers in a resolute line. “There is no turning back now, dearest. I must do this, not just for Evie and Mrs. Davis but for myself. You know how much I dislike being beholden to anyone, even as kind a friend as Lord Highworth. With Aunt Augusta I shall feel I am earning my keep and contributing to the support of my family. Without that sense of independence, I could not go on.”
“You are too proud.” The beginning of a tear glittered in Viola’s wide grey eyes. “I believe it is the reigning passion of your heart, even more than love. You cannot blame Father for that.”
Cassandra recoiled from her sister’s words. Was Vi implying that her pride was as much at fault as their father’s machinations for destroying her chance of happiness with Sir Brandon Calvert?
“Indeed I can blame Father,” she retorted. “And I do. I inherited my pride from him as surely as my dark hair and my brown eyes. Perhaps that is why we never got on—because I am too much like him while you are entirely like Mother.”
She had no memories of their mother, but the miniature that was one of their most treasured possessions bore a striking likeness to Vi. How different might their lives have been if Mother had lived to bear a son?
Cassandra turned her mind from that thought. Miranda spent far too much time yearning for a past beyond recapture and a rosy future that was only a wishful dream. She prided herself on dealing with the world as she found it and making what she could of it. She was trying to do that now, if only Vi would let her.
“It is too late to argue,” Cassandra caught her sister in a fierce embrace. “If we do not stop, I shan’t have time to bid the others a proper farewell. I promise to write you long, boring letters from Noughtly Hall and we shall see each other next year when you bring Evie to London. If I feel myself going mad, I promise I shall leave at once and return home straight away.”
“See that you do.” Viola drew back, catching her quivering lower lip between her teeth. “And try not to make your letters too boring, or we shall never believe you wrote them.”
“We have a bargain.” Cassandra spun away from her elder sister, before Vi glimpsed any shadow of doubt in her eyes.
She turned toward the younger two, who seemed more excited than grieved at her going. “Don’t give Vi and Letty any trouble now or I shall come straight home from Noughtly and put you both in line.”
Miranda and Evelina paid no heed to their sister’s brusque tone but each gave her an affectionate squeeze and vowed to be on their best behavior.
Then it was Letty’s turn. “Take care of yourself my dear. It is good of you to do this for Evie and Mrs. Davis, but I would expect no less of you.”
Her stepmother’s admiring tone made Cassandra squirm. This undertaking was not some noble sacrifice, as Letty seemed to think, but an escape from the dependence she could no longer bear.
By now the stagecoach had arrived and Cassandra’s final minutes in Charnwood were lost in a rush to secure their luggage. She and Mrs. Davis climbed inside to discover they had the whole box to themselves. As the vehicle pulled away, she waved and called to her family with an air of confident excitement that was not altogether feigned.
Only when they were out of sight did she allow her nagging misgivings to subdue her spirits.
“Oh look,” chirped Mrs. Davis, pointing out the carriage window. “It is starting to snow. How pretty it will make the countryside look.”
Cassandra gave an absent nod. This par
t of England did not often get much snow. The winter landscape was usually a study in shades of dull brown. A soft blanket of pure white would make for a pleasant change. “I hope it will not impede our journey.”
She doubted it would. Any snow that did fall on the Chalk Counties of southern England usually melted away almost as fast as it came. But December had been unusually cold and the bare ground was frozen stiff.
Two hours later the snow was falling very hard, making it impossible to see much beyond the edge of the road. The accumulation of snow Cassandra glimpsed there made her suspect it had been falling here longer than back in Charnwood. The poor coach horses must be finding it hard going for their speed was growing slower and slower. When the coach climbed a gentle rise, Cassandra wondered if she and Mrs. Davis would be obliged to get out and push. Descending the far slope proved a different problem as the rear of the coach skidded from side to side.
Mrs. Davis gave a little squeal of fright then cast Cassandra an apologetic glance. Clearly the poor woman did not want to alarm her.
“I wonder how much farther it is to Noughtly Hall?” She rubbed her gloved hand to clear a circle on the fogged window.
Cassandra gave an exaggerated shrug. “Not above twenty miles I expect, but at the rate we are going Heaven only knows when we shall reach there.”
This would be a little adventure she could relate to her sisters in her first letter home. She hoped Viola and Letty would not be too worried about her on account of the snow.
Before she could think of any reassuring words to offer Mrs. Davis, Cassandra heard the coach driver bellow at the horses to stop. She feared that might not be the best idea. If the poor creatures lost what little momentum they had, who could say whether they would be able to get started again.
“It is another carriage.” Mrs. Davis peered out into the whirling whiteness. “I believe it has gotten stuck in the snow.”
