Favorites from Christmas Revels Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual occurrences or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Historical events and personages are fictionalized.

  FAVORITES FROM CHRISTMAS REVELS

  Compilation copyright © 2020 by Anna D. Allen, Pamela Bolton-Holifield,

  Kate Parker, and Meredith Simmons

  The Sergeant’s Christmas Bride copyright © 2017 by Anna D. Allen

  The Gnome and the Christmas Star copyright © 2018 by Meredith Simmons

  Yuletide Treachery copyright © 2019 by Kate Parker

  A Perfectly Unforgettable Christmas copyright © 2017 by Pamela Bolton-Holifield

  All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotes used in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-942470-14-4 (E-book)

  Published by Singing Spring Press

  Dear Reader,

  When we first envisioned this new collection, we’d planned to call it The Best of Christmas Revels. Unfortunately, as a group, we couldn’t decide which stories deserved to be called “the best.” Yes, we are four strong-willed women and we all have definite opinions, particularly about other people’s stories.

  Each of us, however, knew which of her own tales was her favorite, even if others thought different stories were better written or had better characters or were better examples of the Regency period. Reading and writing are very subjective, and we each had a story we’d written that talked to our heart.

  And so, Favorites from Christmas Revels was born. Our choices may have more to say about us as people than about a consensus of excellence, but we hope you enjoy them.

  Happy Reading—

  Table of Contents

  The Sergeant’s Christmas Bride by Anna D. Allen

  The Gnome and the Christmas Star by Hannah Meredith

  Yuletide Treachery by Kate Parker

  A Perfectly Unforgettable Christmas by Louisa Cornell

  The Sergeant’s Christmas Bride

  By Anna D. Allen

  6 December 1815

  An ominous click instantly brought Sergeant Jacob Burrows out of his shallow sleep. In the full expectation of a fight, he opened his eyes, and found himself, not in Spain or Toulouse or even the wilds of America, but in a cold, dark stable in Gloucestershire. In the shadows before him stood a cloaked figure with a lantern in one hand and a fully-cocked pistol in the other.

  Heart racing, Jacob jumped up, his paltry blanket falling to the straw bed he had made for himself in the empty stall. The nearby horses sounded agitated as well, stirring up the straw and shaking their manes with equine grumbles. Now on his feet and at his full height, he realized the figure was much smaller than he first believed, and he almost relaxed, just a bit, knowing he could easily overpower whoever it was. And as so many others did when made aware of his true size, the figure cautiously moved back a few steps toward the open stable door, light from the house beyond piercing the night and reflecting off the sparse, falling snowflakes.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.” The voice surprised Jacob—soft and feminine but keenly edged. He took a half-step forward. “No. Not another step,” the female said, “I will shoot you.”

  Jacob stopped and tried to figure out how to play this. He did not like having a pistol pointed at him, but this wasn’t the enemy. It was an Englishwoman who had just discovered a strange soldier sleeping in her stable.

  When shipped to fight in America after the Battle of Toulouse, Jacob had been warned about poisonous snakes. He never saw one, but he heard tales around the campfires, someone always claiming to have known someone who had been bitten and died. One such snake gave a warning by rattling, as if to ward off its victim. But another snake blended in with the leaves. One never knew it was even there until it was trod upon; it struck in a flash, with death quickly following.

  Jacob did not know which this woman was. Was the pistol her warning, her rattle to alert her victim—or was it already too late? She was trod upon and would shoot? He feared her calm demeanor suggested the latter.

  “I doubt that’s loaded,” he lied with a deceptive shrug.

  “I’m willing to find out. Are you?”

  He might have dismissed her detached tone, but she held the pistol steady, properly, not with her finger curled about the trigger like some novice first handling a weapon but pointed down the barrel to prevent a misfire. That told him everything he needed to know. She knew how to shoot, and she would kill him, if necessary.

  He decided to play it nonchalantly, as a matter of course. “Ah, but then you’d have a body on your hands and end up hanged for murder.” He slowly reached down and picked up his blanket. The night was bitter cold, his red coat doing little to keep him warm, and he deliberately draped the blanket about his shoulders. It was one of his few remaining possessions, everything else sold off to pay for his passage back to England.

  “Murder?” she said. He thought he heard a small snort. “Hardly. I’d give a performance worthy of Mrs. Siddons.” Her voice went up an octave as she demonstrated feigned distress. “‘I didn’t know the gun was loaded. After all, what would a mere female know of such things?’” Her voice returned to its previous cadence. “And you, some thief come to murder us in our beds.”

  As she spoke, she moved the lantern oh so slightly, and Jacob saw her face. His heart skipped a beat at the sight—young, smooth-skinned, beautiful with classical features, but as frigid as the night air without the least hint of emotion. Only, he knew that face. No, they had never met before this moment, but Jacob knew that face as well as he knew his own, if not better. And he realized he’d made a mistake when he chose this stable to bed down for the night.

  “A thief?” Jacob asked. He looked down at the straw beneath his feet. “Then why the body in the stable and not the house?”

  For a moment, he thought he had her with that one, but she replied without hesitation, “Oh, I’ll just drag you into the house.” He could tell she had considered this potential situation long before tonight. He couldn’t decide if he thought such a calculation unnerving or quite prudent and clever on her part. Admirable, even.

  However, she was diminutive compared to him. If standing toe to toe, she would be eyelevel with his mid-chest and was probably a foot shorter than he. He was also solid muscle; God had created him in the image of a blacksmith, not a common soldier.

  “By yourself?” He pointed out the obvious difficulty of dragging someone his size all the way to the house. “Unlikely.”

  “What makes you think I’m alone?”

  The time had come, Jacob realized, to lay his cards on the table. “I suppose Mrs. Howard could help you….” He saw her look of surprise—mixed with something else. “…But with her rheumatism, I don’t know how much help she’d really be. And Mr. Howard’s been dead now for what? Two years?” As he finished speaking, he realized what else he recognized in her face—fear.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “My name is Jacob Burrows.” For a moment, recognition flickered in her eyes, and the pistol lowered fractionally. “I’m sorry,” he continued, wishing he had been forthright with her from the start. “I didn’t know this was Worthing House. I thought I still had several miles to go. I merely chose the first place I found as darkness fell. Just some place to bed down for the night. If I’d known where I was, I would have come to the kitchen door.” When she didn’t respond, he asked, “You’re Miss FitzWalte
r… I mean, the new Lady Worthing, right?”

  She simply nodded. She was the very image of her late brother, Major Matthew FitzWalter—for a short time also Viscount Worthing. Theirs was that rare aristocratic title that could pass through the female line in the absence of an immediate male successor. In this case, upon the major’s death, the title had passed to his only surviving sibling, the lady now standing before Jacob.

  He motioned to his pack leaning against the post. “I have something for you. From your brother.”

  “He died at Toulouse more than a year and a half ago.”

  “I know. I was with him.”

  In an instant, she stepped back and rapidly raised the pistol level with his chest again. This time, Jacob saw the flash of anger in her eyes. And he suddenly feared he’d played this all wrong, that even with honesty he might still get shot.

  “Wait. I really do have something from him. He told me to bring it to you. I would have come sooner, but they shipped me to America.” Again, he motioned to his pack.

  “Careful.”

  “Yes. I know. You will shoot me.” Cautiously, watching her as much as paying attention to what he was doing, Jacob opened his pack, reached in, and pulled out the sealed letter. He held it up to her so she could see the direction written upon it. “You know his hand?”

  She raised the lantern and leaned in a bit to get a closer look. Then a small gasp escaped from her mouth, her eyes widening simultaneously.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the lantern. Once he took it from her, she snatched the letter from his other hand. Staring down at the folded paper, she slowly lowered the pistol, relief washing over Jacob. For a long while she just gazed at the letter, until finally clutching it to her chest. Then, with great deliberation, she lifted her eyes and looked at him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “There are many soldiers wandering the countryside these days, some with nefarious intentions. We can’t be too careful.”

  “Perfectly understandable.”

  Holding the lantern, Jacob could see her better. She adjusted her cloak, partially parting the folds. Beneath it, she wore a man’s jacket, a belt buckled about it just below her bust and mimicking the current high-waisted fashion. She tucked the pistol awkwardly into the belt.

  “Well then,” she said, taking back the lantern, “there’s no point in staying out here. We can at least offer you place by the fire in the kitchen and a hot meal.”

  Jacob accepted the invitation without hesitation. He grabbed his pack and trailed her out of the stable, only pausing to close and secure the stable door. She waited for him before continuing across the winter-white yard to the house, Jacob just a couple steps behind her as the snow intensified. She walked with an inelegant gait, picking her way over frozen ruts and icy patches toward the broken stone steps leading into, he presumed, the kitchen.

  But as she mounted the first step, she suddenly gave a slight cry, her foot slipping, the lantern dropping, and her arms flying outward in a vain attempt to catch herself in the midst of a fall. Instantly, without any thought, Jacob dropped his pack, and caught her about the waist before she could hit the ground.

  Only, to his astonishment, she had no waist. Her swollen belly told him all he needed to know.

  “You’re with child!”

  “How very perceptive of you.”

  ***

  Elizabeth FitzWalter clung to the soldier’s arm about her for a moment, amazed by the size and strength of it, until she felt steady on her feet again. Despite that, her heart still raced frantically from the fright she’d had upon losing her footing on the slick ice. She could have so easily fallen and broken her neck or, worse, injured her child. She was grateful to this Jacob Burrows—she had recognized his name the moment she heard it, as Matthew had often mentioned his sergeant in his letters—but now a third person after Mrs. Howard and the midwife knew of the condition she desperately wanted kept secret.

  “You may let me go now,” she said. He cautiously released her, his hand hovering near her as if she might slip again. She picked up the now-extinguished lantern, and still clutching the letter in her bare hand, she hurried up the few steps and into the kitchen, the massive soldier following her. She half expected him to duck his head as he came inside. Despite what he said—he wasn’t the first man to say he was with her brother when he died—Elizabeth still wondered if she should allow him into the house, even just into the darkened kitchen, especially with only Mrs. Howard and her there. Of course, she assured herself, she could just shoot him, if need be. But somehow, she doubted it would come to that. Regardless of everything that had happened, her instincts had generally been right, and now, something told her this man was a good man. That didn’t mean, however, she would throw caution to the wind. Instincts were all well and good, but her suspicious nature served her just as well—except when she chose to ignore it, a mistake she would not make again.

  Sergeant Burrows, with his gray blanket still wrapped around him, immediately headed toward the kitchen fire and stood there warming his hands. From Matthew’s letters, she had imagined the sergeant older, gruff, with a belly from too much drinking. Instead, he was tall and broad with unfashionably long blond hair just touching his wide shoulders, some of it pulled back in an untidy queue.

  As Elizabeth hung up her cloak on a peg by the door and set aside the lantern, Mrs. Howard entered from the hall and hesitated at the sight of the soldier before the kitchen fire. She glanced at her mistress.

  “Sergeant Burrows,” Elizabeth said to her housekeeper, “Claims he was with Matthew when he died.” She caught the glare he gave her. “You’re in luck,” she said to him, “we had a bit of beef, and Mrs. Howard made a stew of it. Pears. Cheese. Bread. Cider to wash it all down. And apple tart with cream for dessert.” She said all this not to whet Sergeant Burrow’s appetite but as instructions to Mrs. Howard. All they had planned for their dinner was the stew, bread, and the tart, but with a man here, Elizabeth wanted more on the table, primarily because she feared he’d eat all the stew, which she wanted to last at least two days.

  “When did you last eat?” she asked him as Mrs. Howard set about getting dinner on the table.

  He appeared reluctant to answer. “I had a bit of bread early this morning,” he replied. Elizabeth suspected he’d had little to eat before that.

  “In that case,” she said, “just wash up in the scullery for now. You can take a proper bath after dinner.”

  “A bath?”

  There was no polite way around it. “You smell. And you need to shave.”

  A slow, small laugh rumbled up in him, and he seemed quite amused by her comment. “As you wish, my lady.” He pulled the blanket from about him, dropped it onto the settle by the fire, and followed Elizabeth’s finger pointing to the scullery. As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Howard hurried over to Elizabeth.

  “Do you think it’s safe having him in the house?” she asked in a rushed whisper.

  “I don’t know.” Elizabeth showed her the letter.

  “What’s that?” The housekeeper squinted her eyes trying to read the writing in the glow of firelight.

  “A letter from Matthew. Sergeant Burrows brought it.”

  “Gracious. After all this time.”

  “Go ahead and serve the sergeant his dinner.” Elizabeth looked down at the letter in her hands and studied the familiar script. “I want to be alone for a little while.”

  “Of course, my lady. I’ll see to the sergeant.”

  Elizabeth traversed the darkened hall and ascended the stairs to her chamber where a fire burned in the hearth. Other than the kitchen, it was the only room in the house where the fire was kept lit all day, as she spent so much time here.

  She took the magnifying glass from her escritoire, laid the pistol down, and took her place in the overstuffed chair by the fire. She examined the red wax seal through the magnifying glass. It had been impressed with her brother’s signet ring bearing the FitzWalter family crest. That ring, de
livered to her with word of his death, now sat with her stationary. The wax seal was unbroken, and she saw no evidence suggesting the wax might have come away intact from the paper and been resealed at a later date.

  Elizabeth broke the seal and unfolded the paper with trembling fingers and tightening throat to see her brother’s final words to her.

  Toulouse, France - 12 April 1814

  My dear Elizabeth,

  I am sorry to leave you alone in this world, but it is not of my choosing. Know that I would give anything to be there with you. But you will make an exceptional Viscountess Worthing, have no fear.

  The bearer of this letter should be Sergeant Burrows—exceptionally tall, strength of an ox, blond like a Norseman but with the beauty of Aphrodite. Most likely, he needs to shave. He served faithfully alongside me and saved my life countless times. You can trust him implicitly in all things.

  I promised Sergeant Burrows work at Worthing House when the war ended. Please do not make a liar of me. He comes from a long line of farmers in Yorkshire, but he inherited nothing and his wife is dead. Find some occupation for him, if not there, then a situation with a neighbor who will treat him respectably. He is a good man and deserves nothing less. But I would rest easier knowing a man such as he were there to keep you safe. He is quite resourceful and can do almost anything. He can read and write and is good with numbers.

  I love you, dear sister, and await the day when we will be reunited.

  Your devoted brother,

  Maj. Matthew FitzWalter — whom some have called Viscount Worthing.

  Elizabeth wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingertips, refolded the page, and crushed the letter against her chest above her pounding heart. “Oh, Matthew,” she whispered and then let the tears flow unabated. The pain of her loss hurt just as much now as it did the day that man came to inform her of her brother’s death in France—a slow, drawn out death from a stomach wound. It took nine days for him to die. Elizabeth remembered thinking, with that amount of time, he could have come home to die, if someone had just brought him. Rationally, she knew such a journey would have simply hastened his death, but her heart still couldn’t understand it. So instead of awaiting the resurrection in the family vault, Matthew lay in an unmarked grave somewhere across the Channel. They couldn’t even bring his body home, yet they managed to bring Lord Nelson back.