Homespun Regency Christmas (9781101078716) Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  An Object of Charity - Carla Kelly

  The Wexford Carol - by Emma Jensen

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Mistletoe and Folly - Sandra Heath

  Upon a Midnight Clear - Amanda McCabe

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  FATHER CHRISTMAS

  ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS

  SUGARPLUM SURPRISES

  Together for the first time in this delightful collection, these beloved holiday stories are from four bestselling and award-winning Regency authors.

  Sandra Heath is the ever-popular author of numerous Regencies, historical romances, novellas, and short stories. Among other honors, she has won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards for Best Regency Author and for Best Regency Romance. She lives in Gloucester, England, and can be contacted at [email protected].

  Emma Jensen has won numerous awards, including two RITAs and the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award. She grew up in San Francisco and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, with degrees in nineteenth-century literature, sociology, and public policy.

  Carla Kelly has written more than a dozen novels and won two RITAs for Best Regency. She lives in Valley City, North Dakota, where she has done historical research for the North Dakota State Historical Society, writes for various publications, edits the Confluence News, and formerly worked for the National Park Service on the North Dakota-Montana border.

  Amanda McCabe lives in Oklahoma with two very spoiled cats. When not reading or writing romances, she loves doing needlework, taking dancing lessons, and digging through antiques stores. A RITA and Romantic Times Award finalist and a Booksellers Best Award winner, she loves to hear from her readers via e-mail at [email protected].

  Praise for the Authors

  Sandra Heath

  ‘‘A scrumptious book, with a hint of magic.’’

  —The Word on Romance

  ‘‘Believe in magic! You’ll finish breathless and wanting more.’’—Romance Fiction Forum

  ‘‘Don’t miss this wonderful book . . . which will live in your heart for years!’’—Ivy Quill Reviews

  Emma Jensen

  ‘‘Jensen is on her way to becoming a star.’’

  —Romantic Times

  ‘‘Truly captivating . . . a talented author.’’

  —The Literary Review

  Carla Kelly

  ‘‘Ms. Kelly writes with a rich flavor.’’

  —Romantic Times

  ‘‘Pass the word: Carla Kelly’s Regency romances are for everyone.’’—The Romance Reader

  Amanda McCabe

  ‘‘Amanda McCabe has never disappointed.’’

  —Huntress Book Reviews

  ‘‘Will enrapture readers.’’—The Romance Reader

  ‘‘Extremely talented.’’—Romance Reviews Today

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

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  First Printing, October 2008

  Copyright © New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  All rights reserved

  Author copyrights for individual stories can be found on page 329, which

  constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978-0-451-22709-6

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  An Object of Charity

  Carla Kelly

  Captain Michael Lynch never made a practice of leaning on the quarterdeck railing of the Admirable, but it hardly seemed to matter now. The crew—what was left of them—eyed him from a respectful distance, but he knew with a lift to his trounced-upon heart, that not one of them would give less than his utmost, even as he had.

  His glance shifted to that spot on the deck that had glared so brightly only last month with the blood of David Partlow, his first mate. One of his crew, when not patching oakum here and there to keep the Admirable afloat, or manning the pumps, had scrubbed that spot white again until all trace was gone. Still he stared at the spot, because now it was whiter than the rest of the deck.

  Damn the luck, he thought again. Damn the French who had sailed to meet the Admirable and other frigates of the blockade fleet, gun ports open and blazing a challenge rare in them, but brought about by an unexpected shift in the wind. Most of all, damn the luck that fired the Celerity, next frigate, and sent her lurching out of control into the Admirable.

  And maybe even damn Partlow for rushing to the rail with a grappling hook just in time for the Celerity’s deck carronade, heated by the flames, to burst all over him. Another Celerity gun belched fire then, and another, point blank at his own beautiful Admirable, one ball carrying off his sailing master, and the other shattering the mainmast at its juncture with the deck. ‘‘And they call that friendly fire,’’ he murmured, leaning on the railin
g still as the Admirable inched past able ships in Portsmouth harbor.

  There would be an inquiry, a matter of course when one ship had nearly destroyed another. He knew the Lords of the Admiralty would listen to all the testimony and exonerate him, but this time there would be no Admirable to return to. It would be in dry dock for three months at least, and he was sentenced to the shore on half pay. The lords might offer him another ship, but he didn’t want any ship but the Admirable.

  Lynch was mindful of the wind roaring from the north, wavering a point or two and then settling into a steady blow. He couldn’t fathom three months without the wind in his face, even this raw December wind.

  At some exclamation of dismay from one of the crew, he looked up to see the dry dock dead ahead. Oh, Lord, he thought, I can’t stand it. He didn’t mind the half pay. Even now as he leaned so melancholy on the rail, his prize money from years and years of capture and salvage was compounding itself on ’Change. If he chose, he could retire to a country estate and live in comfort on the interest alone; his wants were few.

  The scow towing his ship backed its sails and slowed as it approached the dry dock. In another minute a launch nestled itself alongside. His bosun, arm in a sling but defying anyone but himself to do this duty, stood ready to pipe him off the Admirable. His trunk, hat case, and parcel of books were already being transferred to the launch. The bosun even forgot himself enough to lower the pipe and suggest that it was ‘‘better to leave now, sor.’’

  ‘‘Damn your impertinence, Mays!’’ he growled in protest. ‘‘It’s not really like leaving a grave before the dirt is piled on, now, is it?’’

  But it was. He could see the sympathy in his bosun’s eyes, and all the understandings they had shared through the years without actually calling attention to them.

  ‘‘You’ll be back, Captain,’’ the bosun said, as if to nudge him along. ‘‘The Admirable will be as good as new.’’

  And maybe it will be a young man’s ship then as it once was mine, he thought, stirring himself from the rail. I have conned the Admirable for fifteen years, from the India Wars to Boney’s Milan and Berlin Decrees that blockade Europe. I am not above thirty-six, but I feel sixty, at least, and an infirm sixty at that. With a nod to his bosun, he allowed himself to be piped over the side.

  Determined not to look back at the wounded Admirable, he followed his few belongings to Mrs. Brattle’s rooming house, where he always stayed between voyages. He handed a coin to the one-armed tar who earned his daily mattress and sausages by trundling goods about town in his rented cart. It was almost Christmas, so he added another coin, enough to give the man a day off, but not enough to embarrass him; he knew these old sailors.

  And there was Mrs. Brattle, welcoming him as always. He could see the sympathy in her eyes—amazing how fast bad news circulated around Portsmouth. He dared her to say anything, and to his relief, she did not, beyond the communication that his extra trunk was stowed in the storeroom and he could have his usual quarters.

  ‘‘Do you know how long you will be staying this time, sir?’’ she asked, motioning to the ’tween-stairs maid behind them to lay a fire.

  He could have told her three months, until the Admirable was refitted, but he didn’t. ‘‘I’m not entirely sure, Mrs. Brattle,’’ he heard himself saying, for some unaccountable reason.

  She stood where she was, watching the maid with a critical but not unkindly eye. When the girl finished, she nodded her approval and looked at him. ‘‘It’ll be stew then, Captain,’’ she said as she handed him his key.

  He didn’t want stew; he didn’t want anything but to lie down and turn his face to the wall. He hadn’t cried since India, so it didn’t enter his mind, but he was amazed at his own discomposure. ‘‘Fine, Mrs. Brattle,’’ he told her. He supposed he would have to eat so she would not fret.

  He knew the rooms well, the sitting room large enough for sofa, chairs, and table, the walls decorated here and there with improving samplers done by Mrs. Brattle’s dutiful daughters, all of them now long-married. His eyes always went first to the popular ‘‘England expects every man to do his duty,’’ that since Trafalgar had sprouted on more walls than he cared to think about. I have done my duty, he told himself.

  He stared a long while at the stew, delivered steaming hot an hour later and accompanied by brown bread and tea sugared the way he liked it. Through the years and various changes in his rank, he had thought of seeking more exalted lodgings, but the fact was, he did not take much notice of his surroundings on land. Nor did he wish to abandon a place where the landlady knew how he liked his tea.

  Even to placate Mrs. Brattle, he could not eat that evening. He was prepared for a fight when she returned for his tray, but he must have looked forbidding enough, or tired enough, so that she made no more comment than that she hoped he would sleep better than he ate. Personally, he did not hold out much confidence for her wish; he never slept well.

  The level of his exhaustion must have been higher than he thought, because he slept finally as the day came. He had a vague recollection of Mrs. Brattle in his room, and then silence. He woke at noon with a fuzzy brain. Breakfast, and then a rambling walk in a direction that did not include the dry dock, cleared his head. He had the city to himself, possibly because Portsmouth did not lend itself much to touring visitors, but more likely because it was raining. He didn’t care; it suited his mood.

  When he came back to his lodgings, he felt better, and in a frame of mind to apologize to Mrs. Brattle for his mopes. He looked in the public sitting room and decided the matter would keep. She appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation with a boy and girl who looked even more travel weary than he had yesterday.

  He thought they must be Scots. The girl—no, a second look suggested a young woman somewhere in her twenties rather than a girl—wore a plaid muffler draped around her head and neck over her traveling cloak. He listened to the soft murmur of her voice with its lilt and burr, not because he was prone to eavesdropping, but because he liked the cadence of Scottish conversation, and its inevitable reminder of his first mate.

  As he watched, the boy moved closer to the woman, and she grasped his shoulder in a protective gesture. The boy’s arm went around her waist and she held it there with her other hand. The intimacy of the gesture rendered him oddly uncomfortable, as though he intruded. This is silly, he scolded himself; I am in a public parlor in a lodging house.

  Never mind, he thought, and went upstairs. He added coal to the fire, and put on his slippers, prepared for a late afternoon of reading the Navy Chronicle and dozing. Some of his fellow officers were getting up a whist table at the Spithead, and he would join them there after dinner.

  He had read through the promotions list and started on the treatise debating the merits of the newest canister casing when Mrs. Brattle knocked on his door. She had a way of knocking and clearing her throat at the same time that made her entrances obvious. ‘‘Come, Mrs. Brattle,’’ he said, laying aside the Chronicle which was, he confessed, starting to bore him.

  When she opened the door, he could see others behind her, but she closed the door upon them and hurried to his chair. ‘‘Sir, it is the saddest thing,’’ she began, her voice low with emotion. ‘‘The niece and nephew of poor Mr. Partlow have come all the way from Fort William in the Highlands to find him! The harbormaster directed them here to you.’’

  ‘‘Have you told them?’’ he asked quietly, as he rose.

  She shook her head. ‘‘Oh, sir, I know you’re far better at that than I ever would be. I mean, haven’t you written letters to lots of sailors’ families, sir?’’

  ‘‘Indeed, Mrs. Brattle. I am something of an expert on the matter,’’ he said, regretting the irony in his voice, but knowing his landlady well enough to be sure that she would not notice it. What I do not relish are these face-to-face interviews, he thought, especially my Number One’s relatives, curse the luck.

  ‘‘May I show them in, or should I send them ba
ck to the harbormaster?’’ she asked, then leaned closer and allowed herself the liberty of adding that while they were genteel, they were Scots. ‘‘Foreigners,’’ she explained, noticing the mystified look that he knew was on his face.

  He knew that before she said it. David Partlow had come from generations of hard-working Highlanders, and he never minded admitting it. ‘‘Sturdy folk,’’ he had said once. ‘‘The best I know.’’

  ‘‘Show them in, Mrs. Brattle,’’ he said. She opened the door and ushered in the two travelers, then shut the door quickly behind her. He turned to his guests and nodded. ‘‘I am Captain Lynch of the Admirable,’’ he said.

  The young woman dropped a graceful curtsey, which had the odd effect of making him feel old. He did not want to feel old, he decided, as he looked at her.

  She held out her hand to him and he was rewarded with a firm handshake. ‘‘I am Sally Partlow, and this is my brother Thomas,’’ she said.

  ‘‘May I take your cloak?’’ he asked, not so much remembering his manners with women, because he had none, but eager to see what shape she possessed. I have been too long at sea, he thought, mildly amused with himself.

  Silently, her eyes troubled, she unwound the long plaid shawl and pulled it from her hair. He had thought her hair was ordinary brown like his, but it was the deepest, darkest red he had ever seen, beautiful hair, worn prettily in a bun at the nape of her neck.

  He indicated the chair he had vacated, and she sat down. ‘‘It is bad news, isn’t it?’’ she asked without any preamble. ‘‘When we asked the harbormaster, he whispered to someone and gave me directions to this place, and the woman downstairs whispered with you. Tell me direct.’’