A Sprinkling of Christmas Magic Read online

  Snuggle up with these three Regency tales

  Christmas Cinderella by Elizabeth Rolls

  Handsome country rector Alex Martindale dreams of kissing his spirited schoolmistress and never having to stop.… With some mistletoe, he may just get his wish!

  Finding Forever at Christmas by Bronwyn Scott

  At the yule ball, Catherine Emerson receives a proposal from the man she thought she wanted—but a kiss from his mysterious, darkly handsome brother unleashes a deeper desire.…

  The Captain’s Christmas Angel by Margaret McPhee

  Returning to England for Christmas, Sarah Ellison discovers a man adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing could have prepared her for the gorgeous Captain Daniel Alexander, or the secrets he keeps!

  Praise for the authors of

  A Sprinkling of Christmas Magic

  ELIZABETH ROLLS

  “Rolls starts off with a mystery and unravels it gradually. The sexual tension is strong between the hero and heroine, and it seems that every time they begin to get close, another bit of the mystery is revealed, and they are kept apart. This technique keeps the reader engaged from beginning to end.”

  —RT Book Reviews on A Compromised Lady

  “Rolls has written an entertaining, delightful romp full of engaging characters, outrageous misunderstandings and inspiring trysts. Readers are in for a real treat.”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Chivalrous Rake

  BRONWYN SCOTT

  “Scott delivers a story reminiscent of Virginia Henley’s works with its naughty, bawdy overtones. Sexy, smart and delightfully sinful, this steamy tale features characters who know themselves well and will take extraordinary risks to succeed despite the odds. This is a wonderfully satisfying read.”

  —RT Book Reviews on A Lady Risks All

  “Sexy, seductive, satisfying. Book two in Scott’s Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy is another keeper, with strong characters and a well-written story.”

  —RT Book Reviews on How to Ruin a Reputation

  MARGARET McPHEE

  “This Gentlemen of Disrepute tale is mysterious and alluring, with unexpected twists that will both startle the reader and draw them into the mystery and suspense. McPhee’s talent for creating intense, tension-filled, passionate love stories, tinged with the darkness of modern urban suspense, will captivate the reader.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Dicing with the Dangerous Lord

  “Ex-lovers, secret babies, lies, betrayals and blackmail make McPhee’s new romance a winner. This latest is fast paced, suspenseful and wildly romantic.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Unmasking the Duke’s Mistress

  Award-winning author ELIZABETH ROLLS lives in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia in an old stone farmhouse surrounded by apple, pear and cherry orchards, with her husband, two sons, three dogs and two cats. She also has four alpacas and three incredibly fat sheep, all gainfully employed as environmentally sustainable lawnmowers. The kids are convinced that writing is a perfectly normal profession, and she’s working on her husband. Elizabeth has what most people would consider far too many books, and her tea and coffee habit is legendary. She enjoys reading, walking, cooking and her husband’s gardening. Elizabeth loves to hear from readers, and invites you to contact her via email at [email protected].

  BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, traveling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, www.bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com—she loves to hear from readers.

  MARGARET McPHEE loves to use her imagination—an essential requirement for a trained scientist. However, when she realized that her imagination was inspired more by the historical romances she loves to read rather than by her experiments, she decided to put the ideas down on paper. She has since left her scientific life behind, retaining only the romance—her husband, whom she met in a laboratory. In summer, Margaret enjoys cycling along the coastline overlooking the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, where she lives. In winter, tea, cakes and a good book suffice.

  A Sprinkling of

  Christmas Magic

  Elizabeth Rolls

  Bronwyn Scott

  Margaret McPhee

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Christmas Cinderella

  Elizabeth Rolls

  Finding Forever at Christmas

  Bronwyn Scott

  The Captain’s Christmas Angel

  Margaret McPhee

  Christmas

  Cinderella

  Elizabeth Rolls

  Dear Reader,

  Most of us love Christmas. It’s a time of year when we get together with our families to celebrate and look back over the past year—and wonder where it went! We spend time making gifts or buying them, preparing food that we eat only once a year, and eating far too much of it. But most of all it’s being with our families that makes it special.

  So I have always wondered how Cinderella coped with Christmas before she went to that ball. Because Christmas must be the loneliest time of all if you’ve lost your family. It’s hard to watch others celebrating together and yet be alone. My heroine, Polly, believes herself alone and has a hard time realizing that sometimes you get to choose your family and where you belong. Those who have read my earlier Christmas story, A Soldier’s Tale, may recognize the unshockable Reverend Alex Martindale. I hope you all enjoy this story and have a wonderful and blessed Christmas with your own families.

  Best wishes,

  Elizabeth Rolls

  DEDICATION

  For Trish Morey, Anne Oliver and Claire Baxter—you’re my touchstone.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter One

  The Reverend Alex Martindale looked down at the innocent babe in his practised arms and braced for the inevitable storm. Red-faced, eyes scrunched up against the holy water dripping into them, the Honourable Philip Martindale, heir to considerable estates and, far more importantly, apple of his parents’ doting eyes, roared his displeasure.

  Having baptised every infant in the parish for the past two years, Alex was used to the noise. Nevertheless he shot a look over the aristocratic squaller to its father, Viscount Alderley. ‘Takes after you, Dominic—temper and all.’

  The Viscount grinned. ‘Not me, cousin.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘Must be Pippa.’

  Alex snorted and continued blessing his little cousin, the child who—thank God from whom all blessings flow—had displaced him as Dominic’s heir. There was a tug at his surplice and he glanced down.

  His goddaughter, the Honourable Philip’s elder sister, looked up at him solemnly. ‘You got water in his eyes, Uncle Alets,’ she explained. ‘Mama or Nurse better give him his next bath.’

  ‘Ah. Was that it?’ he said, preserving a clerical straight face. ‘Thank you, Emma.’

 
; * * *

  The christening party in the Great Hall at Alderley was a rowdy and cheerful affair. It was conspicuous for the absence of the guest of honour and his sister, both of whom had retired early to the nursery in the company of their nurse.

  Alex toasted the heir to Alderley with as much, if not more, enthusiasm as the next man. He gazed around the Hall, noting that the party, attended by many of Dominic’s tenants, was winding down. A far less boisterous gathering of the local gentry, including himself, had been entertained in the drawing room, but Alex suspected that Dominic and Pippa, having seen the last of those guests off in their carriages, were just as happy mingling with the tenantry.

  He made his way across to them. Dominic laid a friendly hand on Farmer Willet’s broad shoulder and shook his hand in farewell, saying, ‘I’ll find out about that bull’, and turned to Alex with a grin.

  ‘Staying to supper?’

  Tempting, but— ‘No, thank you. Mrs Judd would kill me.’ His housekeeper was the sort of benevolent tyrant it was unwise to offend. Staying out to supper without notice would ensure his breakfast eggs were boiled, not poached, for a week.

  Dominic snorted. ‘Why the devil didn’t you just tell her you’d be supping here? You must have known one of us would ask you.’

  He had, of course. Dominic was his cousin and closest friend, but he preferred not to take his welcome for granted.

  Pippa smiled at him, her oddly penetrating gaze suggesting that she knew precisely how he felt, and understood. ‘Tomorrow, then?’ she suggested. ‘We do need to talk about this village school you’re starting.’

  He returned her smile. ‘Tomorrow. And perhaps you’ll return the favour next week.’

  ‘That will be lovely,’ said Pippa cheerfully.

  ‘Do you want the carriage, Alex?’ asked Dominic.

  ‘Thank you, but no. I’ll enjoy the walk.’

  * * *

  He did enjoy the solitary walk. Twilight had closed in and a rising moon glimmered on the frost crunching under his boots. Another year was nearly gone, four weeks until Christmas; tomorrow would be Advent Sunday and he should have been thinking about his sermon, but instead gave himself up to the crisp, cold moonlight that spilled over the fields he was crossing. The familiar path ran clear before him, an ancient right of way. Sometimes he wondered about all the people who had used this path before him, the ancestors of men and women he now served as their rector. Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans: all of them coming as invaders, but being tamed by this land until they all belonged to it under God, as much as it belonged to them.

  Not for the first time he thanked God that he had been called to serve Him in such a place. A place he had known and loved all his life. The place that had been his home since his father’s early death. His uncle, Dominic’s father, had taken him in, along with his mother, and educated him as a younger son, making little distinction between his own sons and an orphaned nephew. Except that he had understood that his bookish nephew would do far better being schooled by Mr Rutherford, the rector, and had not sent him off to Eton with his cousins.

  He had been very, very lucky. Blessed. And his widowed mother had been able to live out her days in safety and peace. He knew of other women, bereft of family and fortune, who had not been so lucky.

  He will lead me to lie down in green pastures...

  Counting his blessings was one thing, but if he lay down in this particular pasture right now he’d catch his death of cold and Mrs Judd would be more than annoyed at the waste of his good supper, so he hurried on.

  * * *

  He didn’t enjoy his solitary meal nearly as much as the walk. It wasn’t Mrs Judd’s excellent cooking, but the fact that there was no one to share it with him. He had shared the rectory with his predecessor and mentor Matthias Rutherford for several years before the old man’s death earlier that year.

  Rutherford had resigned the living a year earlier, but stayed on in the rectory, increasingly frail, but alert. It had been like losing his father again. Worse, in a way, because this time he had known exactly what he was losing. He had known Rutherford far better than his own father. And now Christmas was coming, the first without the old fellow. Grief was no stranger; he had buried his mother and his elder cousin, Dominic’s brother Richard. It was part of his calling to comfort the bereaved. Sometimes he thought it might be nice for the comforter to be comforted...

  He caught himself up at once, rising from his chair and deliberately sloughing off the melancholy that had crept over him. Grief was one thing, self-pity quite another. One of the more insidious sins. And he had comforters: Dominic, Pippa, even little Emma and Philip. He chuckled, remembering Emma’s critique of his handling of Philip.

  Still, it would be something to have a companion. Someone to share the rectory with him. Someone with whom to talk on quiet evenings. Someone to share his now solitary post-dinner brandy and assist with the parish.

  Now that he thought about it, the more he realised what an idiot he’d been not to think of it earlier. His gaze fell on the chess table, its armies frozen for the past ten months. It was obvious: he needed a curate, one who played a decent game of chess and could take up the post of village schoolmaster.

  * * *

  In the opinion of Miss Hippolyta Woodrowe, Cinderella was a complete ninnyhammer. Of course, Cinderella had been extremely lucky. But in Miss Woodrowe’s opinion it was a great deal better not to rely on luck. Let alone relying on Prince Charming to gallop up waving a glass slipper to save a damsel from destitution.

  Having foolishly cast her cousin Tom in that role two years ago, Polly Woodrowe had learned her lesson. Prince Definitely-not-so-Charming preferred to forget your very existence, let alone your claim on his affections, once your fortune was gone.

  She snorted. Easier to believe in the fairy transforming pumpkin, rat, mice and lizards into an equipage suitable for a princess, than that Prince Charming would still have loved Cinderella when he found her in rags.

  ‘Toss her down the Palace steps more likely,’ she muttered, as she walked along the village street. Of course, it seemed that Cinderella had been sweet-natured almost to a fault, because not only did she never become bad-tempered at her lot, but she actually forgave her beastly stepsisters in the end.

  Clearly Cinderella had possessed a much nicer character than Polly Woodrowe could lay claim to. Cinderella had waited patiently, suffering in stoic silence, waiting for her prince. Polly felt like kicking someone. Several someones.

  In the two years since her remaining trustee had explained that her fortune was gone, gambled away by his fellow trustee’s son, Polly had learnt to depend upon herself. She shivered a little and lengthened her step. Only the other day her younger cousin, Susan, had complained that, ‘Hippolyta walks much too fast. Ladies shouldn’t stride so, should they, Mama?’ Well, a lady who wanted to keep warm in a cloak of inferior quality, and reach her destination before her toes froze quite off, walked as swiftly as she could. Especially if she wanted the officially sanctioned errand to the village shop to cover her real goal.

  And there it was—the rectory gate. Her stomach churned at what she was about to do. Perhaps Mr Martindale would not be home. He might be out visiting parishioners, or...or burying someone. Her steps slowed. He was bound to be out. She could return another time. Or not at all. He would think her forward. Pushy. Her aunt thought she was pushy now. When she had still been wealthy her father’s merchant status hadn’t mattered. Now apparently she gave herself airs, her father’s connection with trade abhorrent to her cousins...

  She hesitated. Since when had she cared what a mere country rector might think of her? But she had always liked Alex Martindale. A much older schoolboy, he’d been kind to the little girl visiting her cousins. Sometimes she’d watched him going to and fro from his lessons at the rectory, dazzled when he’d given her a kindly gree
ting. The same friendly greeting he’d given to the village children, a smile in the grey eyes—the Alex Martindale she remembered was not one to look down on those less fortunate than himself.

  People changed, though. Or perhaps as you got older you simply learned more about them. A great deal of it unpleasant. She knew a pang of regret for the innocent young girl who’d had a definite tendre for a handsome boy. Brought up to know her duty, she had obediently turned her eyes to her Cousin Tom, who she was assured by her aunt had a great fondness for her.

  She snorted and kicked at a clod of mud. Alex Martindale had probably changed anyway. Everyone grew up. And her idea was a foolish one, especially since it would be bound to get back to her aunt and cause even more trouble.

  Polly had half-turned away from the rectory gate when she realised what she was doing: giving in before she’d tried, bowing meekly to her fate instead of doing something about it as she had decided yesterday while her cousins were in church. Her aunt had decreed her bonnet and cloak far too shabby to attend church with the family—although apparently not too shabby to walk in to the village on an errand today—and there had been a pile of mending. So if Mr Martindale thought her an ungrateful, grasping, ill bred—that comment of Aunt Eliot’s had really stung—pushy baggage who gave herself airs, then so be it. That pile of mending had been the final straw in a week of slights and snubs.

  Gritting her teeth, she stiffened her wilting spine and set her hand to the gate. He would either listen to her, or not. Think ill of her, or not. A lady with only herself to depend on could not afford scruples about being thought forward. And if she had not her own good opinion, then that of others counted for nothing.

  * * *

  ‘Miss Woodrowe to see you, Rector.’

  Alex looked up from the letter he was writing to the bishop, outlining his plans for the school and his intention to employ a curate. ‘Miss Woodrowe?’ For a moment he was puzzled. Then it came to him. Miss Hippolyta Woodrowe, of course. Niece to Sir Nathan Eliot, that was it. The wealthy Miss Woodrowe. Heiress to a mill-owner. Quite possibly the fortune had been exaggerated, but she had visited often with her widowed mother, a welcome and fêted guest, even as a child and young girl.