Mistletoe'd! Read online

  Mistletoe’d!

  By Lisa Cach

  Published by Lisa Cach at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 by Lisa Cach

  Discover other titles by Lisa Cach at Smashwords.com

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  Table of Contents

  Puddings, Pastries, and Thou

  Originally published in Wish List, 2001.

  In 1818 England, impoverished relation Vivian spends the feasts of Christmas in search of both good food and a good husband.

  A Midnight Clear

  Originally published in Mistletoe & Magic, 2000.

  Returning home for Christmas in 1878 Vermont, Catherine needs magical help to clearly see the man who will best bring her happiness and love.

  Return to Sender

  Originally published in Christmas Cards from the Edge, 2005.

  In present-day Seattle, costume historian Tessa gets the best Christmas gift of all: a handsome Scot!

  Puddings, Pastries, & Thou

  Chapter One

  Christmas Eve, 1818

  Copley Grange

  Near Corfe Castle, England

  “Oh dear. Is that the best you have to wear, Miss Ambrose?”

  “Your pardon, ma’am. I’m afraid it is,” Vivian admitted, holding her hands clasped tightly in front of her and refusing to give in to the urge to smooth the skirt of her navy wool gown. It was a gown meant for a governess or a paid companion, or for what she was: a poor relation.

  “Dear me, dear me, this won’t do. This won’t do at all!” Mrs. Twitchen, her distant cousin, fretted. “We are having Mr. John Sudley, baronet, for dinner, and his wife is the granddaughter of an earl. This won’t do!”

  “Perhaps, ma’am, it would be better if I did not attend?” Her stomach growled and gurgled beneath her clasped hands. She could, though, feed it just as well off a tray in her room as at the table.

  “Nonsense,” Captain Twitchen spoke up, sitting by the fire where the oak yule log burned. He placidly read his paper, a bull of a man around whom maids and footmen flowed as they hung greenery and positioned silver candelabra newly polished. “If your gown is not suitable, wear one of Penelope’s. She won’t mind. Will you, girl?”

  “Papa!” Penelope, aghast, turned from her inspection of a towering centerpiece of sweetmeats with sprigs of poisonous mistletoe tucked here and there in a creation of the girl’s own design.

  Vivian’s eyes lingered longingly on the pyramid of goodies even as she felt the heat of humiliation in her cheeks. It was bad enough to be sent from one branch of the family to another, treated like a hungry beggar. It was worse yet to land upon a new doorstep only a day before Christmas, when a family had its mind on entertainments planned weeks in advance, and on private traditions. But worst of all was to feel that her presence was an annoyance and an intrusion.

  “They would not fit,” Penelope said. “Miss Ambrose is much larger than I am, and the colors would be all wrong. She cannot wear one of my gowns.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Captain Twitchen disagreed, folding his paper in half to better read an article of interest. “You’ve got more already than you need for the season, and you’ll be having a bushel more made when we return to town, I warrant.” He glanced up from his reading, examining his daughter and his wife’s cousin. “You look near enough in size to me.”

  “Might there be one you could spare?” Mrs. Twitchen inquired cautiously of her child.

  “Let her stay in her room! You do not wish to dine with a baronet, do you, Miss Ambrose?”

  Vivian supposed she didn’t much care where or with whom she dined, as long as dine she did. It had been ages since she’d last eaten.

  “Penelope,” her father said warningly, and gave his daughter a long look.

  “But, Papa, it isn’t fair! I suppose you’ll want me to share all my gowns with her for the season as well, won’t you?”

  “Hush, child,” Mrs. Twitchen said, coming and putting her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and steering her out of the room, then gesturing to Vivian to follow. “You’ll give him ideas.”

  Vivian cast a look back at Captain Twitchen and found him once more absorbed in his paper, the troubles of the females of his house best left to its females. For a brief moment, she had a feeling that the man was a sleeping dragon best not wakened.

  Turning, she gave a last, loving look at the tower of treats, then followed the fiercely whispering, protesting Penelope and the shushing Mrs. Twitchen up the oaken staircase of Copley Grange and down the hall to Penelope’s room.

  Her prideful heart wished to refuse a gown so grudgingly lent, but her reasonable mind ordered her to follow the dictates of the captain and his wife. Those two were the ones she needed to please, not Penelope, although she suspected the Twitchen girl could make her life a misery easily enough.

  It felt as if it had been a month ago, but it was only this morning that she had arrived here at the home of her first cousin, twice removed—Penelope’s mother. They had never met before this day, although the arrangements for Vivian’s arrival had been made some weeks past, as soon as old Ann Marbury had died.

  Miss Marbury had been the spinster great-aunt of a previous set of cousins—cousins who had found Vivian useful as a companion to their wicked, dotty old relative. For nine years she had fetched and carried, read aloud, and played at cards with the beastly old woman, had endured increasing insults and pinches, and had had food thrown at her as the lady’s mind deteriorated.

  It had been a blessing to them both when the woman died. Vivian did not think herself hard-hearted for believing so, for as often as Miss Marbury had been cruel and suspicious, she had equally as often spent her days in tearful confusion, inconsolable, asking after those who had died long before Vivian had been born.

  Farewell, unfortunate Miss Marbury! And may the angels keep you in good company!

  And farewell also, horrid cousins, who kept me caged with an old woman for your convenience and never spared a thought for me or my future!

  She was twenty-five years of age, and had never once attended a dance or an assembly, although her family were gentry and such should have been her right. The horrid cousins had preferred keeping her as unpaid help to spending the money to garb her and help her catch a husband and thus be free of their charity.

  But now that Miss Marbury was dead and Vivian’s usefulness gone with her, Vivian had been passed on to the next relatives willing to take her in and provide for her. She could only hope the Twitchens proved kinder and more generous than her other cousins.

  “Penelope, do stop pouting and fussing. You will put wrinkles in your face with such expressions,” Mrs. Twitchen said, and opened her daughter’s clothespress to examine the possibilities therein.

  “Not the green silk—that is my favorite,” Penelope said, seeing her mother reaching for the garment. “It brings out my eyes, and would not suit another.”

  “Miss Ambrose has green eyes as well,” Mrs. Twitchen mentioned.

  “She cannot!” Penelope cried, then turned to examine Vivian and contradict the distressing statement. But she could not.

  Vivian was equally surprised. The two girls were opposites: she herself had dark hair where Penelope had fair; she had a strong build that was underfed where Penelope had a fine build that was too plump. She would not have thought they shared any traits at all. Yet as her seventeen-year-old cousin came nea
r, Vivian saw that indeed they had the same sea green eyes with dark gray rims.

  Penelope’s face grew red with anger, and she turned away with a flounce.

  Mrs. Twitchen was still talking. “She is our cousin, after all, and blood will show. Dear me, we must dress her suitably. I will not be embarrassed in front of the baronet!”

  “It is only Cousin John, Mama. I do not see why you need make such a fuss.”

  Mrs. Twitchen chose several gowns and laid them out over the bed and two upholstered chairs, then spoke to Vivian. “My husband’s sister made an excellent match in a baronet. The title has since passed down to Sir John, Captain Twitchen’s nephew, whom we have had the great good fortune to entertain on many an occasion, as he adores his uncle so. His wife is descended from the Earl of Surrey.”

  “Indeed, ma’am,” Vivian said, for want of any better comment. She was beginning to wish most heartily that she could be left alone in her new bedroom while the family entertained their guests. Meeting the Twitchens and being installed in their home was strain enough for one day without the addition of baronets and granddaughters of earls.

  “He is not half so grand as to deserve such care,” Penelope put in.

  “Hush, child. You say that because you know no better. When you come out this season, you will see what difference it makes to say your cousin is a baronet.”

  “And my great-grandfather a baron. I know, Mama.”

  “You help Miss Ambrose choose something, and give her ear bobs and a necklace to wear if she has none of her own, and perhaps some silk flowers for her hair. Really, we cannot have her looking so shabby, and she a relative of mine!”

  Mrs. Twitchen hustled off, murmuring worries about Cook and the footmen, and Vivian was left alone with her cousin.

  “I am sorry about this,” Vivian said to the girl, feeling awkward and unwelcome. And hungry, to add to her misery. “If I had new gowns meant for my season, I should not like to have another wear one of them first, and she a stranger to me.”

  “I have been looking forward to my first season since I can remember,” Penelope said, a quaver in her voice. “And here you come, right before it is to start! And we will have to have dresses made for you, and take you about, and all our acquaintances will be asking who you are when this was supposed to be my time. And you’re too old for a season, too old by half! It’s not fair!”

  Vivian could tell the spoiled creature a thing or two about fair; she could! But she would not. Such a protected creature as Penelope Twitchen could not know what life was like outside the loving care of her mama and papa, and Vivian herself would have rather been a spoiled creature than an impoverished one, had she the choice. So she held her tongue.

  “Please choose your least favorite,” she said, knowing that such was what Penelope had in mind anyway.

  The girl chewed her upper lip, frowning at the dresses. “I’m not over fond of the yellow,” she said. “It makes my hair look dull, although it does have that lovely Valenciennes lace.”

  “I would be glad enough to wear it,” Vivian said.

  “You won’t spill gravy on it?”

  As if she were a child who could not use a spoon! Vivian counted to five, unclenched her jaw, and said, “I shall take great care not to.”

  “Well, all right, then.” Penelope picked up the dress and held it against Vivian’s shoulders. “I suppose it might fit, and the color is not completely unattractive on you. Do you have hair ribbons, ear bobs, anything?”

  “I’m afraid I will have to ask those of you, as well.” She would rather stick a sprig of holly in her hair and call herself decorated. Mrs. Twitchen would be displeased, though, and she didn’t want to embarrass the woman.

  Penelope sighed, leaving the dress in Vivian’s arms and going to her dressing table. “This is really most unfair of Mama and Papa. This was to be my season.”

  “I do not like it any better than you,” Vivian snapped, her weariness, tension, and hunger getting the better of her tongue. Last night had been spent very uncomfortably, sharing a bed at an inn with the unwashed, phlegmy woman who had been paid a pittance to accompany her. She had not slept well. “But I am glad that Captain and Mrs. Twitchen are willing to sponsor me for a season, for marriage is the only way I can at last be free of the so-called charity of relations!”

  Penelope turned to her, jaw agape. “What an ungrateful wretch you are!”

  “Not ungrateful. I shall thank your dear parents every day of my life if they can help me find a husband.”

  “More’s the pity we will not find you one before we return to London, for then I could be rid of you the sooner.”

  “There is no greater gift I could ask from this Christmas season than that! The three kings didn’t bear anything half so precious as a husband would be to me.” Certainly such a mercenary view wasn’t anything out of a fairy tale, princes scaling castle walls to rescue her from the villainous clutches of evil knights, but she had never expected such. A husband was simply someone to whisk her away from her dependence on her family. There need be no drama.

  Vivian’s green eyes met Penelope’s. A moment of consideration stretched between them. Vivian’s stomach growled.

  “It’s not truly possible, is it, to find a husband in such a short time?” Vivian asked.

  “I… I’m not sure.”

  “When does the family return to town?”

  “Soon after Epiphany,” Penelope said. “The parliamentary session will begin in January this year, and Papa is an MP, so we must go back.”

  Epiphany was January sixth, the day after Twelfth Night. “It is not much time, less than two weeks. It’s not possible.” Vivian sighed, her momentary hopes sinking.

  “No, perhaps it is.” Penelope had a pink silk rose in her fingers, which she began to tap against her lower lip as she considered. “Are you particular about whom you marry?”

  “I would wed a man forty years my senior who smelled like molding potatoes and had the wit of a particularly stupid rabbit—as long as he had a solid income and could provide me with my own home.”

  “You are desperate, aren’t you? You have no dowry, and no income of your own. You are past the better part of your youth. You might have to make do with such a one.”

  “I expect little better.” And truly she did not. The only things that saved her from joining the ranks of governesses were that her education was insufficient to qualify her, and that most of her relatives would rather have her as a spinster gentlewoman they had to support than as a spinster with an occupation.

  They would rather as well keep her a poor relation than to see her marry below her level, ending up with a man in trade whom they would then have to claim as a relation. Gentry were all that was acceptable, as well as all that was beyond her, given her lack of an inheritance. And what chance had she to go against their wishes and find herself a blacksmith or a carpenter with whom she might make a ruder home? None.

  A woman of her age and station, of her poverty and genteel connections, was subject to the tyranny of her relations. They held her welfare within their purses, tied tight with a drawstring cord, and her only escape was marriage.

  It was only the average prettiness of her face she could sell, and the youth of a body that could still bear children. It was old men who were forever the most eager buyers of those commodities.

  Who said she wasn’t in trade, like the lowest grocer or fishmonger? She would do what she had to to sell herself before she went rotten.

  “There is one possibility of a match,” Penelope said, coming forward and tucking the silk rose into Vivian’s hair. “And he will be visiting us this very night!”

  Chapter Two

  Whatever weariness Vivian had felt was burned away by a new tension. If Penelope had her way, she would be meeting her future husband tonight. And the cruel child refused to tell her anything about him!

  “He’ll be the only single man present. You can find out what you will about him on your own. I shan’t spoi
l the fun of that for you,” Penelope said, then took the curling tongs to Vivian’s hair.

  As she sat and endured Penelope’s primping and trimming of her, she wondered what it could be about this man of which her cousin was unwilling to speak. She did not fool herself: there had to be something wrong with him. Very wrong. Why else would Penelope believe he might be interested in Vivian’s own impoverished self, and so eager to wed that the engagement could be accomplished in a mere two weeks?

  Penelope was treating her as a large doll to be dressed and rearranged without complaint. No longer did she fret about her Valenciennes lace garbing another, nor about loaning her yellow topaz ear bobs and the necklace that went with them. She dabbed Vivian’s face with powder, and tinted her lips and cheeks with a faint trace of carmine.

  “Shhh,” Penelope said. “Don’t tell Mama I have it.”

  Penelope held a needle over the candle and used the soot to fill in the spots where Vivian’s brows were sparse or uneven. She was as determined as a mama preparing her daughter to snag a young peer at a ball. Her concentration was a testament to her desire to have her season all to herself, yet at the same time it showed a certain pride in her handiwork. Vivian recalled the carefully arranged mountain of sweetmeats and mistletoe, and hoped her own appearance fared better under Penelope’s artistic guidance.

  She also felt a bit of a fool while Penelope fussed over her. She was twenty-five and had never been a beauty even when she had the freshness of youth to her face. She feared that when at last she was allowed to look in the mirror, it would be a caricature of a young woman that looked back at her, and it would be plain to all that she was pretending to be something she was not, and with only one goal in mind.

  There was, though, a small part of her that began to come alive under the attention, watching with interest the way in which Penelope wielded the cosmetics and chose ribbons and flowers for her hair. With a start she realized what it was: vanity.

  And so what if it was? It was long past time she had the chance to indulge in that vice that women were said to have perfected.