A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers #5)(25)

The old man heaved a sigh. “When did they start making the words so small? And why is the light in here so poor?”

Hannah smiled sympathetically and entered the room. “May I be of help, sir?”

“Ah, yes.” With a grateful glance, he rose from the chair and extended the book to her. It was a work by Mr. Charles Dickens, titled A Christmas Carol. Published two years earlier, the story of redemption had been an instant sensation, and had been said to rekindle the cynical public’s joy in Christmas and all its traditions. “Would you mind reading for a bit?” the old man asked. “It tires my eyes so. And I should like to sit beside the fire and finish my toddy.”

“I would love to, sir.” Taking the book, Hannah looked askance at the children. “Shall I?”

They all cried out at once. “Oh, yes!”

“Don’t lose the page, miss!”

“The first of the three spirits has come,” one of the boys told her.

Settling into the chair, Hannah found the correct page, and began.

“Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge. “I am.”; The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. “Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”;

Glancing around, Hannah bit back a grin as she saw the children’s mesmerized faces, and the delighted shivers that ran through them at her rendition of a ghostly voice.

As she continued to read, the magic of Mr. Dickens’s words wrought a spell over them all and eased the doubt and anger from Hannah’s heart. And she remembered something she had forgotten: Christmas wasn’t merely a single day. Christmas was a feeling.

IT CERTAINLY WOULD HAVE BEEN NO HARDSHIP TO KISS LADY Natalie. But Rafe had refrained from taking any such liberty, mainly because she seemed so determined to entice him into it.

After Hannah had left the lower terrace, Natalie had been defensive and sheepish, telling him that men were fortunate not to require chaperones everywhere they went, because at times it could be maddening. And Rafe had agreed gravely that it must indeed be quite inconvenient, but at the same time Miss Appleton struck him as tolerable company.

“Oh, most of the time Hannah is a dear,” Natalie said. “She can be rather bourgeois, but that is only to be expected. She comes from the poor side of the family, and she’s one of four unmarried sisters, no brothers at all. And her mother is deceased. I don’t mean to sound self-congratulatory, but had I not told Father I wanted Hannah as my companion, she would have suffered years of drudgery looking after her sisters. And since she never spends a shilling on herselfshe sends her allowance to her fatherI give her my castoffs to wear, and I share nearly everything that’s mine.”

“That is very generous of you.”

“No, not at all,” she said airily. “I like to see her happy. Perhaps I was a bit harsh on her a few moments ago, but she was being unreasonable.”

“I’m afraid I have to disagree,” Rafe told her. “Miss Appleton is a good judge of character.”

Natalie smiled quizzically. “Are you saying that she was correct in her assessment of you?” She drew closer, her lips soft and inviting. “That you’re going to make the most of our privacy?”

“I hate to be predictable,” he told her regretfully, amused by her frowning pout. “Therefore…no. We should probably take you upstairs before we cause gossip.”

“I have no fear of gossip,” she said, laying her hand on his arm.

“Then you clearly haven’t yet done anything worthy of being gossiped about.”

“Perhaps it’s only that I haven’t been caught,” Natalie said demurely, making him laugh.

It was easy to like Lady Natalie, who was clever and pretty. And it would be no hardship to bed her. Marrying her would hardly be a difficult price to pay, to get the business deal he wanted with his father. Oh, she was a bit spoiled and pettish, to be sure, but no more than most young women of her position. Moreover, her beauty and connections and breeding would make her a wife whom other men would envy him for.

As he walked with her toward the main entrance hall, they passed by the open door of the library, where he had conversed recently with his father. A very different scene greeted his gaze now.

Warm light from the hearth pushed flickering shadows to the corners, spreading a quiet glow through the room. Hannah Appleton sat in a large chair, reading aloud, surrounded by a group of avidly listening children.

An elderly man had nodded off by the hearth, his chin resting on the ample berth of his chest. He snuffled now and then as a mischievous boy reached up to tickle his chin with a feather. But the boy soon left off, drawn into the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his visitation by a Christmas spirit.

Rafe had not yet read the wildly popular book, but he recognized the story after hearing a few lines. A Christmas Carol had been so quoted and discussed that its ever-growing fame had become rather off-putting to Rafe. He had dismissed it as a bit of sentimental candy floss, not worthy of wasting his time with.

But as he watched Hannah, her face soft and animated, and heard the lively inflections of her voice, he couldn’t help being drawn in.

Accompanied by the Spirit of Christmas Past, Scrooge was viewing himself as he had been as a schoolboy, lonely and isolated during the holidays until his younger sister had come to collect him.