His Christmas Nymph Read Free Page A

intervene with Lady Georgia coming to whisk Caroline away. Besides, she’d be in awe of the wealth that Georgia commanded as her husband was as rich as a King, commanding a vast shipping fleet. 
    Reaching for her book, she cracked it open. The words blurred in front of her as tears welled in her eyes. She couldn’t bear going through another Christmastide without her dear sweet gently natured Mama.
    There would be no festive merriment in the house. Gertrude even frowned on bringing in the greenery to decorate the house, and burning the Christmas Candle. She frowned on anything that would bring Caroline joy.
    Gertrude had scared those that came Wassailing away last year, and she doubted they would get a visit from them this year. She was a literal dragon lady. 
    Oh how her mother had delighted in hearing them sing, and she would always invite them inside to warm up by the fire while she treated them with cider and Christmas pudding.
    The mummers would also not make an appearance because her step-mother had called them useless beggars last year and told them she would not have them cross her doorstep for fear of the disease they carried. Nor would she give them any kind of charitable handout. They could go to the poorhouse for all that she cared, she’d told them rather maliciously.
    The Christmas Feasts hadn’t been the same. The Roast Beef, Christmas Goose and platters of potatoes, squash, carrots and Brussels sprouts, no longer tasted the same. She didn’t know if it was the lack of their old cook that made it taste so horrid or if it was because there was no joy in Christmas for her anymore. Still, thinking of how the food used to be, made her mouth water.
    Their old cook, Mrs. Laurens had been a wizard in the kitchen. The luscious mince pies, trifle, freshly baked gingerbread and butter shortbread. All of it had combined to become the scents of Christmas and even now if she smelled any of those foods, her mind instantly went back to C hristmases of years gone by.
    As a child, her particular favo urite treats had been sugar plums and ginger nuts. The best part about the holiday feasts? Having her family with her. They would all sit down as a family and revel in the love they all shared. 
    The Christmas Pantomime would be no more as well. Oh, how Fanny and she had delighted in doing their own performances, and they had included their brothers and sisters in on the deal. Her father had only been able to afford to take them to one theatrical production of a Christmas Pantomime in Chelte nham when she’d been a young child. She barely recalled it but she could still remember her mother’s infectiously gay laughter echoing throughout the theater.
    Knowing that their father could not afford to entertain them that way every Chris tmastide, she, her brothers, Fanny and her two sisters and two brothers had decided to produce their own production. While Fanny played dramatically at the pianoforte, she, Christopher, Arthur, Jean and Joan had dressed up and performed various fairy tales and other stories that they themselves had written.
    Fanny’s little brothers Rodney and Randall had also played in the production even though they’d been much younger than the rest of them.
    She could still hear her mother roaring with laughter when Arthur and Christopher had appeared for the first time on their makeshift stage wearing their mother’s old dresses, and hats. They’d gone so far as to paint their faces to see how long and loud their father and mother could laugh.
    Even Fanny’s mother had been amused, and had proudly declared that her Fanny was a most talented musician.
    Afterwards, they would make up the Snapdragon, in her mother’s famed Christmas Bowl, and when the brandy was lit and the room darkened, they would all reach quickly into the bowl to see if they could emerge victorious with their treasure—a hot raisin!
    She lost herself in her memories and wished that she could return to those simpler times when