A Very Selwick Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hen, do you have any more gingerbread?”

    Mrs. Ramsby was still attempting to conquer her natural revulsion at the notion of the foreign capital. The French were worse than sheep. Sheep…. French brothers…. Wherever had Lord Richard found that woman?
    “Did you spend a great deal of time among the French, then, Lady Richard?” The title seemed to come hard to the older woman"s tongue.
    Well, let it, thought Amy belligerently. Her daughter had had the opportunity to own it and had turned it down to marry her elderly baron, trading a mere courtesy title for a peerage as though the exchange of one man for another were nothing more than a move on a chess board, so many points to be won. Amy had never valued the worth of a man at his place in the peerage. She had seen for herself that it brought danger as well as privilege. Richard"s worth lay in himself.
    Most of the time.
    Amy snaked a glance at her oblivious husband. What was he thinking leaving her to the wolves like this? Not that she needed rescuing, of course. She could very well rescue herself.
    But, still. Did he not want to take up cudgels against his former love? It was very hard to fight against the phantom of What Might Have Been.
    “I was born in Paris,” Amy replied. “And spent my early youth there. My father was French.
    I am half-French.”
    From the expression on Mrs. Ramsby"s face, she clearly felt that that explained a great deal.
    “You must find France sadly changed,” ventured Lady Jerard, in the tone of one determined to smooth oil over troubled waters, whether the waters wished to be oiled or not.
    Why did the vile Deirdre have to be so… pleasant? It was very irritating. Amy took it as a personal offense.
    “Change,” broke in Miss Gwen, in her precise, clipped accents, “is distinctly overrated. It is so seldom managed properly.”
    “Change?” bellowed Uncle Bertrand. “What"s this about change? I don"t hold with it! In my day, we thought it sufficient to change our linen three times a year, and that was change enough for us.”
    Across the room, Amy"s cousin Agnes, who had been glowing with the thrill of her first grown-up party, looked about ready to sink beneath the settee. Amy knew how she felt.
    “But, Bertrand, dear,” piped up Aunt Prudence, in her vague, gentle voice, blinking her nearsighted eyes at him, “we"ve talked about that.”
    Uncle Bertrand deflated, his chin sinking into the folds of his cravat. While much wrinkled, it had clearly been washed within the fortnight.

    “Yes, I know,” he mumbled, before rousing himself sufficiently to add, with a hint of belligerence, “Not that I see aught wrong with a peck or two of good English dirt! If it"s good enough for England, it"s good enough for me!”
    Lady Uppington"s lips twitched. “There"s something to be said for good English water, too,”
    she said tactfully.
    “Aye, in its place,” agreed Uncle Bertrand, determined to make himself agreeable to his hostess.
    “Streams?” suggested Miles. “Rivers? Duck ponds? Eeep!”
    His wife smiled sweetly at him. “You"ve been in that duck pond before. Don"t make me put you there again.”
    Miles folded his arms across his chest. “I"ll have you know that I"m quite fond of ducks.”
    “Yes, on a plate,” retorted his wife. “When they can"t peck back.”
    Amy was used to their banter by now. Ignoring them, she looked to her own husband, who was rubbing his head as though he had the headache.
    “Are you unwell?” Amy whispered.
    Richard shook his head, like a swimmer breaking through the water. “I just need a breath of air. You"ll be all right?”
    “Of course,” said Amy.
    Ignoring the swirl of conversation around her, she watched as her husband gracefully extricated himself the grouping. Fending off his mother"s concerns about his health, he slipped out of the room, moving with all the speed of a man trying to outpace his own private pack of demons.
    Amy just wished it didn"t feel quite so much as though