A Very Selwick Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

but there was too much truth in it for it to be entirely in fun.
    It made Richard want to lower his head in his hands and groan. A fine mess he had made of things, hadn"t he? His wife unhappy, his best friend afraid of him…. Could he take the hands of the clock, turn them back, and do it all over again, starting somewhere back last Christmas?
    “I"m sorry,” he said, instead, not meeting his old friend"s eyes as he pushed open the door to one of the smaller book rooms. There were three of them in Uppington Hall, in gradations of grandness. Richard had deliberately chosen the least grand, the one his father tended to use the most.
    Richard went unerringly to the cabinet where the port was kept, drawing out a decanter and two glasses. He had been raiding the decanter in this particular study since he had turned twelve. Richard pulled out the stopper, filling each glass half full of ruby liquid, the finest product of Oporto. Funny, how some things stayed the same, while other things turned inside out and upside down.
    Sometimes, Richard felt as though the world had chosen 1803 to turn on its head and spin like a top, with nothing to do but to cling to the sides and hope that it eventually would all turn right side up.
    Shrugging, he handed Miles a glass. “It"s been a strange year.”
    “At least it"s almost over!” Miles said cheerfully, seizing eagerly at the olive branch, pathetic and puny one though it was. He raised his glass in an impromptu toast. “Here"s to 1804!
    Mmm, port,” he added happily, smacking his lips. “Nice port, too.”

    Richard"s lips twisted, despite himself. He"d missed Miles. He didn"t like to admit it, but he had.
    But all he said was, “Let"s hope a good wine makes a good year.”
    Miles grinned as he plopped himself down in a Jacobean cane chair. “It can"t hurt.”
    “Yes, it can,” said Richard dryly. “The next morning.”
    Miles looked at him warily, as though suspecting a dangerous double meaning, but said, easily enough, “Time enough to think about that then.” He waved a hand airily through the air. “Sufficient unto the day, and all that—urgh!”
    The hand, unfortunately, had been the one holding his glass.
    “I hate to be the one to tell you this,” said Richard, nodding at the puddle of crimson liquid sinking nicely into the tan buckskin of Miles" breeches, “but port is meant to be ingested through the lips, not the leg. Just something you might want to know.”
    “Oh, ha bloody ha.” Removing a handkerchief from his sleeve, Miles scrubbed at the stain, succeeding only in spreading it across a wider area. Richard couldn"t fail to notice that the handkerchief had been unevenly embroidered with Miles" initials. Or, rather, initial. The placement of the single, wobbly “M” suggested that it had initially been planned as part of a larger grouping.
    “Henrietta embroider you handkerchiefs, did she?” said Richard, nodding at the scrap of cloth.
    Stopping mid-scrub, Miles grinned fondly at the now reddened scrap. “Well, handkerchief, really. The others are still in progress.”
    “Ah, yes,” said Richard cynically. “I still have the slipper Henrietta gave me for my birthday last year. When I asked her where the other one was, she told me it would be good for my health to hop.”
    Miles beamed proudly. “She does like to get the last word. Jolly long ones, too, most of the time.”
    Something about the glow on his old friend"s face suddenly made Richard feel very, very small.
    He looked down into his own port, and saw only the wobbly reflection of his own face, darkened and distorted by the effect of light on liquid. If they were happy, who was he to object? Not that he hadn"t had cause, back in June, he told himself, when he had found his best friend and sister together in an extremely compromising position. But if Miles really loved her….
    The force of Richard"s exhalation made ripples across the surface of the liquid, wrinkling his reflected face into a