The Christmas Surprise Read Online Free PDF Page B

and loneliness; andLilian’s little cottage, where they now lived, with cosiness and warmth and coming home, and being happier than he’d ever known.
    ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Babies are only little.’
    ‘I’ll be sure until the first time it crawls straight into the road and gets run over by Isitt driving his sheep to market.’
    ‘Well Lilian and her brothers all grew up here.’
    ‘Yes, and they slept four to a room and had an outhouse in the garden.’
    ‘Sounds cosy enough.’
    Rosie looked at him.
    ‘Seriously?’ he said.
    ‘Seriously. Talk to your mother.’ She smiled tentatively. ‘If we’re going to be a family …’
    ‘Oh, pulling that one, are you?’ said Stephen, smiling, and dragged her over to sit on his lap. ‘You’ve got this all figured out, haven’t you?’
    Rosie shrugged.
    ‘It
does
have a lovely big garden,’ she said. ‘And maybe … maybe we could put double glazing in.’
    ‘No, it’s good for children to grow up totally freezing in a haunted house,’ said Stephen airily, and she knew she’d won him over.
    ‘And,’ she pointed out, ‘we should sell this place anyway. Lilian’s home is getting so expensive, and if I’m going to be taking some time off …’
    Stephen winced.
    ‘I hate being skint sometimes, it sucks.’
    He turned and kissed her.
    ‘Would you have preferred it if I’d gone off to London to become one of those banker boys after all?’
    She grinned.
    ‘No! Anyway, you’d have been rubbish. Always staring out the window and thinking about the hills and reciting poetry.’
    ‘Rubbish doesn’t matter if you’re a banker. They give you millions of pounds anyway. And if you
don’t
make millions of pounds, they get the taxpayers to give it to you.’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Rosie. ‘Maybe we should all do that.’
    Then they both looked cosily into the fire together and smiled at the same time.
    ‘Neh,’ they both said, as Mr Dog came up and lapped at their hands.
    ‘I am the smuggest witch in the entire world,’ said Rosie, getting up to put the kettle on, already feeling pleasantly drowsy although it was only early in the evening. Stephen went back to his computer. She heard him from the kitchen.
    ‘Hmm,’ he said suddenly.
    Rosie popped her head round the door.
    ‘Hmm,’ he said again, and Mr Dog scampered over in case ‘hmm’ meant ‘I appear to be holding some unwanted treats.’
    Stephen was staring at the computer screen.
    ‘Do you want to tell me, or is it just going to be a mystery?’ said Rosie. ‘Have some aliens landed? Prince William is a woman? A sheep is a bit poorly over in Carningford? They’re introducing a new baby tax and the government is going to want forty per cent of our income?’
    ‘Sssh,’ said Stephen, not taking his eyes off the computer. ‘My French is rusty.’
    ‘Ooh, my French is rusty,’ mimicked Rosie. She often teased him about it, but she envied his wonderful education really, even if his own mother thought it had been wasted. He spoke excellent French, had good Latin – though it wasn’t much use – and even though (against his father’s wishes) he’d studied English at university, he had a knowledge of geography, physics and history that Rosie couldn’t remember them even touching on at her school. ‘Dear me. Perhaps I shall first translate it into Mandarin and then work it out from there. Also, don’t shush a pregnant lady! I am not to be shushed! I am extremely special!’
    ‘Hush,’ he said. Then he looked up. The expression on his face was completely unreadable. ‘Um,’ he said. ‘Would you like to …’
    ‘I can’t read French,’ said Rosie.
    ‘I’ll translate.’
    ‘What IS it?’ she said, completely confused. She didn’t like his face at all; the colour had drained out of itand his eyes had taken on a fixed, distant look. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
    Stephen didn’t answer, merely blinked, which made her even more curious and worried. She nudged a