The Night Before Christmas Read Online Free PDF

intimate. I do notice these things, you know, even if you think I don’t. I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to come up so that I can focus on you. This Christmas I am all yours, even if I don’t get you all to myself quite as much asI hoped. I want to make sure you know how much I love you.’
    ‘Do you?’ Lydia asked, feeling unexpectedly touched and hopeful that the early promise of their relationship – the spark of passion they’d once had for each other – might be about to make a spectacular return. ‘Well, there’ll be plenty of time to get “reacquainted”. Katy says our room is one of the nicest, with a view of the lake, a four-poster bed and an open fire.’ Lydia glanced coyly at him. ‘As soon as it’s decent, we’ll hide away upstairs and perhaps get … um … reacquainted?’
    ‘I wonder if it ever gets so cold that the lakes freeze over,’ Stephen mused absent-mindedly, ignoring her overture yet again, slowing the car as the road bent sharply. ‘I wonder if it’ll freeze thick enough to walk on.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Lydia tried to hide her disappointed expression by peering out of the window at the scenery just vanishing in the rapidly diminishing light. ‘I wonder.’

Chapter Three
    ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so far away from everywhere before,’ Lydia said a little breathlessly as Stephen, guided by the slightly smug-sounding sat nav lady, carefully drove through the narrow, twisting country lanes, snowflakes dancing erratically in the beam of the headlights.
    Snow was falling thick and fast by the time Stephen pulled the Prius onto the rather grand gravel drive that led up to Heron’s Pike House. The sun had set some hours before, shrouding the hills and lakes in a cloak of darkness, and Lydia had only been able to catch glimpses of the surrounding mountains, looming like shadowy giants against the winter sky. The lakes, which she knew must be there, were completely invisible.
    ‘Everywhere is close to somewhere, Lyds. Location is not always defined by how near you are to Harvey Nichols.’ Stephen chuckled, doing that thing he did when he pretended she was just some silly, fluffy-headed girl and not a hard-hitting, highly educated barrister at all. In the beginning, Lydia had quite liked it, finding it funny and sort of sweet, the way he shepherded her around as if she needed protection. Recently, though,it had rather started to grate, just a little. But, determined to be happy for the next four days at least, she ignored his teasing and waited, like a child eager to be the first to see the sea, to catch her first glimpse of Heron’s Pike House sparkling in the snow.
    When her friends’ new home finally came into view, it glowed like a beacon. It was so pretty that Lydia felt almost like she’d been transported into one of those Christmas cards from her childhood, the ones always featuring a snow-laden scene and smothered in glitter. Each newly planted conifer tree that lined the drive had been adorned with glittering lights, creating the perfect runway for Father Christmas to land his sleigh. From their vantage point, the house itself even seemed to pulsate with warmth, bathed in carefully placed floodlights that cast dramatic shadows from its faux gothic towers and ramparts. As a carefully designed finishing touch, the red-painted panelled front door was lit perfectly to show off the handmade wreath tied to it, bristling with holly, shiny tartan ribbons, cinnamon sticks and dried oranges.
    ‘Textbook Katy,’ Lydia said fondly, as she gazed up at the house. ‘She’s been waiting all her life to bake cakes and trim things in gingham. She must be in her element now as lady of the manor. I bet you ten pounds she’ll be making the children playsuits from an old pair of curtains by Boxing Day.’
    Built from Cumbrian stone, the house was a highVictorian flight of fancy. Katy had told her that it had previously belonged to the same family for several generations and had