The Twelve Dates of Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

icicles at the Opera House, Claudia sat on the living-room floor surrounded by her underwear.
    ‘I’ll show you sexy,’ she muttered, snipping a peephole into the left cup of one of her bras.
    Among the scattered, fraying garments were needles and thread, sequins, ribbons and a big plastic bucket filled with warm water, her red dress and two pairs of knickers that were slowly turning pink.
    Claudia had spent the evening miserably trying on her lingerie collection in front of Penny’s full-length mirror. She didn’t feel very hot in it. This wasn’t the underwear a sexy and exciting girl would wear.
I bet That Girl’s buttocks were encased in some skimpy, lacy number called a ‘cheeky hipster’ or ‘man-stealer thong’
. But Claudia was no city banker. She couldn’t skip down to Victoria’s Secret on Bond Street and blow a few hundred on teeny colourful triangles with all the trimmings. She had to make do and mend.
    Which is what she found herself doing now: sewing sequins onto bra straps, stitching ribbons to the sides of granny-pants and upgrading grey undies to murky pink ones. She was pleased with her progress, and was holding a bedazzled balconette up to the light to inspect her glitter-gluing skills when Penny got home.
    ‘What in God’s name are you doing and have you made me some?!’ Penny took the bra from Claudia’s hand and held it against her boobs. ‘Hmm, you’re bigger than me. Are these your Christmas presents?’
    ‘No,’ Claudia took back the bra and set it down tenderly, the glitter-glue already cracking and falling off. ‘This is my sexy new underwear.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Penny and Claudia sat in silence, looking at the mess.
    ‘Hang on,’ Penny said eventually, and darted off. She came back moments later holding a pair of frilly red tutu knickers. ‘You can have these if you like.’
    ‘Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want to wear your old knickers.’
    ‘They’re better than your old knickers!’ Penny waved the red pants at the chaos in the living room. ‘I haven’t even worn these.’
    Claudia gingerly reached out and took the knickers. They felt soft and silky, and she was longing to put them on instead of the scratchy sequin-riddled ones that were currently burning her bits. She went into the bathroom and tried them, topping them off with her newly peepholed bra. Okay, the bra looked awful, and Claudia hid her rude boobs with her arm. But the knickers were nice. The frills cascaded over her bottom and when she shook it they rippled like a can-can dancer’s petticoats.
    She popped her oversized T-shirt back over the top and went back into the living room. Penny was chucking the gloomy pink water down the sink. She turned around. ‘Full disclosure: I’ve worn them once. But I washed them. I think.’
    Claudia was washed and scrubbed and had already called in sick when there was a knock on Penny’s door the following morning. Penny leapt from her room like a springbok and crouched in front of the door. ‘Don’t be angry,’ she whispered, then stood and flung the door open.
    ‘Dad!’ Claudia’s father, Joe, was a teddy bear, but fiercely protective when it came to his daughter’s happiness. He felt he owed it to her. Claudia knew he worried, and dragging him into London like this was not going to do either of them any good. But even as she thought this, and mentally Chinese-burned the hell out of Penny, a warm sense of comfort washed over her.
    ‘Dad … ’ she murmured, and raced into his arms.
    Joe held his daughter in the doorway for as long as she needed, in which time Penny had made them both cups of tea, cleared the remaining scraps of deceased-underwear fabric off the sofa and retreated to the shower.
    Claudia let go, but stuck close to her dad as she led him to the sofa. ‘You didn’t have to come into town. Did you take the train?’ Joe still lived in their family home back in Frostwood, a small village in Surrey. He couldn’t bear to part with