Winter Wonderland Read Online Free PDF Page B

most necessary items of clothes and household goods, hoarding the household money as best she could. But when, a year ago, her husband was killed—in a final irony, shot in a duel with a man he’d cuckolded—his man of business informed her that there was nothing left of his estate but debts. She had no dower, no jointure, nothing.
    She shut her eyes, shuddering at the memory of the day they’d carried him home, everything hushed and secret to prevent the magistrates from learning of the illegal duel. And the poorly-attended funeral during which, numb from shock, she heard not a word of what was said to her. And the reading of the will, in which in the whole of the lengthy document her husband had not made one mention of her name.
    She rose from her chair abruptly, for she heard the sounds of carriage wheels on the drive below. They were here! Charles and Belle Velacott had arrived. The moment she’d been dreading for the past year was now upon her. She had to go down, and smile, and make them welcome. There was no time now to dwell on the past.
    It was just as well. Remembering the past was too disheartening. But then, contemplating the present was just as disheartening. Once, her hopes for her future had soared as high as the sky. Now reality had brought her down to this: bleak widowhood, impoverishment and the necessity of accepting the charity of Charles and Belle Velacott.
    She could hear their voices at the doorway. It was time to go down. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went from her room to face her new life.
    How those who knew her before her marriage would laugh if they knew. The Magnificent Miranda, indeed. What a joke!

Three
    With a smile fixed on her face, Miranda reached the last turning on the stairs, but there she paused in surprise. The sight of the confusion in the entry hall below caused her to gasp. The hall was crowded with boxes, crates, pieces of furniture and bulging portmanteaux. Around this mountain of baggage scurried an army of servants that Charles and Belle had brought with them. Miranda counted at least two footmen, four maids, a dignified butler who seemed to be directing traffic, and several other persons whose functions she could not guess. They must have had to rent a veritable caravan of carriages to transport them all! Miranda thought.
    In the midst of the confusion stood the new owners, Charles and Belle Velacott, happily surveying their new abode. Charles, tall and ruddy-faced, and still wearing his greatcoat (although it hung open to reveal his protuberent midsection), was giving orders to a coachman for the disposition of the horses. Belle, as small in stature as her husband was large, was gazing admiringly at the crystal chandelier over their heads. She was dressed to the nines in a velvet, fur-trimmed pelisse, and, in an apparent attempt to appear taller, carried on her head a high-crowned bonnet with the most enormous plumes Miranda had ever seen. The plumes bobbed about disconcertingly with every motion of the woman’s head.
    Suddenly Charles caught sight of his sister-in-law on the stairs. “Miranda, my dear,” he bellowed, “ there you are! We are a day early, as you can see. We were too eager to settle in to wait another day.”
    â€œYes, Charles, I quite understand.” Miranda ran down the remaining stairs and circled the impedimenta that stood between her and the new arrivals. “Good evening, Belle,” she said, bestowing a formal peck on her sister-in-law’s cheek. “I hope your trip down from Bedford was pleasant.”
    â€œAs pleasant as travel with a train of four carriages can be,” Belle replied, handing her fur-trimmed pelisse to one of the maids. “I’m glad the journey is over.”
    â€œYou must be tired. Do go into the sitting room and rest yourselves, while I go and make some tea.”
    â€œNo need for you to do that any more,” Charles said grandly as he shrugged