A Christmas Romance: A Heartfelt Holiday Romance Novel

By Betty Neels

On the night before Christmas…

Office clerk Theodosia Chapman’s can-do attitude and sunny disposition have got her through even the most trying of times. So when her only remaining family withdraw their offer for her to spend Christmas with them, she won’t let it get her down. It looks as if she’ll be spending the festive season alone, until handsome physician Hugo Bentinck arrives on her doorstep on Christmas Eve and whisks her into his world! And Theodosia’s about to find that his love for her is for Christmas — and forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases
• Release date: Sep 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781488050244

Betty Neels

Los lectores de novelas románticas de todo el mundo lamentaron el fallecimiento de Betty Neels en junio de 2001. Su carrera se prolongó durante treinta años, y siguió escribiendo hasta los noventa. Para sus millones de admiradores, Betty personificaba a la escritora romántica. El primer libro de Betty, Sister Peters in Amsterdam,se publicó en 1969, y llegó a escribir 134. Sus novelas ofrecen una calidez tranquilizadora que formaba parte de su propia personalidad. Su espíritu y su genuino talento perduran en todas sus historias.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

THEODOSIA CHAPMAN, climbing the first of the four flights which led to her bed-sitter—or, as her landlady called it, her studio flat—reviewed her day with a jaundiced eye. Miss Prescott, the senior dietician at St Alwyn’s hospital, an acidulated spinster of an uncertain age, had found fault with everyone and everything. As Theodosia, working in a temporary capacity as her personal assistant, had been with her for most of the day, she’d had more than her share of grumbles. And it was only Monday; there was a whole week before Saturday and Sunday …

She reached the narrow landing at the top of the house, unlocked her door and closed it behind her with a sigh of contentment. The room was quite large with a sloping ceiling and a small window opening onto the flat roof of the room below hers. There was a small gas stove in one corner with shelves and a cupboard and a gas fire against the wall opposite the window.

The table and chairs were shabby but there were bright cushions, plants in pots and some pleasant pictures on the walls. There was a divan along the end wall, with a bright cover, and a small bedside table close by with a pretty lamp. Sitting upright in the centre of the divan was a large and handsome ginger cat. He got down as Theodosia went in, trotted to meet her and she picked him up to perch him on her shoulder.

‘I’ve had a beastly day, Gustavus. We must make up for it—we’ll have supper early. You go for a breath of air while I open a tin.’

She took him to the window and he slipped out onto the roof to prowl among the tubs and pots she had arranged there. She watched him pottering for a moment. It was dark and cold, only to be expected since it was a mere five weeks to Christmas, but the lamplight was cheerful. As soon as he came in she would close the window and the curtains and light the gas fire.

She took off her coat and hung it on the hook behind the curtain where she kept her clothes and peered at her face in the small square mirror over the chest of drawers. Her reflection stared back at her—not pretty, perhaps, but almost so, for she had large, long-lashed eyes, which were grey and not at all to her taste, but they went well with her ginger hair, which was straight and long and worn in a neat topknot. Her mouth was too large but its corners turned up and her nose was just a nose, although it had a tilt at its tip.

She turned away, a girl of middle height with a pretty figure and nice legs and a lack of conceit about her person. Moreover, she was possessed of a practical nature which allowed her to accept her rather dull life at least with tolerance, interlarded with a strong desire to change it if she saw the opportunity to do so. And that for the moment didn’t seem very likely.

She had no special qualifications; she could type and take shorthand, cope adequately with a word processor and a computer and could be relied upon, but none of these added up to much. Really, it was just as well that Miss Prescott used her for most of the day to run errands, answer the phone and act as go-between for that lady and any member of the medical or nursing staff who dared to query her decisions about a diet.

Once Mrs Taylor returned from sick leave then Theodosia supposed that she would return to the typing pool. She didn’t like that very much either but, as she reminded herself with her usual good sense, beggars couldn’t be choosers. She managed on her salary although the last few days of the month were always dicey and there was very little chance to save.

Her mother and father had died within a few weeks of each other, victims of flu, several years ago. She had been nineteen, on the point of starting to train as a physiotherapist, but there hadn’t been enough money to see her through the training. She had taken a business course and their doctor had heard of a job in the typing pool at St Alwyn’s. It had been a lifeline, but unless she could acquire more skills she knew that she had little chance of leaving the job. She would be twenty-five on her next birthday …

She had friends, girls like herself, and from time to time she had been out with one or other of the young doctors, but she encountered them so seldom that friendships died for lack of meetings. She had family, too—two great-aunts, her father’s aunts—who lived in a comfortable red-brick cottage at Finchingfield. She spent her Christmases with them, and an occasional weekend, but although they were kind to her she sensed that she interfered with their lives and was only asked to stay from a sense of duty.

She would be going there for Christmas, she had received their invitation that morning, written in the fine spiky writing of their youth.

Gustavus came in then and she shut the window and drew the curtains against the dark outside and set about getting their suppers. That done and eaten, the pair of them curled up in the largest of the two shabby chairs by the gas fire and while Gustavus dozed Theodosia read her library book. The music on the radio was soothing and the room with its pink lampshades looked cosy. She glanced round her.

‘At least we have a very nice home,’ she told Gustavus, who twitched a sleepy whisker in reply.

* * *

Perhaps Miss Prescott would be in a more cheerful mood, thought Theodosia, trotting along the wet pavements to work in the morning. At least she didn’t have to catch a bus; her bed-sitter might not be fashionable but it was handy …

The hospital loomed large before her, red-brick with a great many Victorian embellishments. It had a grand entrance, rows and rows of windows and a modern section built onto one side where the Emergency and Casualty departments were housed.

Miss Prescott had her office on the top floor, a large room lined with shelves piled high with reference books, diet sheets and files. She sat at an important-looking desk, with a computer, two telephones and a large open notebook filled with the lore of her profession, and she looked as important as her desk. She was a big woman with commanding features and a formidable bosom—a combination of attributes which aided her to triumph over any person daring to have a difference of opinion with her.

Theodosia had a much smaller desk in a kind of cubby-hole with its door open so that Miss Prescott could demand her services at a moment’s notice. Which one must admit were very frequent. Theodosia might not do anything important—like making out diet sheets for several hundreds of people, many of them different—but she did her share, typing endless lists, menus, diet sheets, and rude letters to ward sisters

Reviews for A Christmas Romance

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A Christmas Romance by Betty Neels; (4 1/2*)This is such a sweet and wonderful romance. Both of the main characters are lovely people and their romance is sweet and charming. Theodosia works in the hospital where Hugo is a senior Dr. He encounters her one day and is intrigued by her and her bright ginger hair. From then on he finds himself driving her to visit her great aunts in the country, dancing with her in the hospital ball and helping her out in any way he can. We see the Hugo's thoughts so we know he is attracted to Theodosia and feels quite protective of her. He is taken with her optimistic disposition despite her poor circumstances. I liked how he would do things to make her happy, as when he took on an extra little dog to please her. They have a sweet and happy ending. I love Betty Neels. Her writings are so perfect when one is ill or feeling a bit down. One relaxes when one reads her books.

[roxiereads · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Half good stories, half so-so.