Christmas Wishes: Two Regency Christmas Novellas

By Amanda McCabe

Two cousins seek the magic of Christmas--and find true love can blossom under the mistletoe!

Sophie Martin and her cousin Lady Amelia Elliott were the best of childhood friends, always sharing their hopes for the future. Sophie, a dedicated bluestocking and penniless relation, longs to find a way out of her proscribed life as unpaid ladies' companion. Marriage and a family seems far out of reach--until she meets her childhood love Julian Warren again, home from India with a great fortune, and a desire to see if Sophie is still as beautiful as he remembers. Can an unexpected adventure bring them the gift of love? 

Two cousins, as close as sisters, make a vow one magical Christmas Eve night--to find their perfect loves. Now, on another Christmas years later, will that promise come true?

Lady Amelia Brightley hides a dark secret about her supposedly glittering marriage--it was an abusive sham. Now a young widow, she's determined to claim back her life and find her joy again. The first step is to attend the famous Duke of Trevallen's Christmas Ball--and act on the feelings she has had for the handsome duke for too long....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda McCabe
• Release date: Dec 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386277255

Amanda McCabe

Amanda wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen--a vast historical epic starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class (and her parents wondered why math was not her strongest subject...) She's never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA Award, the Romantic Times BOOKReviews Reviewers' Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion.  She lives in Santa Fe with a Poodle, a cat, a wonderful husband, and a very and far too many books and royal memorabilia collections.  When not writing or reading, she loves taking dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network--even though she doesn't cook.  Amanda also writes mysteries as Amanda Allen and Amanda Carmack.

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Praise for the books of

Amanda McCabe!

Amanda McCabe has a tremendous knack for breathing robust life and gentle humor into her lovable characters

—Romance Reviews Today

McCabe's talent for lively characters and witty dialogue is always a winning combination

—RT Book Reviews

A tour de force!  One of the freshest voices in the Regency genre today

—The Rakehell Reviews

Historical romance at its best

—Cataromance

Deftly crafted historical romance

—Chicago Tribune

McCabe mixes historical fact with fiction to create a fascinating page-turner

—Fresh Fiction

Intriguingly nuanced characters and a deliciously subtle sense of humor provide the ideal counterpoint to the perfectly executed historical setting

—Booklist

A truly talented author, bringing life to awesome characters 

—Under the Covers Reviews

Deliciously detailed

—Publishers Weekly

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Table of Contents

Praise for the books of

Amanda McCabe!

Copyright statement © 2015 Amanda McCabe

THE BLUESTOCKING'S CHRISTMAS WISH

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Duke’s Christmas Waltz

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

THE BLUESTOCKING'S CHRISTMAS WISH

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Amanda McCabe

The Bluestocking’s Christmas Wish

Prologue

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I am not at all sure we should be doing this, Sophie Martin whispered.

Lady Amelia Elliott, Sophie's older (by two months) and bolder cousin, just laughed, and continued climbing the ladder into the attics. Don't be such a nervous Nellie, Sophie. It is only a Christmas game.

Amelia shook back her tangle of golden curls from her eyes, and glanced back at Sophie with a wide smile. She looked most eager at the prospect of any sort of trouble, as she always had.

Sophie sighed. It was easy for Amelia to say they shouldn't be scared, that it was all a lark. That was the way she had been ever since they were very little girls in the nursery, and now they were meant to be young ladies of twelve years old. Amelia was the daughter of Burnsey Abbey, the beautiful, pampered, laughing pet of her parents, her brothers, the servants, and even Sophie. It was so easy to love Amelia. She was always merry, dancing and laughing, coming up with jokes and schemes to have fun.

But she was also kind, the very first to bind a dog's hurt paw, take a servant who was ill beef tea and jellies, or comfort a cousin who had lost her parents and was sent to live in her aunt's enormous, chilly house.

Sophie, though, was not the daughter of the house, she was the poor cousin. When her parents, a village vicar and his pretty wife, died of a fever when Sophie was only six, she was sent to her mother's sister, Lady Burnsey. She would never forget her first sight of the Abbey, all gray stone and towering chimneys, jewel-like windows and acres and acres of park. It had seemed like an enchanted castle in a fairy-story, and to a grief-stricken, confused child, it was terrifying.

It was Amelia who had run down the marble front steps and greeted Sophie as she stumbled down from the carriage. Amelia hugged her and prattled on about how happy she was to have a sister at last, did Sophie like lemon cakes, and would she want to play with Amelia's dolls? She could have any of them she liked. They had been inseparable ever since, sharing rooms, governesses, hair ribbons, and secrets.

Sophie admired Amelia, and loved her dearly. Yet she knew they were not the same. Her Aunt Burnsey was also kind, in her vague, invalidish way, but of late she had been talking dreamily of what Sophie might do in a few years, when Amelia had made her debut in Society and found a glittering marriage. Perhaps Sophie could marry a vicar, like her father, or make herself useful in some other way. As a companion, perhaps?

Amelia would be a great lady of the ton, and Sophie had to be useful. She knew that some of Amelia's schemes, which merely earned her an indulgent smile and a mild, Oh, darling, you really shouldn't, could land Sophie into immense trouble. She was at Burnsey on charity, and the world beyond its gates was a cold and lonely one.

What's amiss, Sophie? Amelia asked.

Sophie shook away the sticky web of her worries, the same worries that kept her awake too long at night, and looked up to find Amelia watching her with a worried frown.

Nothing at all, really, Sophie said. It's only—you must remember what your mother told us only yesterday.

Amelia sighed. That were are no longer children, but becoming young ladies, and must behave as such.

Yes.

Mama says such things all the time, but she never rouses herself off the chaise to actually see what we are doing.

That was true. Aunt Burnsey had been an invalid for as long as Sophie could remember, and preferred staying next to the fire with her poetry and her dogs to seeing what was happening in her house.

Sophie glanced back along the narrow, dusty corridor. No one ever went into that part of the Abbey. It was used to store old furniture and trunks of moldering clothes and papers. The servants' quarters were in the other wing, and even Amelia's brothers never ventured into the upper reaches of the house.

Yet Sophie still felt uncomfortable, fidgety, as if someone was watching them from the shadows, judging them. Finding her wanting in good behavior and ladylike decorum.

Sophie blinked back a sudden prickle of tears. She wanted to be bold like Amelia, to run free, to feel secure in her place in the world no matter what she did. But fear, the fear of being all alone again as she was when her parents died, always held her back.

She turned to look up at Amelia again. Her cousin looked even more concerned, her ivory-white brow creased. Sophie knew very well that Amelia's own freedom was only an illusion. Her path in life, though different from Sophie's, was just as narrow. She was meant to marry well, to carve a high place for herself in Society, to give grand parties and have little heirs for her husband, and her days of running wild over the fields of Burnsey were numbered.

But they did have each other. And that was a great deal indeed.

Are you frightened to climb the ladder, Sophie? Amelia asked. I admit it is a bit wobbly, but it's not a long way.

Sophie laughed, trying to push away her melancholy thoughts. They had been bothering her too much of late. It was Christmas, after all. No time for sadness. I'm not scared, Amelia. Not now.

Amelia gave her a radiant smile. Her blue eyes glowed. She reached out her hand and Sophie clasped it, letting Amelia lead her up the wooden steps.

They tumbled into the old attic space, coughing at the cloud of dust their arrival stirred up. It was a long, narrow room, with wooden walls and an arched ceiling, lit by a round window at one end and piled high with all the discarded objects of Burnsey. Sophie glimpsed a dressmaker's form, a tall mirror in a gilt frame, a jumble of dark wood furniture, banished when Aunt Burnsey redecorated in the Chinese style last year.

Amelia leaped up and ran to a stack of chairs in the corner. She tossed aside canvas covers and embroidered cushions. I know it's here somewhere. They brought up all sorts of things last summer when Mama decided Elizabethan furniture was absolutely not fashionable.

Sophie was fascinated by all the things that were heaped up in that small, dusty space. Stacks of beribboned hats, a book of sketches of ancient ruins and castles on yellowed paper, a bust of Shakespeare.

She opened one of the trunks and was greeted by the sight of pale satins and jewel-bright velvets, faded lace and disintegrating feathers. She lifted out a gown of sea-green taffeta trimmed with butter-colored ribbons. The fabric rustled enticingly, the scent of lavender wafting from its folds like a ghost awakening.

Look at this, Amelia, she called. She held the gown up to her shoulders. It would swallow her too-thin frame, but somehow just imaging wearing it made her smile. She closed her eyes and envisioned a ballroom, fragrant with white flowers, music swirling around her, a handsome gentleman asking for her hand in the next dance.

Somehow that gentleman