Read A Christmas Kiss for Free Online

hall with all the abandon that five long hours of suppressed energy can stimulate in little boys. They were followed out of the carriage by their sister Marianne, a seventeen-year-old miss with bouncy curls and warm blue eyes now shining with the excitement caused by this prolonged escape from the schoolroom.
    Next came her father, Edward Covington, whose usual, anxious expression was now replaced by a smile of relief that the journey had ended without mishap. Twenty years of marriage to the good-natured but hapless Martha had etched a number of worried creases into his forehead and a sense of nervous fearfulness into his spirit. Life with his Martha, he was wont to remark, was a series of crises and disasters for which she was neither to blame nor able to resist generating.
    Martha herself was the last to be helped from the carriage. She eagerly hugged and kissed Clarissa and Philip with effusive warmth. Then she turned to the footmen who were attempting to unload the great number of boxes and trunks that the Covingtons found necessary for their survival away from home. “Be careful with that one, please,” she urged, “for it contains all the children’s gifts for Christmas morning. And that one has the wine, does it not, Edward? Clarissa, we’ve brought you some of that excellent Madeira Edward discovered on the Continent last year. Oh, and that one goes to Marianne’s room, if you please.”
    Keeping up a steady stream of warnings and instructions, Martha moved with the rest of the party to the front hallway. This large, high-ceilinged room had become a sea of activity. Old friends were greeting each other with kisses. Children were being tossed in the air. Wraps were being removed and carted off up the stairs. Footmen were weaving their way through the press loaded with boxes and trunks. Suddenly, one of the twins, having had enough of the petting and patting of his elders, darted across the stone floor without heed and collided with a footman who was staggering toward the stairway under the burden of a large trunk which he carried on his back. The impact caused the man to stumble. The trunk fell to the floor with a tremendous crash and burst wide open.
    The entire assemblage gasped and turned to stare at the wreckage. Martha’s corsets, stays and undergarments, and the pots of rouge she had hidden among them, all lay exposed to public view. Martha, aghast, responded as she always did in times of crisis—she swooned. Clarissa and Edward bent over her, administering vinaigrette and soothing murmurs. The guilty twin made loud excuses. The servant stammered his apologies. Lord Gyllford tried to still the hubbub by urging all the other guests into the library where a fire and refreshments were waiting.
    In the midst of this confusion, the front door opened to admit Jamie and his party. The little group, rosy-cheeked and in excellent spirits after an invigorating ride through the English winter countryside, stood stock still surveying the chaos, their smiles fading into puzzled concern.
    Lord Gyllford came forward to greet them. “Don’t look so appalled,” he said, smiling reassuringly at his son. “We’ve had a bit of an accident with a trunk, but it will all be set right in a few minutes. How do you do, Reggie? It’s good to have you with us.”
    â€œSir, I’d like you to meet Miss Evalyn Pennington. Miss Pennington, this is my father.”
    Philip turned, looked down into Miss Pennington’s upturned face and felt an unfamiliar lurch somewhere deep in his chest. The serene grey eyes smiling up at him were set in a face whose sweetness of expression struck him with complete surprise. Could this calm, composed, and lovely creature possibly be the choice of his immature, scatterbrained son? He felt quite breathless with shock as, for one frozen moment while he stared at her, the world around him ceased to exist.
    Miss Pennington bowed. “How do you