Free Twelve Days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley Page A

go off like this, even if he has been crossed in love. His brother Guy ran off with his fiancée last Christmas, you know.’
    ‘Your brother did mention something about it,’ I admitted. ‘He and his wife told me you all usually spend Christmas together and their granddaughter had been looking forward to it, but actually, in winter I like a rest from all the cooking and, besides, I don’t celebrate Christmas.’
    ‘Against your religion, I expect,’ she said vaguely, with a glance at my black hair and pale olive skin. People are always asking me where I am from and seem surprised when I say Merchester.
    ‘And the old people really look forward to having their Christmas dinner here too,’ she went on. ‘I don’t think they’ve quite taken in that it isn’t going to happen this year.’
    ‘You mean Noël and Tilda?’ I ventured. Clearly she wasn’t numbering herself among the ranks of the elderly!
    ‘Well, yes, but actually I meant Old Nan and Richard Sampson, who was the vicar here until he retired. They live in the almshouses in Little Mumming. Of course, there’s Henry too, but he always goes to his daughter’s for his dinner, including Christmas Day. Did you notice the almshouses as you came through the village?’
    ‘The row of three tiny Gothic-looking cottages?’
    ‘Yes, that’s where the family stash away the last of the retainers. Old Nan is in her nineties, but bright as a button, and Richard’s about eighty, fit as a flea and walks for miles. By the way, Henry still comes up here when the fancy takes him and hangs out in the greenhouse and walled garden – you might suddenly stumble across him.’
    She nodded at a small gate set in an arch. ‘Through there – small walled garden, Jude’s mother loved it, but it’s pretty overgrown now apart from the vegetable patch. The greenhouse backs on to the stables and barn and Henry has a little den up at one end with a primus stove to make tea.’
    ‘Right – I’ll keep an eye out for him! But I do hope the other two have understood the situation and made other arrangements for Christmas Day?’
    ‘I don’t know, old habits are hard to break.’ Becca shook her head. ‘Like Tilda – she talks as if she still does all the cooking, but really that Edwina of hers does most of it now, with Tilda getting in her way and bossing her about. So it’s always been very convenient that they can come here for a week at Christmas while Edwina has a break.’
    ‘Mr Martland’s absence does seem to have created quite a lot of disappointment and difficulty,’ I said, thinking that since he must have known how all these elderly people relied on him, it was very selfish indeed of him to flounce off abroad like this, even if he had been crossed in love.
    ‘Well, it’s not your fault,’ she said briskly.
    ‘Do you have time to come in and have a cup of tea?’ I asked. ‘I brought a fruit cake with me.’
    ‘Lovely, lead the way!’
    She didn’t take her scarf off, but removed the wax jacket, revealing a quilted gilet and cord riding breeches of generous and forgiving cut. Merlin hauled himself out of his basket to greet her.
    ‘Hello, old fellow,’ she said fondly, stroking his head with a large hand. ‘Stayed here in the warm, did you?’
    ‘He’s already had a run, I thought he’d be better in,’ I said, making tea and taking the cake out of the tin. ‘The house seems a little chilly despite the central heating, so I thought I’d light the big fire in the sitting room later.’
    ‘Jolly good idea. There’s always been a fire lit there in winter, it’s the heart of the house, but Jude’s been neglecting the place since the Jacksons retired, though they were getting a bit past it and glad to go once my brother died. Noël told me you’d just lost your grandmother, too – sorry,’ she added abruptly, but with sincerity.
    ‘Thank you, yes, it was quite recent. She brought me up because my own mother died soon after I was