Free Regency Christmas Gifts by Carla Kelly

again. “Your eyes are drooping.”
    She struggled to sit up and he helped her with
his hand on the small of her back.
    “ Now if this were Wales, I would
probably get up at three of the clock, stand in the hallway
upstairs and sing hymns and carols. I won’t.”
    “ I wouldn’t mind if you did,” she
said, shy again.
    “ Go to bed, Mary Ann. Think good
things.”
     
     

Chapter Nine
    I t wasn’t three a.m., but she
woke up to singing. Beth still slept next to her, so Mary Ann got
out of bed carefully and opened the door a crack, because her shawl
was still in the bandbox.
    Brother and sister stood in the hallway,
singing, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Mary Ann clapped her
hands and opened the door wider. In another moment, Beth sat up and
rubbed her eyes, then leaped out of bed. Mary Ann grabbed her
before she could run downstairs and closed the door, after telling
Thomas and Suzie they would dress quickly.
    “ You’re going to like my present,”
Beth told Mary Ann as she buttoned her dress up the
back.
    “ I always like what you get me,”
Mary Ann said, then knelt down so Beth could reach the one button
in the middle of her back that she could not reach. She turned
around and held her daughter close. They rocked back and forth,
then Beth patted her cheek.
    “ It’s going to be a good day. I say
that every day, but I really mean it today.”
    Mary Ann kissed her and they went downstairs,
hand in hand.
    A fire burned in the sitting-room grate and the
sky outside was as dark as it had been when she went to bed. Mary
Ann though of what Thomas had said last night about working from
dark morning to dark evening. “What time is it?” she asked
him.
    “ It is half five.” He nudged his
sister. “Suzie couldn’t wait.”
    She nudged back and Mary Ann could have died
right then with the loveliness of their camaraderie. “He lies! He
was up and singing first.” She went to the table of gifts. “I can’t
wait, Beth. This is for you.”
    Her eyes wide, her mouth a perfect circle, Beth
took the box wrapped in tissue and tied with a red bow. She sat
down as though her legs would not hold her, and Mary Ann sat beside
her on the carpet. “You can open it,” she whispered, when her
daughter just sat there staring at the box.
    “ Pinch me, Mama,” she
said.
    “ No need. It’s real, child,” Thomas
told her.
    Beth gulped and carefully untied the string
that looked like lace filigree. She set it aside and took off the
paper. Barely breathing, she lifted the top off the box and took
another breath and another.
    Mary Ann felt her own breath come in little
gasps as she watched her daughter pull a white rabbit fur muff from
the box. Not raising her eyes from the lovely thing, Beth put her
hands in the muff and leaned back against her mother. In another
moment, Beth was in her arms, her face turned into her
breast.
    “ Is it too much?” Suzie asked
anxiously.
    “ A little. She’ll be fine,” Mary Ann
said. She rubbed Beth’s back until her daughter was calm again.
“See there?”
    “ I bought her material for a new
dress, too,” Suzie said, “but this was more important.” She reached
over and took a smaller package off the table. “For you, Mary Ann
Poole.”
    She felt tears start in her eyes, and wondered
what would have happened if she had decided to mail the package
back to S.M. Thomas Jenkins, instead of delivering it in person. A
week had passed. No more than a week, and here she sat with a
present in her lap.
    Beth had returned her attention to the muff.
Taking off the glittering twine as carefully as Beth had done, Mary
Ann set it aside and unwrapped the tissue paper. There lay a copy
of Emma .
    With trembling fingers, she touched the raised
lettering of the title, then looked lower to see her own name
embossed on the cover. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she
said, swallowing back more tears.
    Beth handed her the brown-wrapped package they
had brought from Haven, and Mary Ann