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THE CHRISTMAS WEDDING
Dilly Court
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Dilly Court 2019
Jacket Photographs: © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (Girl); Shutterstock.com (all other images)
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Dilly Court asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008287757
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008287764
Version: 2019-08-30
For Daisy Richards
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Dilly Court
About the Publisher
The Carrington House, Queen Square, London, December 1867
Daisy Marshall put aside the garment she had been mending for Master Timothy.
‘What is it, Franklin?’ she asked, gazing warily at the butler, who had entered the morning parlour without bothering to knock. Such small infringements of etiquette from the upper servants were not unusual, and obviously designed to put her in her place.
‘For you, miss.’ With disapproval written all over his face, Franklin proffered a silver salver on which lay a sealed envelope.
Daisy’s breath caught in her throat as she recognised the writing, and she snatched it up, hoping that Franklin was not familiar with the bold cursive script belonging to Julian Carrington, the elder son and heir to the family fortune.
‘Thank you, Franklin.’ She made an effort to sound casual and unconcerned, but Franklin had a way of reducing her to the lowly status of a scullery maid.
He looked down his long nose. ‘Mrs Carrington wishes to see you in the drawing room, miss.’
‘I’ll be there directly.’ Daisy waited until he had left the room. The Carringtons’ butler had never approved of her – he had made that plain from the outset – and neither had Mrs Thompson, the housekeeper. The lot of a governess was not a happy one, as Daisy had discovered to her cost. She had found herself occupying a nebulous position where she belonged neither upstairs nor below stairs, but all that would change very soon. Daisy raised her hand to touch the gold ring set with a sparkling diamond that Julian had placed on her finger, although it now hung round her neck on a silk ribbon, hidden from view. The Carringtons’ money had come originally from coal mining in Yorkshire, and it was no secret that they hoped their son would marry into the landed gentry, but Julian would be twenty-one on Christmas Eve, and he planned to announce their betrothal at his birthday party.
Daisy opened the envelope carefully, not wanting to tear the expensive hand-made writing paper, and she inhaled the scent of Julian’s favourite cologne. It was almost as if he were sitting beside her, and she closed her eyes, revelling in the exotic blend of aromatic essences and spice. She sighed happily: in two days’ time it would be official. When he returned home Julian would place the ring on her finger in front of his whole family. Daisy Marshall from Whitechapel, the orphaned daughter of a leather merchant, would be raised from her humble status of governess to that of fiancée to the elder son of a well-to-do family. Quite how it had happened was still something of a surprise. The dashing twenty-year-old Oxford undergraduate, who had hopes of a career in the diplomatic service, was much in demand during the London season. Daisy was well aware that his domineering mother and