Home for Christmas by Lizzie Lane

edged with purple embroidery fluttered and fell against the taffeta lying beneath. The dressmaker had told her that it was most becoming. She hoped Eric would notice. ‘Do reconsider about Christmas. I would not want you to feel sad at this time of year. Send me a telegram if you change your mind and need me to come. You will do that, won’t you?’
    He nodded thoughtfully and glanced briefly at her before tipping the contents of his glass into his mouth.
    She wondered if in that glance he had seen how lovely she looked in this dress. The widower she’d met at dinner had said so. He’d even gone so far as to propose marriage, but she had asked him to give her time. She had to give Eric one last chance first.
    Even if all Eric wanted to do was get her out of the house and on the next train back to Wareham!

Chapter Seven
    ‘Christmas,’ muttered Sarah Stacey as she bustled around the kitchen, stirring sauces, basting the turkey, making sure the custards and jellies were the right consistency to set firmly.
    Peggy, one of the women from the village roped in to help with the preparations, dipped a wooden spoon in and out of the custard she was stirring. She frowned because it wasn’t dropping off the spoon, and it was supposed to drop off – wasn’t it?
    Sarah Stacey’s confident tread was near at hand.
    ‘Is that all right, Mrs Stacey?’ Peggy asked, wooden spoon poised over the pan.
    Sarah took the spoon, dipped it in then held it out. Her eyes narrowed as she waited for the reassuring plop of custard returning to the pan.
    ‘That’s it,’ she pronounced when it plopped on cue. ‘Sir Avis is always pleased by firm custard.’
    And firm flesh, she thought as she scanned her steamy kitchen, her thoughts returning to the first time she’d stepped into the house as nothing much more than a drudge, a girl to clean out and lay the fire grates at five in the morning before the rest of the house rose.
    She had been fourteen years old, a pretty girl with a fresh complexion, a forest of dark blonde hair, and a body that was filling out with womanly curves faster than most other girls of her age.
    Sir Avis Ravening had noticed her bending over the grate and the coalscuttle, her cap slightly askew and smudges of coal dust on her cheeks.
    She hadn’t known he was there and had hit her head on the cowling once she realised – he’d startled her that much. Despite knocking her head, she sprang to her feet and bobbed him a curtsey.
    ‘Did you hurt your head?’ He’d sounded genuinely concerned. ‘Here. Let me see.’
    Sarah had been terrified, not just of him taking off her cap, his fingers tracing the big bump that was forming on her temple.
    ‘I think you should get Cook to put some butter on it,’ he’d said to her. ‘Better still, come down to the breakfast room with me and I’ll put it on. How would that be?’
    With a mind for what Mercer the butler would say, she’d protested, though weakly. Sir Avis seemed such a nice man, far nicer than her own father whose drinking habit had ruined his body and mind as much as the hard work he did.
    ‘Do you want to glaze these sprouts with more butter?’ asked Megan, breaking into Sarah’s daydream.
    ‘Yes. Butter,’ she responded. ‘Butter has a lot to answer for,’ she muttered as she added a little to the vegetables.
    To give Sir Avis his due, though he’d admired her from the start, he’d waited until she was sixteen before he’d seduced her.
    ‘Merry Christmas, Mrs Stacey,’ said Quartermaster, popping his head round the door.
    ‘Same to you, Mr Quartermaster,’ said Sarah.
    His name wasn’t really Quartermaster but everyone knew he’d been called that in the army at the same time as the master, and that was what the master still called him so everyone else did the same. It had been either that or inheriting the name Mercer from the previous butler. ‘A cup of tea, Mrs Stacey? I’ve mashed a brew.’
    ‘I’ll be right with you, Mr