Lady Crenshaw's Christmas by Heidi Ashworth

 
    LADY CRENSHAW’S CHRISTMAS
    By
    Heidi Ashworth
     
    ~~~~~~~~
     
    PUBLISHED
    BY:
    Heidi Ashworth
     
    Copyright © 2012 by Heidi Ashworth
     
    Cover design by Laura J Miller
    www.anauthorsart.com
     
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    All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, except for brief quotes for articles or reviews, without express written permission from the author.  This book is a work of fiction . Characters, names, events and places are the products of the author’s imagination.  A ny resemblance to persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. 
     
    Chapter One
     
    Lady Crenshaw adjusted the angle of a ribbon adorning the kissing ball above her head and suppressed a well-earned sigh.  How was she ever to manage?  It had been nearly seven months since her marriage, blissful ones spent in the country, a circumstance that was not conducive to a much-neglected education in the ways of the ton .   How was she to carry off the Christmas ball, one attended by so many lords and ladies, all of whom would be sure to catch her out if she made a mistake?  And how was she to hide her burgeoning pregnancy when it was so imperative not to outshine the highly trumpeted arrival of the duke’s hoped-for heir mere weeks before her own?  
    As for a suitable gift for her husband, well, Ginny was finding that money was not much of an answer to anything.  It would be easy to waltz into a shop and buy something he might wish for, but so could he.  She was desperate to give him what he could not buy for himself, a gift that would carry with it all the love she felt for him, but Christmas was days away and she had not thought of a single thing.
    As if that were not enough, she had Grandaunt Regina to fret over.  Delighted that Anthony and Ginny had chosen to make their home at Dunsmere, the old lady was all that was amiable—at first.  As the months went by, she become more and more her exacting self and was determined that everything be according to her tastes, the upcoming ball in particular.  She was uncompromising in her desire that it should rival those she had given as a young Duchess of Marcross.  Every order Ginny gave, every plan she executed, every list she wrote, was immediately tossed out and undone by her grandaunt who claimed each to be inadequate and highly unsuitable.  The kissing ball above her head was the only detail deemed unexceptionable.  As such, the house was bare of anything else that bespoke Christmas.   
    Turning her thoughts to the ballroom, one replete with mirrors, portraits, fireplace mantles and chandeliers, all of which must be adorned with boughs of holly, Ginny felt her stomach knot.  Then there was the food and candles—did she order enough?—and the gown she had bespoken; would it hide her pregnancy?  Anthony was an indulgent husband but he was unaccountably rigid about keeping the news of their forthcoming child under a shroud of secrecy for as long as possible.  There had already been enough scandal when his uncle, the duke, had run off with Anthony’s once-upon-a-time-almost betrothed, followed by the new duchess’ pregnancy hard on the heels of their elopement, one that threatened to disinherit Anthony from becoming the next Duke of Marcross. 
    Neither Ginny nor her husband had relished the idea of inheriting the title upon his uncle’s death.  In the meantime, it was a strain to be obliged to cater to the demanding duke and his spiteful duchess.  For what seemed the hundredth time, Ginny cast her eyes to heaven and prayed the duke’s child would be