Read Online Home for Christmas by Lizzie Lane - Free Book Online Page B

confidence. Almost as though she owned the place, she thought to herself. She smiled at the thought of it.
    ‘I like Agnes. She’s fun,’ she said. ‘And Heathlands. Imagine a country estate. I think Christmas there will be quite wonderful.’
    She said nothing about Agnes’s plans for a birthday party but entertained a childish excitement. She was quite looking forward to it. Although she was only two years off twenty-one, she still yearned to celebrate her birth, no matter what her father might think.
    ‘Lydia,’ her father began in the kind of tone he always used when about to speak his mind, ‘I wouldn’t want you getting too fond of her. She is after all merely a cook’s daughter.’
    Something about his tone, hijacked from his wealthy English patients and friends, irritated.
    ‘I like Agnes. I don’t care where she’s from. You wouldn’t want to offend Sir Avis, would you?’
    She knew the answer to that. Of course he wouldn’t! Sir Avis was something of a feather in his cap.
    He stood tapping the invitations against his fingers, frowning at her whilst he rearranged his thoughts.
    ‘You haven’t known her for very long. There are things you don’t know about her,’ he grumbled.
    ‘Am I likely to be contaminated by these things that I don’t know about her?’ she asked sharply.
    ‘Her status is … questionable …’
    ‘You mean the status of her birth?’
    ‘Yes. There are rumours,’ he said slowly.
    Lydia shook her head, feeling a growing unease, or perhaps even nausea, with regard to her father’s attitude to class and pedigree.
    ‘I don’t care about rumours. What I know beyond doubt is that Agnes is a very intelligent girl. Unfortunately, she’s likely to end up doing the same job as her mother simply because of the circumstances of her birth. I must say I think that’s unfair, as unfair as women giving birth to children year after year, expected to feed and clothe them on next to nothing, and men seeming to think …’
    Her voice trailed away. She looked down at her hands, studying their softness and imagining how red and blistered they would be if she had to skivvy for a living. The Kinskis’ house was still vivid in her mind, its smell seeming to be lingering at the very top of her nose where the olfactory nerve ran into her brain.
    ‘You sound as though you have allowed sentimentality to overrule professionalism. It doesn’t do to fall into that trap, Lydia, certainly not in a world where the little you can do to help is just that; too little.’
    ‘I still think I can try.’
    ‘Of course you can and I much admire you wanting to change the world. I hope you will.’
    ‘So we are going to Heathlands for Christmas?’
    He jerked his chin in a single curt nod. ‘If Sir Avis has seen fit to honour me with an invitation, I feel obliged to attend.’ He grimaced and his eyes twinkled. ‘More fun perhaps than Christmas with your Aunt Iris.’
    ‘
Wunderbar
!’
    Her father’s sudden grin lit his face, like a naughty boy planning to play truant. ‘Let’s look at the alternative.’
    ‘Aunt Iris descending on us for the festive season!’ said Lydia.
    ‘Not if I can help it,’ he said with a rueful grimace.
    Placing the invitations behind the mantel clock, her father sighed, took out a handsome pocket watch from his waistcoat, a look of great satisfaction coming to his face as though the time – seven o’clock – gave him great pleasure.
    ‘Time I was going.’ He went on to state his intention to change clothes and go to the theatre. ‘I may eat at my club,’ he added.
    ‘Like a true English gentleman,’ said Lydia, whilst thumbing through a recent edition of
Harper’s Bazaar
.
    She raised her eyes, regarding him with amusement.
    Women loved her father, and her aunt was no exception. She wondered at his relationships with other women. He never mentioned anyone; neither had he introduced her to any of his female acquaintances. Perhaps there had not been anyone of