A Victorian Christmas (41 page)
Giggling, Caroline slipped her arm through her husband’s and hurried away to greet the throngs of visitors arriving at the house. Mick gazed around him as a towering white cake was cut and passed out. Hundreds of gifts were laid on tables set up about the room.
Seemingly every member of the peerage stepped forward to wish him well . . . him and Rosalind, for somehow she appeared at his side in the most enchanting gown of soft pink velvet. She smiled at every one, chatted in the friendliest manner, and all the while kept her hand firmly clasped in his.
Finally, Mick could bear it no longer. He left her side and caught up with William, who was kissing Caroline under a sprig of mistletoe in the foyer. “Listen, William,” he said, taking his friend by the arm, “I must know what is going on here.”
“Mick?” William frowned at him. “Are you unwell?”
“I’m quite well, thank you.”
“Indeed, I should hope so on your wedding day!”
“William, do not play games with me.” Mick could hear the growl in his voice. “Did she not tell you about the lamb?”
“Who? What lamb?”
“Rosalind, of course. Did she not tell you about the lamb . . . about India . . . about that Christmas Eve when I was a boy and—”
“Mick, what are you jabbering about, man? Rosalind said nothing to us this morning but ‘A happy Christmas Eve to you both’ and ‘I can hardly wait to be married to Mick.’ Now get back in there to her. Your guests will soon be going away, and you’ve stood about all morning as if someone had transfixed you.”
She hadn’t said anything? Mick wandered back into the parlor, still trying to reconcile reality with the certainty that by this time he was to have been utterly undone by Miss Rosalind Treadwell. Instead, she had married him. Married him?
He looked across the room at her, and his chest swelled with joy. She had married him! Her words before the minister came back to him in full force:
“I forgive him.”
“Rosalind!” He crossed the room and swept her into his arms. “Rosalind, is it true?”
“Of course,” she said, laughing. “I love you, Mick! I shall love you always.”
As he swung her around, the remaining guests began to applaud. “Good show! Well done! Cheers!”
Mick took Rosalind’s hand and circled the room, pumping every one’s hand he could grasp. “Happy Christmas to you!” he cried out. “God bless you!”
Rosalind chuckled, dancing along beside him as they said their farewells to everyone. And then she was giving her papa a kiss and seeing him off in his carriage. William and Caroline dismissed the servants, and then they, too, were gone.
As the door shut on the last of the crowd, Rosalind pulled Mick by the hand back into the parlor. “Come on,” she said. “It’s not Christmas until tomorrow, but I cannot wait to give you your present.”
“Present?” Mick followed her across the room to the small table where the nativity scene stood. “Oh, Rosalind—”
“Look,” she said, slipping the tiny white lamb from her pocket and setting it beside the manger in which the Christ child lay. “Now it is home again . . . where it belongs.”
“Rosalind,” Mick said, taking her in his arms, “I thought you would . . . I expected this morning to be . . . Do you really wish to be my wife?”
She smiled and tapped him on the nose. “I believe that’s what I promised God in church just this morning, silly goose.”
“But I . . . the things I did to you. I destroyed your family. How can you ever forgive that?”
“When I was praying last night,” she said, turning her gaze downward, “I realized that you and I are no different. We are both sinners, both in need of the tender Shepherd’s blessing, guidance, and protection. I forgive you,” she said, looking into his eyes, “because I have been forgiven.”
“Oh, my love. My dearest love.” He took her in his arms and kissed her until all the uncertainty had fled from his heart.
“You and I,” Rosalind whispered as they gazed down on the baby in the manger, “are just two little lambs . . . forgiven and loved by the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
CURRANT CAKES
4 cups flour
½ lb butter
1½ cups sugar
4 eggs
½ lb currants, well washed and dredged with flour
½ tsp baking soda, dissolved in hot water
½ lemon, grated rind and juice
1 tsp cinnamon
Cream sugar, butter, eggs, and lemon until silky. Add the flour, cinnamon, and currants. Drop from a spoon onto a well-buttered, paper-lined baking pan.
Bake at 425 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
Catherine Palmer lives in Atlanta with her husband, Tim, where they serve as missionaries in a refugee community. They have two grown sons. Catherine is a graduate of Southwest Baptist University and holds a master’s degree in English from Baylor University. Her first book was published in 1988. Since then she has published more than fifty novels, many of them national best sellers. Catherine has won numerous awards for her writing, including the Christy Award, the highest honor in Christian fiction. In 2004, she was given the Career Achievement Award for Inspirational Romance by
Romantic Times BOOKreviews
magazine. More than 2 million copies of Catherine’s novels are currently in print.
With her compelling characters and strong message of Christian faith, Catherine is known for writing fiction that “touches the hearts and souls of readers.” Her many collections include A Town Called Hope, Treasures of the Heart, Finders Keepers, English Ivy, and the Miss Pickworth series. Catherine also recently coauthored the Four Seasons fiction series with Gary Chapman, the
New York Times
best-selling author of
The
Five Love Languages.
Visit
catherinepalmer.com
for more information on future releases. To learn more about her work as a missionary to refugees, visit
palmermissions.blogspot.com
.