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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,
