Welcome back for a new sweet treat at Sweet Saturday Sample!  I do appreciate everyone coming by and commenting very much.  Thank you also to first-time visitors.  I appreciate everyone stopping by.  

Speaking of first-time visitors:  I wanted to give everyone a heads up–I’m participating in the Hauntingly Erotic Scavenger Hunt with several other authors.  If you’re here for the hunt, the details are in my previous blog.  If you’re here for Sweet Saturday Sample, but are still interested in erotic romance, you might want to play along.  Two lucky winners will receive three free ebooks!  So check out my previous post and go have some fun!  Who doesn’t love a scavenger hunt? 🙂

I’m changing things up a bit this week–including the season.  I wish I had a spooky story to share, but I only read them. LOL  So I’m fast-forwarding to Christmas!  The sample today comes from a short story I plan to self-pub soon in an anthology of Christmas love stories tentatively called All Wrapped Up.  This particular story is called ‘Tis the Season.  Hope you enjoy!

     “I believe we are all here, my dear.  Will you carve the goose?”  Mama smiled expectantly at Papa, very splendid in his new white silk cravat.  Jenny picked it out herself at the haberdasher’s last week and presented it to him this morning along with all the other Christmas gifts.  It was a very special gift, perhaps the last Christmas gift she would give her father as an unmarried woman. 

     The same thought occurred over and over.  This time next year I may be presiding over my own Christmas table.  Jenny celebrated her eighteenth birthday on the first day of December, which meant this spring she would make her come-out with all the other young girls and be unleashed on London to secure a husband.  And Jenny was confident she would do just that amidst the social whirl that was The Season:  balls, musicales, masquerades, excursions to the theatre and Vauxhall Gardens.  She looked forward to her season for so many reasons.

     Jenny smiled as she gazed around the table. The whole Crowley family had gathered for Christmas luncheon, which of course included their dear neighbors, Sir John and Lady Ellen Isley and their son, Thomas.  The Crowleys and the Isleys had been friends since before she was born, Papa and Sir John having gone to university together.  Their daughter Margaret had been Jenny’s bosom friend until she made her come-out two years ago.  Now she was married to a viscount and had just presented her husband with a son and heir not two weeks ago.  Jenny could only hope she would be as fortunate two years hence.

     Papa carved busily and plates were passed back and forth, vegetable dishes, bread and Yorkshire pudding made their rounds of the table.  But when her father at last sat and picked up his napkin to say grace, it was Great-Aunt Henrietta, sitting at the mid-point of the table, who spoke.  “So, Charles, when is the wedding to take place?”

     “Wedding, Aunt Henrietta?”  Papa’s voice rose in a question, but he cut his eyes towards Mamma, who shot a frightened look at Jenny.  That look puzzled her, but no more than her great-aunt’s question.  Whose wedding was she talking about?

     “Yes, Charles.  Jenny’s wedding to young Thomas here.”  Henrietta nodded across the table to Thomas Isley, whose eyes shifted wildly from side to side, as though he thought the old lady quite mad.  Jenny thought so herself.  “She’s eighteen now, and you promised me when she was of age I’d see her married into the Isley family.  I have lived for the day that I could see one of my family move into the titled class.”  She glared at Mamma, who blushed and turned to Jenny.

     “It’s not as bad as it sounds, Jenny darling.”  But Mamma’s wild eyes said yes, it was that bad.

     “Is this true, Mamma?”  Jenny’s voice didn’t sound like her own, stiff with shock at the revelation.

     “Yes, my dear, it most certainly is.”  Aunt Henrietta nodded with such vehemence that the flowers on her hat bobbed back and forth.

I hope you enjoyed this little breath of Christmas cheer (though Jenny’s world doesn’t seem very cheery right now).

I remind you that the price of my other historical romance, Heart of Deception, the little “sweet treat with a bit of heat,” has been lowered to .99, so if you liked the historical you  read today, you can hop on over to the publisher or Amazon and catch another Victorian romance!

Thanks again for sampling my sweet.  Come back next week for another “Sweet Sample” or join in the fun with your own.  Follow this link to Sweet Saturday Sample to find more “sweet” offerings.  have a great weekend!