Thorncroft Hall, Yorkshire, 24^th December 1826

Maggie Hale loved Christmas Eve almost as much as she loved Christmas Day, which in recent years had become a rambunctious, laughter-filled celebration of family love.

She paused at the top of the carved oak staircase and surveyed the bustling hall below, decorated with greenery and candles, and hung with mistletoe brought from the Hale family home in Sussex. In one corner, Joss’s brothers and sisters crowded around the piano singing carols. In another, the older members of the party, including Dr. Black, sat beside the fire, sharing reminiscences of Christmases past. In the center of the room, the older children, nieces and nephews and cousins, played snapdragon and other Christmas games. Their excited laughter rose to the rafters. The youngest children had been sent to bed an hour ago.

Joss’s tall, handsome father, an older, more grizzled version of Maggie’s husband, had joined the snapdragon game with a gusto that put his grandchildren to shame. She watched her old friend Jane come in, bearing a tray of cakes. Jane remained at Thorncroft Hall, but these days, her daughter and son-in-law augmented the household staff. With the addition of Jane’s four grandchildren as well, Thorncroft was no longer the lonely, echoing barn of a place it had been when only Jane and Maggie rattled around inside it.

The Thorncroft estate had changed, too, now containing a complex of elegant buildings. Instead of ordering changes to the manor, Dr. Black had built three new lodges to Joss’s design, out of sight of the main house. Perfect for an influx of guests like this.

This year, the Festive Season was special for so many reasons. Not least because this was the first Christmas that she and Joss spent where their love had begun.

They played host to their family and friends. During the past six months, Dr. Black had transferred ownership of the estate to Joss. Maggie became the chatelaine where for so many years, she’d been a servant.

The fact still had the power to astonish her.

Joss came up behind her and slid his arm around her waist. She’d known he was there before he touched her. They’d reached such a level of closeness that she could sense his presence from a couple of rooms away.

“Our daughter is a demanding chit,” he said, drawing Maggie back against him. She basked in the warmth of his big body, familiar and beloved.

“Arabella wouldn’t let you go without reading her a second story?” Their four-year-old girl was clever and pretty and imperious, and knew she had her papa twined around her little finger. Maggie remembered the wonder in Joss’s expression the first time he saw his newborn daughter. He’d been the little girl’s slave ever since.

“I’m lucky I escaped before midnight. And that might have put our private celebrations back an hour or two, my love.”

Anticipation heated her blood. She and Joss always marked the night they’d come together as their true anniversary, instead of Valentine’s Day when they’d married at his parish church in Sussex. Oh, how Maggie still thrilled to recall those winter nights of sensual discovery five years ago, when they’d had this rambling manor house all to themselves.

It had taken some contriving to place a gloss of propriety on a courtship begun so unconventionally. Joss had left her on Twelfth Night, the day before Jane returned from Goathland as the proud grandmother of a little girl.

He’d arrived, ostensibly as a stranger, to meet and fall in love with Maggie at first sight. Not, as he said, that far from the truth.

Within a couple of weeks, he’d invited his parents to Fraedale to meet his betrothed. Maggie and Joss had then traveled south in a family party for a February ceremony, all chaperoned and above board.

How difficult it had been to sleep alone during those nights before the wedding, when Maggie had to pretend she was an appropriately virginal fiancée. Luckily, Arabella had arrived a respectable nine months after their nuptials, almost to the day.

Maggie glanced up at her husband. “Your son and heir couldn’t wait for me to go back to the party, so he could sneak out of bed to play with his blocks by the light of the moon.”

Thomas, three years old, and much quieter than his sister, was fascinated with building and the way things worked. Her husband’s brilliance as a designer had clearly descended upon the next generation.

Joss’s embrace tightened, and he kissed the top of her head. “We’ve been lucky, haven’t we?”

Maggie still delighted in his casual gestures of affection. After her lonely years, she’d never take Joss’s love for granted. She snuggled closer, a secret smile curving her lips. “Yes, we have.”

She raised a hand to press his palm to her midriff, just above where their next baby grew. Tonight she’d tell him the news in the privacy of their room, the room where they’d first shared a bed.

“It’s good to be back. You know, we could live here six months of the year and six months in London.”

“I’d love that,” Maggie said. “But can you leave your practice so long?”

“I can bring work up with me. In summer, getting in and out of Fraedale isn’t so difficult.”

“It is in winter.”

His soft chuckle brushed across her skin like velvet. “Winter here has other compensations.”

“Yes,” she said on a reminiscent sigh.

Below them, Joss’s mother Kitty was clearing a space for dancing. Maggie loved Kitty, who had welcomed her from the first and never shown any sign of minding that her handsome, successful son had chosen a girl who worked as a servant.

“And the practice has people lining up with commissions.” Joss’s architectural business was thriving. Another secret they kept this Christmas was the knighthood that became official in the New Year. Maggie Carr, humble housekeeper, would step into 1827 as Margaret, Lady Hale. The change still struck her as hard to credit. “I can afford to play the lord of the manor now and again.”

“Especially when you are the lord of the manor. How generous Dr. Black was to give us this estate.”

“Absurdly so. I’m so glad Uncle Thomas is here this Christmas.”

“He and his namesake have established quite the alliance. I suspect he might end up visiting Thorncroft more often now he’s given it away than he did when he owned it.” She stroked Joss’s large, capable hand. “The house has come alive. It’s hard to recall what it was like before you burst into my life.”

“You were so stern when I turned up on your doorstep.”

A huff of wry amusement escaped her. “Your fatal charm soon proved my downfall.”

“Will my fatal charm lure you away now, to start our special Christmas Eve?”

“Tempting.” She caught Kitty’s eye, as her mother-in-law glanced up from the crowded hall. “We have guests.”

“Who are all staying until after New Year.”

“Perhaps we can slip out in an hour.”

“I sometimes think you married me purely to become part of my family,” he said with mock self-pity.

She smiled, in a mood to tease. “I’m so sorry you’ve finally realized the sad truth.”

“They love you nearly as much as I do.” He presented his arm. “Shall we go downstairs, my lovely wife?”

Once down in the hubbub, there were no more chances for quiet conversation. Instead Joss was caught up in a riotous game of blind man’s bluff that tripped up more than one dancer, while Maggie joined the older folk around the fire.

It was well beyond the promised hour when Maggie at last found herself dancing a waltz in her husband’s arms.

“Shall we retire soon? Nobody will miss us.” Joss smiled down at her. “Although it seems unkind to remove the prettiest girl from the party.”

Dizzy with love and happiness—it was hard to keep a sensible tongue in her head when all her dreams had come true so magnificently—she smiled back at the man she adored. “You’re too kind, sir.”

“No, I’m not, by God.” He whirled her around, until they came to a breathless halt beneath an elaborate arrangement of mistletoe and red and gold ribbon suspended from the beams. “You’re still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

His kiss was more circumspect than usual—after all, they had an audience—but it still told her how deeply he loved her.

“Oh, Joss, I do love you,” she whispered as he drew away. And blushed when she saw that Kitty and Dr. Black had stopped close enough to overhear her fervent declaration.

Dr. Black viewed them with an unaccustomed misty expression in his faded gray eyes behind their round spectacles. In the last five years, she’d seen more of him than she had in all the time she’d worked at Thorncroft. She’d become very fond of him, although she’d never quite overcome her awareness that once he’d paid her wages.

“Kitty, I’m so glad you wrote to me all those years ago and suggested I find Joss a wife. Putting my godson and Margaret together was a stroke of genius.”

“Thomas, you know that was a secret between us,” Kitty said in horror, as a fraught silence crashed down around them.

Maggie frowned at her former employer. “But you didn’t put us together.”

Dr. Black, who had been enjoying the Christmas punch, blinked at her owlishly. “Yes, I did. Wrote to Joss saying I wanted the place modernized, so he’d come up to stay. When any nitwit can see Thorncroft is perfect as it is. Then wrote to you to say to expect him.”

Joss’s arms had dropped from her waist, and some quality in his stance made her shoot him a curious glance. “Joss?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He was frowning into the distance. She stared at him baffled, before she recalled a conversation from their early days as man and wife. He’d smugly declared that he’d found his own bride, and just the right bride for him, without benefit of his mamma’s enthusiastic matchmaking.

Oh, no. Did he imagine Maggie had set out to trap him with the conniving of his marriage-minded mother? Surely he must know his wife had never deceived him. Surely he must remember how unprepared she’d been for his arrival, that night of the snowstorm.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, stop it right now.” She turned to Dr. Black. “I’m sorry, sir. I received no such letter.”

Dr. Black, seemingly unaware of the strained atmosphere, beamed at them both. “Maybe I didn’t get around to writing to you, Margaret. I know I wrote to the boy. Not sure I wrote to Kitty either, now I come to think of it. But I definitely leaped to answer her plea to find my godson a suitable bride.”

“And you did that, Thomas,” Kitty said, casting her son a doubtful look. His reticence was becoming noticeable. “But it was purely good fortune that Joss and Maggie fell in love.”

“So our meeting wasn’t a lucky accident after all,” Maggie said, trying to sound lighthearted. No wonder Joss’s family had expressed no surprise when he found his future wife in an out of the way corner of Yorkshire and brought her home for a quick wedding. They must have already been bracing for her arrival.

“It was a lucky accident,” Kitty said with a hint of desperation, when Joss still didn’t speak.

“With a lot of help from me,” Dr. Black said, earning him another glare from Kitty.

“You’re a very unlikely cupid, Thomas,” Kitty said acidly.

Maggie was still staring at Joss, not understanding his odd reaction. “Do you mind so much, Joss?”

Joss blinked, and Maggie watched the life and warmth flow back into his face. The green eyes he focused on her were once more radiant with love. “You know,” he said in a thoughtful voice, “once upon a time, I might have. But now I really don’t.”

“I know you hate to feel manipulated,” she said steadily. “But I wasn’t part of any plot.”

“I wasn’t plotting,” Kitty said, offended.

“Yes, you were,” Joss said, although affection deprived his tone of rancor.

“Perhaps a little,” Kitty sheepishly admitted.

Dr. Black at last picked up the less than positive response to his self-congratulations. “Have I put my foot in it?”

Joss reached out to catch Maggie’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Forgive my distraction, my darling. I had to rearrange my memories of our courtship, so they fit the new picture.”

Maggie regarded him with a frown, not wanting this nonsense to spoil what had been such a lovely day. “You mightn’t have liked me when you met me. It’s not as if you had no choice in what happened.”

He squeezed her hand. “Of course I had no choice.”

“Josiah Hale!” his mother protested, even as he continued.

“Maggie, you are the woman I was fated to love. From the moment I first saw you, I couldn’t resist you.” Leaving her gratified—and relieved—after his ardent declaration, he turned to Dr. Black. “Uncle Thomas, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you’re the author of my present happiness, I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

Dr. Black’s cheerful humor revived, and he bestowed another glowing smile on Maggie and Joss. A smile perhaps a few degrees brighter, thanks to the brandy enlivening the punch.

“Knew it was the perfect solution.” He turned back to Kitty. “Let me know if you want my help with any other unmarried sprigs littering your life, my dear Kitty. I’ll find them all a pretty girl to wed, just like Maggie. Although they’ll have to be pretty indeed to hold a candle to you in your heyday, by George.”

“Time for us to go, my love,” Joss said in an undertone. As he tugged Maggie away toward the staircase, she watched her self-possessed mother-in-law blush and kiss Dr. Black’s cheek.

“Joss, you’re not really angry with Dr. Black for setting up our meeting, are you?”

“Angry?” Joss’s relaxed laugh soothed her last niggling worry. “If I hadn’t already named my son after him, I’d be ready to do it again. We can christen all our future children Thomas. Even the girls.”

She gave a choked gulp of amusement and leaned in, close enough to murmur for his ears alone, “Let’s come up with something different for the new baby. It would be so inconvenient to call for one child and get the whole lot turning up to answer.”

Joss stopped so abruptly at the base of the stairs, she stumbled into him. “The new baby?”

She smiled to see the wonder illuminating his expression. “Next summer, I think.”

“Oh, my glorious beloved, I couldn’t adore you more.” He seized her up for a passionate kiss that this time paid no heed to observers.

And Maggie kissed her husband back with every ounce of love in her overflowing heart.