A Christmas Brothel: A Set of Canterbury Christmas Tales Read online

  As they well should, she supposed.

  “Is he unwell?”

  “Fevered. But he was asking after someone named Clarise. Isn’t that the lady that showed up earlier? I think he might be her husband. Mumbling about how much he loves her. I might be wrong. Might just be a coincidence, and if it is, I wouldn’t mind taking care of that one for the night.”

  But Frau Klaus doubted this was a coincidence. Coincidences didn’t happen on Christmas Eve.

  Magic did.

  “In the Mistletoe room, you say?” Frau stepped forward and took the hot drink from her. “You tend to the guests in the parlor. Leave this new gent to me.”

  “But Frau–” Libby pouted her plump red lips causing Frau Klaus to shake her head.

  “The guests in the parlor,” she ordered sternly. “And Libby?”

  “Yes, Frau Klaus?”

  “Leave him be.”

  “Lady Casper? Would you mind helping me with one of the guests? He’s arrived in terrible shape, and I’ve a dinner to prepare. Could you take this to the last room on the right upstairs?”

  Clarise nodded, happy to get her mind off her own troubles. She’d been wallowing by the fire for a few hours now, wishing she’d not left her home so hastily.

  What would Cornelius do once he realized she’d left?

  Somehow, she couldn’t imagine that he’d sit idly by and wait. He’d always been a man of action. She’d begun to worry that he might have taken it into that fool head of his to come after her. He would have guessed her destination, likely.

  He knew her better than anyone else in the world.

  She took the hot drink from Frau Klaus and picked her way around the furniture to head for the stairs.

  She and Bess had unpacked their meagre belongings in a delightful room in the attic. She’d normally enjoy sleeping beneath the thick coverlet listening to the storm, but not knowing what Cornelius was doing, or what he was thinking, was proving to be torture.

  Her imagination was like to send her to Bedlam before the night was over.

  At the last door, she knocked lightly, and then not hearing anyone from inside, eased the door open partway. “Hello?”

  “Grmmm…” A male voice grumbled from beneath a heavy quilt. The drapes were pulled closed, and no candles had been lit. Careful to avoid bumping into any furniture, which might cause her to spill the hot drink, she maneuvered to his bedside cautiously.

  “I’ve brought you something hot to drink.” She lowered herself into the chair and reached forward to pull the quilt away from his face. She could feel the heat emanating from his person without even making contact. The poor man was obviously burning up in fever, and she wondered if Frau Klaus might not wish to call in a doctor.

  “Need you,” the man mumbled in a shockingly familiar voice. “You came back. Never leave me, Clarise. Don’t leave me.”

  Good God! It was Cornelius!

  He rolled onto his back and gazed at her from glassy eyes. Not only was he burning up in fever, but he was also somewhat delirious. He thought they were in their home.

  All of the anger and hurt she’d been holding tight too fled immediately. Dear, dear, Cornelius. He’d come after her!

  She smoothed his hair away from his face and leaned forward to press her lips against his fiery skin. “I’m so sorry, my love. What have you done, you foolish, foolish man?”

  She needed to cool him down. He needed to take in some fluids. She could not give in to the fresh bout of tears that threatened. If he died because of her jealousy, because of her stupidity—she’d never forgive herself.

  Locating washcloths and cool water, Clarise refused to contemplate anything but the best possible outcome. Don’t panic. He’s going to be fine. Don’t panic. A sob nearly choked her as she returned to her husband’s side.

  “Take this love.” She tried to get him to drink, but he could hardly open his lips.

  His fever was raging!

  “My love,” she urged his mouth open with the spoon. “You must drink some.”

  He allowed the spoon to slip into his mouth but had fallen almost motionless.

  After coaxing him to swallow a few more spoonfuls, she rubbed the cool damp rag over his face.

  And then used another on his feet, his legs, her dear, sweet Cornelius.

  “Is everything all right now?” Clarise hadn’t even heard Frau Klaus knock.

  Clarise did not look up or pause in her task at hand. “He’s burning up.” Her voice came out an octave or two higher than normal. She knew she was on the verge of panicking. “And it’s all my fault!”

  “Oh, no, child,” Frau Klaus strode confidently into the room. “Everything happens for a reason.” She handed Clarise a poultice. “Lay this on his chest.”

  “I’m not sure I’m doing everything that can be done. There isn’t a doctor here, by chance, is there?”

  Frau Klaus shook her head. “You’re doing just fine. Not much you can do. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small paper envelope. “Add this to some water and make him drink it. His fever will break soon. Christmas was made for miracles, after all.”

  Clarise glanced toward the window. At some point, she’d thought to open the curtains. The snow had ceased, and stars burned bright in the sky. She’d forgotten all about the holiday again.

  Frau Klaus placed a hand on Clarise’s back and rubbed comfortingly. “You are giving him everything he needs right now. He will be fine. Both of you will be fine.” And then as quickly as she arrived, the tall woman had closed the door behind her.

  “Clarise?”

  “I’m here love.” She touched his cheek. She hoped she wasn’t imagining that he’d cooled slightly. But a sheen of perspiration had appeared on his upper lip and forehead.

  Thank God, the fever was breaking.

  “You’re the only one. You’ve always been the only one.” How could she not forgive after nearly losing him?

  “I know. I forgive you, dear.” But it was hard. Could she ever forget?

  He stilled her hands with one of his. “But you were wrong. She pressed herself against me. If you’d come a moment sooner, or later, you would have seen the truth. I was just setting her away from me. I would have sent them on their way if not for the weather.” His gaze held hers steadily.

  “You mean? You were not kissing her? You were not going to make love to her?”

  He went to speak again, but a fit of coughing overtook him instead. She mustn’t press him now. He needed to rest, to regain his strength.

  “It doesn’t matter, love,” she reassured him. “We’ll talk in the morning. All that matters is that your health improves. When I thought I might lose you…”

  His arm reached up and tugged at her.

  She knew what he wanted.

  She knew him so well.

  “First, you will take this remedy.” She poured the powder into a small amount of water, and he sat up just enough to drink it in one effort.

  Then she set the glass aside, pulled back the covers, and curled up beside him.

  “I’d never do that to you.” His voice rasped as he dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Never doubt my love.”

  All she could do was hold him. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to London with you.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t dealt with my family before now. They shouldn’t bother you about an heir. All that matters is that I have you.”

  Oh, how had she forgotten! “I’m with child again! And it feels different this time.”

  He squeezed her. “Ah, my love. You’re the best Christmas gift a man could ever have. Whatever happens. I want you to know that.”

  A half sob, half laugh rose up in her throat and escaped her lips. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me for not believing in you?”

  “If you’ll forgive me for everything else.”

  They lay silently together, renewing their love, both contemplating the friendship, the passion, the love that they shared.

  “We shall do better
in the future,” Clarise declared but then corrected herself. “I shall do better.”

  “As shall I.”

  She’d not forget the comfort of his embrace again.

  And then church bells rang out in the distance. It must be midnight. It was Christmas now. Clarise would never take love for granted again. Every day was a gift. Every smile, every touch, every kiss.

  “Happy Christmas, Cornelius.” She pressed her face into his neck.

  “Because we have each other.” He lifted one arm to embrace her fully. “Happy Christmas, my love.”

  The Yule Cat

  Ava Stone

  “I love Christmas!” Bríet declared. “It’s the most romantic time of the year.”

  “The most lonely,” Harriet muttered under her breath.

  With everyone crowded inside Klaus Haus, this Christmas was hardly lonely. “Anytime of the year can be lonely.” Bríet shook her head and her snow-white hair shimmered with the movement. “Ísafjörður is the largest town and trading post in the Westfjords and—”

  “Isa-what?” asked one of the men gathered around Frau Klaus’s Tannenbaum, blinking at Bríet as though her accent made her nearly impossible to understand. Perhaps it was difficult for the English to make out her words. Most of the time they didn’t require her to speak at all. “Ísafjörður,” she said more slowly, sounding out each syllable. “It’s where I’m from.”

  “Iceland?” the man asked, sitting forward in his seat, the flickering of the tallow candles reflecting the interest in his dark eyes.

  Bríet nodded. “Have you been?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only heard tales.”

  And Bríet had a tale of her own. “The storm out there—” she gestured to the window “—is nothing compared to the winters in Iceland. Outside, the wind can blow across your face and chill you straight to the bone. Inside the walls of the orphanage, it was not much warmer.”

  “Orphanage?” he echoed.

  Bríet nodded as memories of being cold and hungry threatened to flood her thoughts. She pushed them away, however. It was Christmas, after all, and the life she had in Canterbury now was better in every way than the life she’d lived in Ísafjörður as a child. “But at Christmas when someone gave you a new pair of socks or mittens, maybe even a new scarf, you knew you were loved. Anything to keep the Yule Cat from gobbling you up meant someone cared about you.”

  The man’s frown returned. “Did you say anything to keep the Yule Cat from gobbling you up?” he asked as though he truly didn’t understand a word that came out of her mouth.

  “More nonsensical Icelandic folklore,” Harriet complained.

  “It’s not nonsensical,” Bríet defended her homeland. Then she glanced to gentleman and said, “you don’t have the Yule Cat here?”

  An amused expression settled on his face. “In all my life, I’ve never once heard anyone mention a Yule Cat.”

  “He’s Grýla’s pet and the Yule Lads,” she explained. “A monster cat. Every Christmas season he lurks around the countryside, looking for people who haven’t received any new clothes before Christmas Eve so he can gobble them up.”

  “So he can gobble them up?” A laugh of surprise escaped the gentleman. “I have never heard of Grýla, the Yule Lads or a Yule Cat before. Why in the world would a cat eat people who don’t have new clothes?”

  “Well, he’s a monster,” Bríet explained. “Grýla is quite terrifying in her own right, of course. An evil giantess who’s tormented Icelandic children for centuries and her sons the Yule Lads, too, with their mischievous pranks are quite fearsome. But when you don’t have any parents and wearing anything new is a luxury you can’t even imagine, the terror of the Yule Cat strikes the worst sort of fear in every orphan’s heart.”

  “You look whole and hale. Did someone make sure you had something new before each Christmas Eve?” the gentleman asked, not unkindly.

  “Not every year.” Bríet shook her head. “Some times the priest would bring a few things to disburse between all of us, but not every year. Most of the time we’d huddle under our beds the closer it got to Christmas, terrified that if we made as much as a peep that the Yule Cat would break down the door and gobble up each and every one of us. Until…”

  “Until?” he echoed, a smile playing about his lips.

  “Well, there was a girl at the orphanage, Katrín. Older than me by some years with such a talent for knitting. Such a beautiful girl and one day she caught the eye of the son of a prosperous fisherman. Hinrik.” Bríet sighed at the memory. “He fell quickly in love with Katrín and followed her everywhere she went, much to her annoyance.”

  “So she didn’t fall in love with him, then?” the gentleman asked. “Poor fellow.”

  Bríet shrugged. “She didn’t let allow herself to do so. A prosperous man like Hinrik would never really marry a girl with no parents, not even in Ísafjörður. But this one day he overheard her asking women in town for any scraps of yarn they might have left over, and she took anything they offered.”

  “She was going to knit something?”

  “The same question Hinrik had.” Bríet nodded. “As he was following Katrín all over town collecting whatever yarn she could find, he asked her what she meant to knit and she told him she meant to make tiny hats for the babies to keep them warm. Socks, mittens, and even scarves for the rest of us if she could manage enough scraps from the townswomen.” Bríet swiped at a tear. “As many things as she could knit before Christmas Eve to keep the rest of us from worrying about the Yule Cat.” She took a breath. “Hinrik, having come from such a prosperous family and never in want of new clothes, had never given any thought to how the Yule Cat terrorized the children of the orphanage.”

  “I’ve never thought about it myself,” the gentleman teased.

  “I imagine you’re quite a bit like Hinrik, sir.” Bríet shook her head. “He went out that next morning and bought up every bit of yarn there was to be had in Ísafjörður. And then he convinced Katrín to teach him how to knit. He was awful at it.” Bríet laughed at the memory of just how awful the fisherman was at the chore. “But he got what he wanted – Katrín’s attention focused on him. And it wasn’t long before she loved him as much as he loved her. Then before any of us we knew it, Christmas was almost upon us. Hinrik arrived at the orphanage and made certain every child had something new to wear, some of us even had more than one new thing. For the first time in all of our lives, we weren’t terrified of being gobbled up by the Yule Cat. And since that day, no child at the orphanage has ever worried about that either. Hinrik and Katrín married on New Year’s Day that year, and we were all there to see it. Each and every year since, they arrive without fail at the orphanage with new clothes for all the children. They even have children of their own, but still they want to make sure no child in Ísafjörður is ever afraid of the Yule Cat or dread the coming of Christmas.” Bríet couldn’t help but smile. “Not a Christmas goes by that I don’t think about Hinrik who loved Katrín so much that by extension he loved all of us too. You can say what you want, Harriet, but to me Christmas is the most romantic time of the year.”

  Miracle on Castle Street

  Amanda Mariel

  Chapter 1

  Lady Nicollet Wentworth clicked her locket shut as the carriage jerked to a stopped. With her fingers curled around the golden bauble, she released a breath. “What on earth was going on?” She pulled the curtain aside to peek out the window.

  Nothing but snow for as far as she could see. Large fluffy flakes fell from the sky and the ground was blanketed in white, making it impossible to distinguish the road from the surrounding countryside. She tapped on the window separating her from her coachman.

  He slid the glass open. “My Lady.”

  A blistering cold breeze filled the conveyance sending a shiver through her. “Why have we stopped?”

  “I’m afraid the roads are becoming impassable. If we continue much farther, we are likely to get stuck,” The coachm
an said.

  Nicollet rubbed her thumb across her lockets surface. She’d hoped to reach her family’s home by nightfall, but it would not do to put them all in danger. It seemed she had no choice. “What do you propose?”

  “If we are lucky enough to reach the next town, we should find lodgings and ride out the storm.” The coachman glanced back out at the road. “I’m afraid the snow won’t be letting up anytime soon.”

  Nicollet sighed. “How far are we from lodgings?”

  “Canterbury is about a mile down the road, Ma’am.”

  “Very well. Continue on.”

  The coachman gave a nod, then slid the window closed. A moment later, the carriage jerked into motion. Nicollet slid her feet closer to the warming block grateful for the heat it provided. The winter's chill had seeped into her bones causing her to shiver.

  After repositioning her lap blanket, Nicollet opened her locket and stared at her husband’s miniature. What she would give to have his arms around her at this moment. Tears stung her eyes. Regardless of the time that had passed, she still found it hard to believe he’d been killed. Pain pricked her heart as she recalled the last kiss they’d shared.

  He’d been called to duty and after saying their farewells, he’d pulled her tight against him capturing her lips in an all-consuming kiss. The last words he’d spoken to her rang through her mind: Be strong, my love. Had he expected that he wouldn’t survive the war?

  She shook her head, no. He couldn’t have, because he’d followed those words with: I’ll hold you in my heart until I have you in my arms once more. With a final squeeze of her hands, he released her, turned, and mounted his horse. His smile had been bright, his hazel eyes sparkling as he rode away.

  A fresh batch of tears clouded her eyes and she dashed them away. Nicollet pressed her lips to the locket. “I love you, Michael. I always will.” Her declaration whispered through the conveyance only adding to her loneliness.