The Yuletide Child, Charlotte Lamb [best novels to read .TXT] 📗

dress was a faded blue gingham with lacy cuffs and collar, and looked a little odd but rather sweet on the baby, especially as it was rather short on herdimpled legs. On top of that the baby was wearing a tiny blue knitted cardigan of a curiously old-fashioned design.

Ruth laughed. ‘I stole them.’

‘Stole them?’ Dylan repeated, wide-eyed.

‘I never throw anything away,’ Ruth admitted. ‘I still have most of my old toys in the little box room, including two dolls with china faces and soft bodies. I know it’s daft...’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ Dylan contradicted, smiling at her. ‘I’ve kept a couple of my own dolls, and my old teddy, although he’s very battered and has lost an eye.’

‘I’m glad I’m not the only sentimental idiot!’ Ruth laughed. ‘While I was getting the room ready for your husband yesterday, I realised my dolls were the same size as the baby, so I took their clothes off and washed and tumbled-dried them. I left them in front of the range all night, and put them on the baby after I bathed her just now—they fit her perfectly. I think my mother must have used some of my old baby clothes to dress my dolls after she bought them.’

‘Recycling with a vengeance,’ said Ross, laughing. ‘How wonderful. She looks adorable in them, too.’ He ran a hand over the baby’s head. ‘Look at all that hair! I had the idea babies were born bald.’

‘Some are, according to Henry.’ Ruth turned her head, sniffing. ‘I smell bacon and coffee. I’ll leave the baby with you, Dylan. What do you fancy for breakfast? Egg and bacon? Fruit and cereal? Coffee or tea?’

‘Whatever you’re having, thank you.’

‘Okay. How about you, Ross?’

‘I’ll have the same, too, thanks. This is really very kind of you, Ruth. It must be a nuisance having your Christmas ruined this way.’

‘It isn’t being ruined! I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed Christmas this much,’ Ruth said, smiling as she went back downstairs.

‘What a nice woman,’ Ross said, about to sit down on the bed again. But Dylan shooed him away.

‘Go and have a shower before breakfast. You haven’t much time, judging by that gorgeous smell of bacon!’

He went, laughing but reluctant, and Dylan cradled her baby, moved by the feel of her small, warm body. ‘You’re beautiful, do you know that?’

The dark blue eyes gazed up at her.

‘Yes, you do know, don’t you?’ Dylan laughed, kissing the tiny button nose. ‘Hungry? Yes, I thought you would be.’

She opened her nightdress.

Ruth brought up her breakfast on a tray half an hour later and found the baby fast asleep, pink and contented, in her mother’s arms.

‘Give her to me. I’ll take her back downstairs and put her into the basket. Is feeding her getting any easier?’

‘She seems to enjoy it; that’s the main thing. What are you putting in her bottle, Ruth? Cow’s milk?’

‘No, Henry very thoughtfully brought along some more powdered feed, a couple of bottles and some sterilising tablets on his last run. Not to mention some disposable nappies, which make life much easier. Now, you eat your breakfast, then you can have a nap.’

Dylan looked at the bran flakes with sliced banana, the covered plate of bacon and egg, the toast and coffee.

‘It all looks marvellous, and I am starving, but if I keep eating like this I shall be even fatter than when I was pregnant!’ she moaned.

‘You can’t diet while you’re breastfeeding,’ said Ruth, taking the baby out and closing the door.

After she had eaten her breakfast and put the tray on the floor Dylan lay back, sunlight on her closed lids, in a trance of happiness.

Downstairs Ruth put the baby into her wicker basket in the sunny sitting room while Cleo watched, slit eyes bright green.

‘It’s a baby,’ Ruth told her. ‘And you stay away from it, do you hear me?’ She covered the baby and shooed Cleo out of the room, closing the door firmly.

Tail lashing in affront, Cleo walked off into the kitchen and curled up in a patch of sunlight on the mat, from where she could see Fred mooching around the garden, gloomily looking for green things poking through the blanket of white snow.

Henry was talking on the mobile phone. ‘Well, that’s a wonder! If there are any emergencies, I shall be here all day at Ruth’s cottage. Oh, and Meg... Happy Christmas!’

He switched off and met Ruth’s questioning stare. ‘My message service,’ he explained. ‘Nobody needs me so far, touch wood. No really serious problems have come up overnight. Look, Ross and I are going off to see what we can scavenge to make this a real Christmas. We may be gone an hour or so, but apparently the temperature is rising again and there’s a thaw on the way, so we’re unlikely to run into any difficulty.’

‘The shops will all be shut! And anyway, I found a very big chicken in my deep freeze. I’ve been thawing it out in the microwave; I’ll start cooking it in half an hour.’

Henry wagged a finger at her. ‘The village store will open up for me! Jack has been a patient of mine fordonkey’s years; he owes me a favour. Start cooking your chicken; I’ll bring back whatever else I can find.’

While they were gone Ruth prepared the chicken, stuffing it with a mixture of the herbs she grew on her windowsill and some chestnuts she had in her larder. She had meant to roast them whole, in their skins, instead she peeled them, then chopped them up very small. Before she put the bird into the oven she pushed a whole unpeeled orange into the mouth of the cavity to give a faintly orangey flavour to the meat, then laid strips of bacon criss-cross over the top.

By the time Henry and Ross returned the whole house was full of the scent of roasting chicken.

The two men stamped their boots on the mat before coming indoors, faces healthily flushed after their tussle with