Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas - A bestselling Christmas read to devour in one sitting!

TRISHA ASHLEY

Twelve Days of Christmas

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2010

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2010

Cover illustration © Robyn Neild

Cover layout design © Debbie Clements

Trisha Ashley 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: 9781847561152

Ebook Edition © October 2010 ISBN: 9780007412297

Version: 2017-10-26

For my good friends and fellow 500 Club members,

Leah Fleming and Elizabeth Gill, with love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page TRISHA ASHLEY Twelve Days of Christmas

Copyright Copyright Published by Avon an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2010 This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017 Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2010 Cover illustration © Robyn Neild Cover layout design © Debbie Clements Trisha Ashley 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: 9781847561152 Ebook Edition © October 2010 ISBN: 9780007412297 Version: 2017-10-26

Dedication Dedication For my good friends and fellow 500 Club members, Leah Fleming and Elizabeth Gill, with love.

Prologue - The Ghost of Christmas Past

Chapter 1 - Pregnant Pause

Chapter 2 - Little Mumming

Chapter 3 - Weasel Pot

Chapter 4 - Rose of Sharon

Chapter 5 - Hot Mash

Chapter 6 - Horse Sense

Chapter 7 - The Whole Hog

Chapter 8 - Deep Freeze

Chapter 9 - Daggers

Chapter 10 - Wrung

Chapter 11 - Slightly Tarnished

Chapter 12 - Deeply Fruited

Chapter 13 - Christmas Spirits

Chapter 14 - Toast and Treacle

Chapter 15 - Advent

Chapter 16 - Comfort

Chapter 17 - Rapping

Chapter 18 - Ice Maiden

Chapter 19 - I Should Coco

Chapter 20 - Flickering

Chapter 21 - Loathe at First Sight

Chapter 22 - Outcomes

Chapter 23 - Pieced Together

Chapter 24 - Birkin Mad

Chapter 25 - Christmas Carol

Chapter 26 - Socked

Chapter 27 - Knitting

Chapter 28 - Christmas Present

Chapter 29 - Abominable

Chapter 30 - A Bit of a Poser

Chapter 31 - Fool’s Gold

Chapter 32 - Puzzle Pieces

Chapter 33 - Turning Turkey

Chapter 34 - Slightly Thawed

Chapter 35 - Acted Out

Chapter 36 - Piked

Chapter 37 - Bumps

Chapter 38 - Photo-Finish

Chapter 39 - Signs and Portents

Chapter 40 - Twelfth Night

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Prologue

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Even though it was barely December, the hospital ward had been decked out with a tiny tree and moulded plastic wall decorations depicting a fat Santa, with bunchy bright scarlet cheeks and dark, almond-shaped eyes. He was offering what looked like a stick of dynamite to Rudolf the very red-nosed reindeer, but I expect you need explosive power to deliver all those presents in one single night.

My defence strategy for the last few years has been to ignore Christmas, shutting the door on memories too painful to deal with; but now, sitting day after day by the bed in which Gran dwindled like snow in summer, there seemed to be no escape.

Gran, who brought me up, would not have approved of all these festive trappings. Not only was she born a Strange Baptist, but had also married a minister in that particularly austere (and now almost extinct) offshoot of the faith. They didn’t do Christmas in the way everyone else did – with gifts, gluttony and excess, so as a child, I was always secretly envious of my schoolfriends.

But then I got married and went overboard on the whole idea. Alan egged me on – he never lost touch with his inner child, which is probably why he was such a brilliant primary school teacher. Anyway, he loved the whole thing, excess, gluttony and all.

So I baked and iced spiced gingerbread stars to hang on the tree, which was always the biggest one we could drag home from the garden centre, together with gay red and white striped candy canes, tiny foil crackers and twinkling fairy lights. Together we constructed miles of paper chains to festoon the ceilings, hung mistletoe (though we never needed an excuse to kiss) and made each other stockings full of odd surprises.

After the first year we decided to forgo a full traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings in favour of roast duck with home-made bottled Morello cherry sauce, which was to become my signature dish. (I was sous-chef in a local restaurant at the time.) We made our own traditions, blending the old with the new, as I suppose most families do …

And we were so nearly a family: about to move to a tiny hamlet just outside Merchester, a perfect country setting for the two children (or maybe three, if Alan got his way) that would arrive at neatly-spaced intervals …

At this juncture in my thoughts, a trolley rattled sharply somewhere behind the flowered curtains that enclosed the bed, jerking me back to the here and now: I could even hear a faint, tinny rendering of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ seeming to seep like a seasonal miasma from the walls.

Perhaps Gran could too, for suddenly her clear, light grey eyes, so like my own, opened wide with an expression of delighted surprise that had nothing to do with either my presence or the home-made pot custard I’d brought to tempt her appetite, the nutmeg-sprinkled top browned just the way she liked it.