A Drakenfall Christmas: A Novel Read online

  A Drakenfall Christmas

  by

  Geralyn Corcillo

  Cover by Sue Traynor

  Published by Geralyn Corcillo at KDP

  Copyright © 2016 Geralyn Corcillo

  ISBN: 978-1-62678-016-3

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations, events, and locations are products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  It's Mark & Maisy's first Drakenfall Christmas together …

  The magic of Drakenfall is in the air as Lord and Lady Mark and Maisy, along with their madcap staff, welcome guests to the country estate-turned-resort for the season of nutmeg and mistletoe.

  In an uncharacteristic turn, unflappable house manager Glynis Ferry seems to be getting her duster ruffled every time she catches sight of Shaun Fletcher, the new head groom. And Pippa Taylor, a whirling dervish of a domestic, works below stairs to make the magic happen for everyone else. But will there ever be enough dazzle left over for her? There will if most worthy valet Kafi Diop has anything to say about it, as he tries to spin holiday enchantment every which way. But his best laid plans always seem to go awry, even with Maisy helping out as his faithful sidekick.

  But what about his grandest of schemes, set to take flight at the Drakenfall Christmas Ball? He's depending on guest Jamie Tovell, who's depending on his long-time crush Lea Sinclair. And even if everything goes off without a hitch, will the secret Maisy's been hiding from Mark all season pop up at the most inopportune moment to wreck everything?

  It's a Drakenfall Christmas … topsy-turvy, but generously sprinkled with laughter and lavishly frosted with romance!

  For Ron

  and

  Morse and Jamie

  Chapter 1: Ms. Glynis Ferry Wakes Up

  I flicked my thick braid over my shoulder, clawing wayward strands out from in front of my face. As I sped through the icy wind toward the harbour town, I pressed my knees into the stallion's sides as tightly as I could. I urged the horse on, my skirts and petticoats flying about my waist. But I had to hurry. I HAD to.

  The Baron was depending on me.

  Faster, faster, faster.

  His letter was wedged across my chest, secured by the tightest of straps, which caused no small amount of discomfort. But no matter. I had to get there in time!

  I was the fastest, surest rider in all of Drakenfall, though I was not meant to be. Few knew of my talent or speed. And why would they? I was but a housemaid.

  But The Baron knew. And he needed me to do this.

  Faster, faster, faster.

  If the ice had broken, all was lost, and the swiftest mount in the world would scarce signify.

  Faster, faster, faster.

  Glynis awoke in her tangled sheets in the stillness of the snowy morning. The sky was yet dark outside her frosted windows, but she could see the falling flakes plainly in the dooryard lights.

  Another postcard winter's day in the heart of the Cotswolds. Yet her heart was racing, and it had little to do with all the activity that wanted choreographing or the work that needed doing in the week before Christmas at Drakenfall.

  No, her blood pounded and had her feeling skittish because she'd had the dream again.

  Glynis hadn't dreamt of the legend of the first baron since she'd been a little girl, over forty years ago, when her mother had been a housemaid at Drakenfall. So, not only had Glynis lived her whole life in the small village of Tippingstock, but she'd run rampant across Drakenfall since she'd been knee-high to a grasshopper. She'd spent hours, days, weeks in the library, and she knew the history of the place. And the legends. The dark romance of it all had styled her dreams when she'd been young and … silly.

  So why were the dreams back now? The dreams about Drakenfall in the days before the joy?

  When Mark had become the Twelfth Baron Shiley six years ago, he'd turned the crumbling Drakenfall into a thriving resort where guests could come to live out their fantasies of relaxing at an English country estate. Drakenfall prospered as a boon to the community like never before. And when Maisy joined the family last spring when Mark had married the madcap American, Drakenfall's sparkle, efficiency, and bonhomie had increased tenfold, at the very least.

  So why the return of the dark, Gothic dreams of Drakenfall's bleak history?

  Could the deepest recesses of Glynis's mind, of her very heart and soul, be putting forth a mighty endeavour to tell her something, in no uncertain terms, in a language she could understand? A language she'd always understood?

  No.

  There was nothing she needed to know. To face. To realize. To feel.

  Nothing at all.

  Glynis threw back the covers and launched herself out of her most comfortable bed. She was not usually up so early, but if her night's repose was determined to disconcert her, then up Glynis would get. And why not? Every extra minute would be precious as Christmas came upon them with its delights and demands. Yes, her shift as house manager had always been seven to seven. And she had never been late. But there was certainly nothing amiss about starting early.

  Thirty minutes later, Glynis shut the door to her suite of rooms off the kitchen and clicked her way along the tiles in her slim black boots that set off her fawn-coloured pencil skirt with an acceptable degree of elegance. The aroma of Cook's rich coffee perking had Glynis all but dancing into the deserted pre-dawn kitchen. She straightened her shoulders and patted her chignon as she stepped past the giant hearth.

  She halted in her ladylike tracks.

  Mud and snow blazed a trail from the outside door across the kitchen. It looked as though an icy sea serpent had slithered in and devoured whoever must have been standing in the pair of boots that stood, empty, at the end of the slushy trail.

  Glynis knew those boots.

  “I'm sorry, ma'am.” And the man belonging to the voice stepped out of the alcove in the far corner of the cavernous kitchen, holding a mop.

  Fletcher. Shaun Fletcher. He was standing in the kitchen on a dark and snowy morning in his socks, holding a mop. Momentarily nonplussed, Glynis looked down at his thick socks. Amazingly clean-looking socks, considering morning stable duties.

  Glynis cleared her throat. “Mr. Fletcher,” she said, pulling herself up to her tallest height. “That won't be necessary.” And she moved forward, stretching her hand out to take the mop.

  “Now, ma'am,” he said, dodging her. For Shaun Fletcher, though almost fifty himself, stepped quickly enough, as though he were made of elastic. And steel. “Just because I work in the stables doesn't mean I don't know how to clean up after myself or how to keep a house tidy.”

  “Mr. Fletcher—”

  He looked up from where he'd started to mop. “It's Fletcher, ma'am.” His brown eyes looked right into hers. “Or Shaun,” he said, a little more quietly.

  Glynis felt her eyes widen a fraction. She swallowed. “Then you can stop calling me 'ma'am.'” And she said this with a bit more tartness than served the situation. “It's not as though I'm eons older than you.”

  “No, ma'am,” he rushed to say. “Not at all.” His eyes skipped across her face, his brows furrowed in thought. “I'd guess we'd have been at school together if—”

  “Mr. Fletcher,” she said. “Everyone calls me Glynis. Everyone. From Lord and Lady Shiley to Pippa and Cook.”

  “Yes. Of course, Ms. Ferry.”

  “Thank you. Now, please, let me—”

  “It's done,” he said, holding up the mop and indicating the clean floor with a flourish of his arm.

  He walked to the utility sink b
efore he turned to look at Glynis. “I'm sorry about all this, Ms. Ferry. I got just outside the door in the mudroom when I smelled Cook's coffee. I don't know what came over me, but before I knew it, I was charging in here.”

  Glynis looked to where his boots stood on the floor, a good four feet in front of the pot of the scalding brew. She look back to him. “You must have been iced through and through, working in this weather.” She looked him up and down. “And yet you stopped,” she finished quietly.

  He turned away to rinse out the mop. “Nah. Blood's already heated up this late in the morning. I've been—”

  But when he turned back toward Glynis he found her standing right in front of him, holding out a veritable tureen of steaming coffee. She handed it to him as she took the mop, returning it to its proper place. Fletcher stood next to the utility sink, warming his hands around the capacious ceramic mug.

  “You can drink it,” Glynis assured him with a quirk of her lips. “Black. Two sugars.”

  He tipped his head. “Thank you.” He took a sip, his eyes still fixed on her above the rim of his cup.

  Glynis went to the counter and poured herself a more dainty cup. “And how are you settling in here, Mr. Fletcher? It's been just over a month. Do you like working at Drakenfall? Are you settling in to your rooms above the stables?”

  “Are you taking the mick?” he asked, almost choking on his coffee.

  Glynis smiled. “So you like it, then.”

  “I do.”

  “You knew Mark's mother, I understand.”

  “Mark?” Fletcher laughed. “A few seconds ago he was 'Lord Shiley.'”

  “Isn't he always?” Glynis merely said. But with a hint of a smile.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I knew Debbie Prebys back in the day. A wild one, she was. Scared the hell out of all of us. But I knew Mark, too. Had no idea he was a baron. He was just a kid when Debbie worked at the equestrian lodge.”

  “In Scotland, I believe?”

  He nodded. “Just outside Perth. They moved on after about two years. I moved on a few years after that.” He moved closer to her side of the kitchen as he put his empty cup in the industrial dish washer.

  “A rolling stone, then.”

  He looked at her. “Not always. And not now that I've rolled into Drakenfall.”

  Glynis felt her cheeks grow hot. “You make it sound so random. But Mark never forgot you. Or the way you worked with horses.”

  Fletcher stepped into his boots in the middle of the floor. “Mark never forgot Alair,” Fletcher corrected her with a smile.

  “Alair. Mark's mentioned him before. That was a horse at the lodge?”

  Fletcher nodded and he bent to lace up his boots. “Mark was there when Alair was born. God, he loved that horse. Glued to my side as I trained the foal.” Fletcher's face took on a pained expression. “I'll never forget the way he looked the day he and Debbie left. The day Debbie took him away from Alair.” He shook his head, standing up. “Well,” he said. “It's been a treat seeing you this morning, Ms. Ferry, and that's a fact. I don't often see you at this hour. Just up as it were. Not that you look just up. I mean, it's not that you look like you just rolled out of bed. Not that I would—I mean, you look fine. As usual. Perfect. Right. I'm off.” And he was through the door to the mudroom where Glynis saw him shrug into his jacket and hasten into the biting wind.

  Glynis was still looking at the kitchen door when Cook bustled into the room with any number of herbs for making breakfasts.

  “Glynis,” she said. “You do look flushed. Are you ill? Is it a fever this morning that has you up so early? Maybe you should get yourself into bed.”

  Chapter 2: Morning Has Broken

  When Pippa came bounding into the kitchen a few minutes later, Glynis had regained her composure, having just taken a glass of chilled water.

  “Aren't you bright and chipper on such a dark and blustery morning,” the incomparable house manager noted. “I don't think I've seen you this buoyant since Mr. Colin Scott left last week. I'm impressed at your high spirits.”

  “He was a sweet one, he was,” Pippa said with her impish smile. “Not that we saw much of him or the missus.”

  Yes, leave it to Pippa Taylor to swoon over a man so thoroughly that she got giddy over him while she relegated his world-famous telly star wife to “the missus.”

  “Well, they kept themselves to themselves while they were here, now, didn't they.” This Kafi observed as he swept into the kitchen and palmed the protein shake Cook handed him. “Ta.” And he smiled at the woman who'd been delighting palates at Drakenfall since Mark's father was a boy. Kafi looked back to Pippa and Glynis. “Nothing like besotted honeymooners who want to hide from the world to free us all up to get ready for the Christmas season.”

  “Poor Pippa,” Cook said on a laugh.

  “Oh, stop,” Pippa chided with a roll of her eyes. “I wasn't sweet on him or anything! I just thought he was such a nice bloke. And what he did for her was so romantic.”

  Kafi sounded like he snorted as might a bull. “You thought THAT was romantic?”

  “It was,” she said with certainty. “It was just the perfect thing, for her and her life, to show her how much he cared. That he wanted to be there for her.”

  And the kitchen was still for a second in the wake of Pippa's earnestness.

  “And that impressed you?” Kafi said this quietly, with a curious light in his eye.

  Pippa shot him a glare. “Yes. Nice people who care impress me.” She clenched her teeth. “And he was nice.”

  “Wendy Hunter was a sweetheart, too,” Kafi added. And didn't he do so with a bit of heat?

  “Okay, yes. That's what I mean,” Pippa insisted. “They were a nice couple.”

  “VERY happy,” Kafi agreed.

  “Are we talking about the lately departed honeymooners?” Maisy came into the kitchen just then with Mark by her side.

  “Glynis!” Mark's eyebrows arched over a delighted smile. His favourite part of the Drakenfall family was up and in the kitchen earlier than usual.

  “We're all at it early today,” Maisy noted with a yawn.

  And Mark and Maisy were even earlier to work than was Glynis. The young baron and his lady usually started bopping around Drakenfall at ten in the morning, taking care of everything from the accounts to clearing the drains to evening entertainment, until eleven at night.

  “Lady Shiley,” Kendrick greeted with a smile as he stepped in from outside, already having changed out of his boots in the mudroom. “Don't you look festive.”

  And yes, her shirt was red. Her top shirt.

  Just as Mark worked everyday in jeans, a sky blue button-down shirt and a black waistcoat, Maisy greeted everyday in her jeans and layered tee shirts. Lord and Lady Shiley were indeed a pair.

  “Did you get the eggs?” interrupted Cook.

  Kendrick made his way to the stove, delivering his bundle. “Mrs. Browning still down with a cold?”

  “I gave her strict orders NOT to set an alarm until further notice,” Maisy offered. “I want her to get good and better so she and Barbara don't miss the Ball. We'll call in on her later this morning.” She smiled at Mark. Then she turned to Glynis. “Is Fletcher all set with the sleigh to go fetch the new guests at the station? His team should be in top form to arrive a ten sharp.”

  House manager though her title was, all staff fell under the purview of Glynis. Even the yard manager. “I'll confirm,” she said with a smile, making her way briskly into her neat office off the kitchen. The pick-up was on the wall schedule. Still, she called Shaun Fletcher's cell, though she was sure the confirmation was superfluous.

  “Fletcher,” he yelled down the phone, through the wind and out of breath, as though she had interrupted him in the midst of his work outside. Which, of course, she must have.

  “Mr. Fletcher, Glynis Ferry here. Are the team and sleigh set to arrive at the station to get five new guests?”

  “This morning at ten sharp.” The howli
ng and ruckus of the wind died away as though he'd stepped under cover or cupped his hand over the phone. “All set, Ms. Ferry.” And he said this more sedately than his robust greeting.

  “Very good. Will you or one of the lads go?”

  “Both. I'll be taking Phineas. The lads need to get familiar with the sleigh.”

  “Right. Ten sharp.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “Right.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Yes. Same to you.” As Glynis disconnected, she felt parched.

  Well, that call was all but unnecessary. Shaun Fletcher was working out admirably as the new head groom, so easily in charge of both the horses and the lads. Like Mark, Shaun was easy and confident, a natural leader. Well, he was with the horses and the lads. More stoic with the guests, but charming nonetheless. And he seemed to be exactly what anyone would want when it came to help with the horses. He could be retired and deferential with the haughtier horse people, and so kind and instructive to those trying their hand at something more unfamiliar. And as a chauffeur of the horse-drawn sleigh, he was impeccable.

  Maisy had been undeniably brilliant to inaugurate such a feature for the winter.

  Indeed, when Mark, Twelfth Baron Shiley, had fallen for the winsome guest Maisy last spring, everyone at Drakenfall had come into the very best sort of lucky magic. People in the village said how Mark's marriage ushered in the renaissance of Drakenfall, returning it to its golden days of prosperity and happiness. But Lord and Lady Shiley, as hardworking below stairs as they were delightful with the guests above stairs, truly brought the great estate of Drakenfall to a pinnacle it had never known.

  Glynis looked down at the phone in her hand. Drakenfall was happier than it had ever been.

  Chapter 3: But the Fire Is So Delightful

  “Can you please keep your child off me?”