Read A Proper Family Christmas Online
Authors: Chrissie Manby
A Proper Family Christmas
‘Deliciously funny’
Heat
‘Nothing short of brilliant’
Marie Claire
‘This sassy and addictive read will make you laugh – a lot!’
Closer
‘Funny and inventive’
Company
‘Hilarious … I loved it. Six stars, hurrah!’
Daily Mail
‘Manby’s novels are made for holidays – light enough to pick up and put down, but entertaining enough to keep you happy by the pool.’
Glamour
‘The perfect summer escapist read’
‘Smart and entertaining, beach reading doesn't get much better than this’ ****
Closer
‘Lots and lots of uncomplicated fun’
Heat
‘I just couldn’t put it down’
www.chicklitreviewsandnews.com
‘Destined to keep you up until the small hours’
Daily Mirror
Flatmates
Second Prize
Deep Heat
Lizzie Jordan’s Secret Life
Running Away From Richard
Getting Personal
Seven Sunny Days
Girl Meets Ape
Ready Or Not?
The Matchbreaker
Marrying for Money
Spa Wars
Crazy in Love
Getting Over Mr Right
Kate’s Wedding
What I Did On My Holidays
Writing for Love (ebook only)
A Proper Family Holiday
Chrissie Manby is the author of eighteen romantic comedy novels and a guide for aspiring writers,
Writing for Love
. She was nominated for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance in
2011
for
Getting Over Mr Right
.
Raised in Gloucester, Chrissie now lives in London.
You can follow her on
Twitter
www.twitter.com/chrissiemanby
or visit her website to find out more
www.chrissiemanby.com
.
Chrissie Manby
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Chrissie Manby 2014
The right of Chrissie Manby to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781444709346
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
Contents
Critical acclaim for Chrissie Manby
To Mum and Dad
December
1971
A week before Christmas, in a tiny bedsit in a little town in Essex, a young woman carefully wrapped her Christmas gifts.
The list of people she had to buy for that year wasn’t long. She didn’t need to get anything for her mother or father. She had no siblings. She had no boyfriend. She hadn’t been in town long enough to have any real friends. In fact, there was just one person she wanted to remember. But that one person on her Christmas list was more precious to her than anyone else in the world. That person’s name was Daisy.
The young woman wrapped the small pink teddy bear with infinite precision, finishing the package with a ribbon. She placed it on the table alongside the baby blanket and the white romper suit and the rattle shaped like a heart. She had chosen them all so carefully, spending more than she could afford to buy the very best.
As it was, she had no idea whether the gifts would ever reach their intended recipient. Having wrapped each one in Christmas paper, she put them into a cardboard box that she addressed to an anonymous office. It would be up to someone she didn’t know whether the gifts were passed on to Daisy’s new family. It would be up to Daisy’s new family whether the teddy bear made it under their Christmas tree.
A nagging voice in the young woman’s head reminded her she might be wasting her time but her heart could not let this moment pass unmarked. It was Daisy’s first Christmas. What mother wouldn’t want her child to have a gift?
‘But you’re not her mother any more,’ said the little voice. ‘She’s someone else’s baby now.’
Five days later, the box full of gifts arrived at a smart Victorian mansion in the countryside near Warwick. The lady of the house thanked the postman and carried the box into the kitchen. She opened it with a sigh. She recognised at once the girlish handwriting on the gifts’ colourful labels. Reading the messages brought tears to her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she tore off the wrapping paper and regarded the contents. She held the tiny romper suit, which was already much too small.
‘I can take all this to the charity shop,’ said her husband, when he found her crying over the pathetic little pile. ‘Someone will be glad to receive them.’
‘No,’ said the lady. ‘Not everything. We should at least hang on to this.’
She put the little pink teddy bear beneath the Christmas tree, on top of a mountain of presents from new grandparents, godparents and friends. Though she would never know whom it had come from, the baby would keep that teddy bear close by her entire life.
Annabel Buchanan
December, last year
Everything about Annabel Buchanan breathed entitlement. From the way she looked, with her pearls peeking out from the collar of a crisp white shirt under a V-necked cashmere sweater, to the way she walked, shoulders back and head high as though balancing an invisible book. She had a way of gaining the attention and assistance of everyone she came across, from baristas to barons. Her voice was clear and commanding and spoke of an ancestry peppered with generals and admirals. Her manners were never less than impeccable. She was a firm favourite for chairing committees and sitting on councils and organising village fetes. Though she and her husband had only recently moved into the Great House in Little Bissingden, you would have thought her to the manor born.
The ladies of Little Bissingden looked to Annabel when it came to all matters of taste and etiquette, which was why Annabel was horrified when, on a shopping trip to London, her daughter emerged from the changing room in Peter Jones in a dress that looked like a sweet wrapper. It was certainly about the same size as a piece of foil from a Ferrero Rocher. Annabel winced.
‘Darling,’ she said to Isabella – Izzy – her only child. ‘Isn’t that just a little bit common?’
‘Common? Mum!’ Izzy pouted. At sixteen years old, the only criteria she had when it came to choosing a dress was that one of her friends already owned something just like it. ‘Jessica’s got one,’ was her defence now.
‘Which just about proves my point,’ said Annabel. Jessica was not one of Annabel’s favourites among Izzy’s private-school friends. She was the original ‘bad influence’.
Annabel sent her daughter back into the dressing room to try on the classic little black dress she had picked out for her instead. They were searching for a dress for the Little Bissingden Christmas Ball. It was especially important that the Buchanan family make a collectively classy impression that year as Annabel was hoping to host the ball at the Great House in twelve months’ time.
Izzy reappeared in the black dress, which was suitably demure and elegant. It very nearly reached to her knees.
‘Perfect,’ said Annabel. ‘You look like a young Inès de la Fressange.’
‘Who’s that?’ Izzy wrinkled her nose.
‘Someone with a lot more class than your friend Jessica. Or her mother. That’s who.’
‘Class isn’t the only thing that matters, Mum,’ said Izzy with a world-weary sigh. ‘You act like anyone who doesn’t speak like you isn’t worth knowing.’
Annabel smiled at her daughter in a way that said, ‘one day you’ll learn’, absolutely unaware as she did so that the universe was lining up a few lessons of its own.
But for now, Annabel Buchanan was set for a perfect Christmas. She’d got her daughter in modest black velvet and had an organic bird for the big day, picked up from a butcher in Mayfair. Well worth the drive from the Midlands.
Later that evening, turning into the driveway of the Jacobean pile she now called home, Annabel was struck once again by the incredible beauty of the place. She would never get bored of driving her car down the long, tree-lined driveway that opened on to the most exquisite house Annabel had ever seen. She had known from the first moment she saw the Great House – on a mini-break fifteen years earlier – that one day she would live there. Richard took a little longer to be persuaded. He baulked at the thought of maintaining a listed building. He didn’t understand why they needed something so big. There were only three of them, after all. But Annabel had told him he could have his own wine cellar. That was all Richard needed to hear.
They had been at the Great House for just over two years now. The renovation was almost complete. Annabel had overseen much of the refurbishment herself, stripping out the previous owner’s ridiculous Essex-style fittings and replacing them with National Trust tones and carefully curated antiques inherited from both Annabel’s and Richard’s families. The interior designer who had assisted had asked whether the Buchanans would allow their finished home to be photographed for
Architectural Digest
. Annabel was delighted. Richard asked if the magazine would pay.