Mr Totton's Christmas Miracle (Ebook) Book 6

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Chapter 1

Mr. Thomas Totton bade his employer a cordial goodnight and left the office. It was only a ten-minute walk back to his house in Mare Street, but it was dark, the path icy, and the streetlights were not yet operational in his part of town. He passed the new railway station that his employer, Mr. Elijah Hepworth, had brought to Millcastle with the sheer strength of his will. It was currently deserted, the last train had left on the half hour, and the next wasn’t expected until morning.
He knew far more about the workings of the railway station, and the hotel next to it than anyone in Millcastle, apart from Mr. Hepworth, and was quietly proud of what they’d achieved. Goods from Millcastle could now travel to new destinations, opening up the factory markets and increasing profitability.
He turned left at the corner after the Station Hotel and walked down the cobbled pathway between the two rows of new red brick houses he’d helped design with Mr. Hepworth’s architect. The detached houses were for the new rising middle class--mill managers, overseers, station masters, and the professional gentlemen of Millcastle. Each had three stories and a cellar, four large bedrooms, servants’ quarters at the top, and an inside water closet. Thomas thought they were very fine and had been delighted when his employer had offered him the opportunity to buy one at a reduced rate.
Thomas paused to open the back gate and entered the neat garden at the rear of his property. The garden was laid to grass with wide flower borders on two sides. Having never owned a garden before, he hadn’t had much time to think of what to do with it. He was considering consulting with the municipal authority who had recently laid out the town park. He’d never had much time for flowers in his life, but he was impressed by the colorful displays.
There was a light on in his kitchen window and he stopped to stare at the figure illuminated within.
He didn’t need a live-in housekeeper.
He shouldn’t have offered her the position, but he didn’t regret it.
She’d come to him without references or experience, yet he’d allowed her to stay, and she’d proved her worth.
And yet… he knew nothing about her apart from the name she’d given him—Elinor Smith—and even that might not be real.
It was lucky he worked so hard and had no time for friends because he was fairly certain they would’ve warned him off hiring a woman like her. He wasn’t even sure if she deserved to be called Mrs., because she’d never mentioned a spouse living or dead. At least the title gave her the veneer of respectability they both needed to maintain their relative positions in society and for her to manage his house.
Despite all her efforts to hide it, she was beautiful in a way that made men stop and stare. Her hair was the darkest chocolate brown and her eyes the color of violets. Not that he’d noticed these things when he’d first encountered her alone and desperate at the notorious George and Dragon coaching inn in the center of town.
He still wasn’t sure what instinct had made him stop when she’d called out to him, but he had paused to listen to her tale of woe, and, incredibly, he’d believed every word of it.
She’d come to Millcastle to work as a governess only to find that the position was not as she’d imagined, and that the letter writer was an elderly man with no children simply wishing to entrap her within his house and use her as he wished. When he’d met her off the coach, instinct had told her he wasn’t being truthful. She’d asked about his children and he’d become angry and defensive, seemingly unable to remember the names he’d fabricated in his letter. He’d tried to force her to get into his carriage, and she’d made a scene, racing toward the entrance of the inn where she’d run straight into—him.
Thomas shivered as the first faint hint of snow brushed his cheek. He looked up at the silent, falling flakes that would soon mask the scars of the growing industrial town he’d helped create. Not that he wasn’t proud of what he’d achieved. He’d grown up with nothing and now had an excellent job, a fine house to live in, and—Mrs. Smith.
He shook off his foolish thoughts and marched up to the back door, wiped his feet on the mat and stepped inside. There was no sign of his housekeeper, but the fragrant smell of beef stew perfumed the air and the house was warm around him. These days he never had to think about rationing coal or light, which was a blessing.
He took off his boots and set them in the scullery along with his coat and hat. When he entered the kitchen, she was there with a warm towel in her hands and a welcoming smile.