The Christmas Spirit Read online

  But, whatever the reason, she now found herself at a loss for words. A quite uncustomary sensation for an elf.

  As an unfamiliar thrill coursed through Trudy, she could almost believe that she was human.

  "Well?" Matthew's deep voice prodded her insistently.

  Trudy took refuge in dignity. She held her chin in the air. "I do not perfectly understand what you are implying, Sir Matthew."

  "Do you not? Well, perhaps that is because I do not mean to imply anything at all. I cannot help wondering, however. Where are your parents? And why are you not at least chaperoned?"

  "I”--Trudy's powers of invention rose to the occasion--"I do not choose to be chaperoned. Both my parents are dead, and I do as I choose."

  "You flaunt the conventions?" He arched one brow. "How very brave of you, indeed. What would they say about this at Almack's?"

  "I do not waste my time at Almack's, so whatever they say does not concern me. I am not as flighty as some of your sillier girls."

  Matthew's forehead wrinkled with a sudden consternation. "What was that you said?" Something about her words seemed to have disturbed him.

  She answered, "Merely that I have more important things to worry about. Such as the fate of our inmates. May we return to our discussion of them, please?"

  He was staring at her as if she had mysteriously echoed some thought inside his head, but he gave it another shake and begged her to continue. In that minute, though, something had changed, and she could see that she was tiring him.

  "If," she said hurriedly, "I might make a suggestion?" She rushed on without his assent. "If you would consider visiting the house our society has provided, you could see for yourself how desperate is our need for subscribers, and I am certain you would wish to do something for our pensioners."

  Matthew studied her from the depths of his chair. "What makes you so certain?" he asked wearily. "Why have you come to me? My fortune is not so remarkable. I am a younger son, in fact. And"-- he made a disparaging grimace at the brocaded robe he wore--"it is highly unlikely that I shall be doing anything to increase it."

  "But you have been to Africa! You are one of the few members of society who has. Who else but you would care to help its people here?"

  "Who else, indeed? Who, but a madman?" His eyes narrowed again. "Weren't you told, Miss Faye Meriwether, that I had gone mad?"

  Trudy blinked. In truth, his conversation had taken a decidedly odd turn. But no matter that Matthew's gaze had fixed on her with a disturbing, dark intensity, she did not feel afraid. Briefly, she even wondered whether he might not be trying to scare her.

  "No," she said, shaking her head matter-of-factly. "I had not heard any such poppycock."

  "Then, you truly must have removed yourself from society, or you would have."

  Matthew started to rise. Without thinking, Trudy leapt up to help him, but he stopped her with a glance.

  She paused with her hand poised just below his elbow. He looked down on her from his great height, and all of a sudden she felt very weak and foolish.

  "Thank you, Miss Meriwether, but there is no need. I can manage the distance from here to my desk."

  Trudy stepped back, feeling as if she'd been burned by a fallen moonbeam. Her heart hammered irregularly in her chest.

  Matthew carefully took the steps between his chair and the desk, where he sat and opened a drawer. To her dismay, he extracted a book of drafts and took up his pen.

  "Sir Matthew?"

  "I am writing you a draft on my bank for your society."

  "But--" This was not how her plan was supposed to work. "Wouldn't you rather see the almshouse for yourself? How do you know I am not a fortune-hunter?"

  "I did not promise you a fortune, Miss Meriwether. Only a subscription."

  "But--" As he handed her a slip of paper, Trudy tried to think of some other enticement, but she couldn't think fast enough. She looked at the signed draft for a generous twenty-five pounds. "I might be a thief all the same. You cannot know if you don't come to visit the almshouse."

  "You do not look much like a thief to me," Matthew said with a slight grin. "Although"-- his smile faded--"I cannot say that I am a perfect judge of character--far from it. However, it is easier this way. I shall never know, shall I, if you have cheated me or not. This way, I can go blissfully on my way, entirely ignorant of your design.

  "Now"--he rose to his feet again, seemingly finished with her--"if you will excuse me, Miss Meriwether, I shall ask Ahmad to escort you home. How did you come here? In a private carriage?"

  No, I--" Flustered by her failure, Trudy was about to say that she had floated on the air, but she caught herself in time. "I walked."

  "Then, Ahmad will be honored to make sure you arrive home without incident."

  "No! That is--I would be very grateful, of course, were I not en route to another call. I shall be perfectly all right without his assistance."

  Matthew's pupils contracted at her obvious confusion, but, though his gaze fell to the draft in her hand, he did not challenge her.

  "As you wish," he said in a lifeless tone, which for some reason tore at her heart.

  "I wish you would come to see our work, Sir Matthew. It would do you good, perhaps, to see the ways in which your generous donation will ease the sufferings of these unhappy men."

  Matthew declined, and in a tone so firm, she knew she must not press him. But Trudy knew, as well, that if she could only make him focus on the troubles of others, he would forget his own. That technique had always worked for her. Whenever she had felt her old restlessness growing so strong as to be painful, she had concentrated on somebody else's misery, and the mysterious emptiness within her chest had been filled for a while.

  And she had not fabricated her society. She had merely searched until she had found one that was likely to appeal to Matthew, so he would come outside and follow her into the mists. The only part she had lied about was her own involvement with the group.

  But it wouldn't be a lie any longer. She had his draft in her hands, and there was nothing to do but deliver it. And once she had done that, she would instantly become a most valued member of the society.

  The thought depressed her. As Ahmad escorted her from the house, his wary eyes never leaving hers for a moment, she wondered what she must do next. Matthew's gift was a good thing, she supposed, but getting it was not the reason she had risked being caught by humans. She had intended to draw Matthew out, out of himself as well as out of doors. Instead, she feared she had merely added to his misery, though she did not know why he seemed so mistrustful of his own kind. Or, why he should rather be cheated and stay in ignorance than allow himself to follow her.

  If I had known for one minute what Trudy was meanin' to do, I would have stopped her meself. And so I told her when I caught her leaving Sir Matthew's house. Ye could have knocked me down with a feather, ye could, to see her all decked out in them human clothes, and walking beside that great beastie of a man. He wanted to pop her in a cage, he did; ye could see it in his eyes. He didn't trust her for a minute. No, he did not.

  And I was purely that angry that she had gone to see Sir Matthew when he was all right and tight in his head and not delirious with the fever the way I'd always seen him. And in plain daylight, too.

  O' course, she insisted that he never suspected she was an elf, so I give 'er that. And I was so relieved to see that she hadn't donned any real human clothes that I forgive 'er. 'Cause that is dangerous to a fairy or an elf. Once they put on human clothes, why, they might just as well be human for all that they can do. 'Cause they lose their powers, ye see, for all the while they've got them wicked garments on.

  So I had to be relieved that our Trudy hadn't done anything so hare-brained; though, as stubborn as she is, I should have known she wouldn't give up with just one try.

  "So," Francis said, once his anger had subsided. "Sir Matthew turned ye down to yer face."

  To Trudy, he seemed disproportionately pleased that her charm h
ad failed. She frowned. "And what's so good about that? I thought ye wanted me to cheer him up."

  "Aye, but I never said nothing about doing it in the daytime when he had all his reason, so it's just as well he's proved too hard for you to trick."

  "He's not so hard," Trudy said, with a lift of her chin. "He just knows he's much too weak to go traipsing all over London. Whereas, if I make him feel better, I'm sure he'd follow me anywhere."

  "Ho! Ho! Got your dander up, have we?" Francis nearly tumbled over himself with laughter. "And I thought me sister, Trudy, didn't give a fig about her charms. 'Tisn't often that yer beauty fails ye, is it, sister?"

  "It didn't fail me. If I had wanted Sir Matthew to follow me, he would have, and make no mistake about it," Trudy said, unable to resist a boast. "But, the truth is, ye don't understand what I was trying to do. The concept of charity is way beyond ye."

  Francis's giggle floated out into the air and echoed in the starlight. And he refused to stop his teasing. Nothing would have given Trudy more pleasure in that moment than to tell him she had another plan, but afraid that Francis would try to stop her, she bit her tongue and did not mention it.

  He was her brother, a slightly over-bearing brother, and he would learn soon enough.

  And, so, I should've watched her, as I told her I would; but ye see, we elves ain't a particularly consistent lot. And, so, I let meself be distracted from our family business, which I shouldn't. But I did.

  Chapter Three

  Matthew lay shivering beneath his sheets, the weighted curtains of his bed half drawn against the draft. For many hours since Ahmad's departure, between the periods of intense heat and the longer, more painful bouts of teeth-chattering chill, he had strained to keep his vision lucid. But minutes ago, it had started to dim. The ecru plaster of the wall he faced had changed shapes, then come alive. Its wooden frame became a window onto a moving canvas of vicious beasts, both human and brute. A terrifying landscape shifted from desert to jungle and back again, creating shadows of menace to cloud Matthew's mind.

  A parade of characters he'd encountered on his explorations passed before his vision: the Ras of Abyssinia, his patrician face endowed with a pair of murderous eyes; the tiny chief of Galla, dipped in butter and riding on a cow; the King of Karagwe, wreathed in smiles as he lay with his fat, milk-fed wives.

  And then the panic seized him, clawing with despair. The gut-wrenching knowledge that he might never again see his home. Fear that Helen would never hear a whisper of what had become of him.

  He thought of the months he had journeyed, the endless months he had been held captive, unable by trick or strategem to send her any kind of message. Would she wait and wait for word until she, too, was dead?

  He pictured her sitting by the fire, unaware of his hard-won success. The fame and glory he had sought burned to mere ashes and air. And his discoveries, for which he'd sacrificed so much, what were they but deserts and lakes and swamps drawn in cruelty and pain?

  He was weak. Too weak to mount a vigorous escape, too weak even to mount a horse. And Ahmad carried him mile after mile through black-mired ground to their freedom.

  He fought to stay alive, fought to keep Helen's face before him like an altar piece.

  And then, her face was floating near his eyes. A woman's face, pale with worry.

  Faye.

  "Are ye all right, mannie?" she said, with a frown.

  "Faye? M-Miss Meriwether?" He struggled to sit, but she pressed his feverish body down with one cool hand on his forehead. Matthew collapsed against his pillow. She had found him out. She had discovered all those times this past week her image had entered his mind, even though he had ruthlessly banished all frivolous thought of her from his head. He had even fought the temptation to use her image to hold his nightmares at bay.

  She had discovered his secret, but what was she doing in his bedroom?

  When he would have asked, attempting with a scowl to gather his dignity about him, she stopped his lips with her fingertips.

  "It's not Faye," she said soothingly.

  But it was. She had the same meadow-green eyes, the same short, black hair, so brilliant it shone like diamonds, the same impish mouth. The only things he saw that confused him were a set of pointed ears he did not recall her having and a change of clothes. Her elegant dress with its silken sheen had been changed for a simple tunic of green felt.

  Matthew closed his eyes and knew at once that he was hallucinating again.

  "No, you're not Faye," he said, shaking with fatigue, "but you're a welcome sight for all that."

  "Do ye know who I am then, mannie?"

  "An elf maid sent to tempt me, I suppose."

  "That's right. Me brother Francis said he told ye all about me."

  Matthew gave a deep laugh. It surprised him, coming so close upon his nightmare, the memory of which made his laughter fade.

  He opened his eyes, wondering if she had gone, but found her just where he had left her, hovering over his face. With her curious stare, she looked so real, he could almost reach out and touch her cheek, which seemed as pink and soft as a rose petal.

  But when he raised his hand to try, she vanished. Distraught, he fought to sit and saw her perched upon the footboard of his bed.

  "Can't let ye do that, mannie,” she said breathlessly. "I promised me brother I wouldn't let ye catch me."

  “I wasn't trying to catch you. I was simply trying to see if you were real. Which is patently insane," he muttered, falling back against the pillows again.

  Insane as it was, he still desired her company. Beautiful visions were far more welcome than his wilder hallucinations, no matter how firmly he'd put her from his mind. It did no good for a man in his condition to delude himself consciously with thoughts of a lady he would never see again. Especially one so young and charming. What would she see in him except a man broken in health whose life had ended at the ripe old age of twenty-seven? No, that way lay heartache.

  But, since this was a dream or a hallucination or mere illusion, he might as well give up and enjoy it.

  "What was your name again? Hortense? Or Hermione, or some such?"

  Her lips drew into the loveliest pout he had ever seen. "The name is Trudy if ye don't mind."

  Matthew had never cared for ladies' pouts, seeing them as mere artifice designed to make men want to kiss them, but he did like Trudy's. Urges he had thought buried along with his engagement to Helen stirred in him again.

  "I beg your pardon," he said, restraining a smile. It was strange how a dream could make him want to smile when nothing else had for so long. "Now, would you care to entertain me with the story of how you came into my bedroom? Something along the lines of the whopper you told before?"

  She gazed at him warily. "I thought I told ye I wasn't her."

  "And so you did. But you are she, nonetheless. My imagined vision of Miss Meriwether."

  "Are ye so sure, then?" A sly smile graced her lips.

  "Quite sure."

  "And why would ye be imagining about her?"

  Surprised at himself, Matthew felt a blush stealing through his body, as if he were a mere callow youth caught in a display of cream-pot love.

  Since this was a dream, however, he could afford to be honest. "Because she's the loveliest thing I've seen in a long while."

  Trudy's brows shot up. "Truly? Ye didn't act as if ye thought so." The resentment on her face made him grin. Then, she muttered something that confused him, "By all rights, she should be the most beautiful sight ye've ever seen."

  “Why?”

  “Herumph!” Trudy crossed her arms in a gesture of pique that reminded him strongly of Francis, only Matthew realized at once that indeed she was more ravishing than anything he’d ever imagined before. Even in his delusion, however, he could not bring himself to say such a thing aloud.

  With his head propped on the pillows, he could just see her delicate body and her enchanting face between the tall posts of his bed. The curtains fell on eith
er side of her, making a stage, as if she were putting on a private performance for his sake.

  The ache of ague racked his joints, and he ought to want nothing so much as the oblivion of sleep. Still, he kept his eyes open for the pleasure of watching her. When he'd closed them, he had found that her image faded quickly, just as Francis's did, whereas his other dreams always seemed to be enhanced.

  "So." She seemed strangely ill at ease for an illusion. "Ye did find this Faye passable at least."

  "Far more than that."

  "Then, why did ye let her go without asking to see her again?"

  He shook his head and sighed. "My dear girl, I quite see you are taking the part of devil's advocate, but there is no point, truly."

  "Why?"

  "Because I shall never tilt at windmills again."

  "And why would it be tilting at windmills to see what she did with yer money?"

  Because I would not be going to see where my money was spent so much as to see her again, which was what you asked.

  Strange, Matthew felt suddenly, but this conversation had none of the logic his speech with Francis always had. It was more like the twisted talk ladies engaged in when they were hoping for compliments. He would not be manipulated by his own delusion, though he could enjoy the way her pixie-like features betrayed her emotion from hope to joy to chagrin.

  He discovered a perverse wish inside himself to make her smile.

  “I should not see Miss Meriwether again for fear of making a fool of myself."

  To his intense delight, a blush suffused her face. "Yer never a fool."

  "Oh, no?" The memory of his most foolish moment slapped him in the face. "I beg to differ. It is certainly most foolish to nourish feelings for a faithless woman."

  "Sure and it is. But ye don't know, do ye, if Faye is such a one."

  "I was not speaking of Faye."