The Christmas Spirit Read online

  "Sir Joseph," Matthew said, breaking in on their trance, "allow me to present Miss Faye Meriwether to your members. Miss Meriwether has come with a plea she believes will appeal to their generosity of spirit."

  Ignoring the wryness in Matthew's tone, Sir Joseph stepped forward to lead her to his place at the head of the table, giving Matthew the luxury to reflect. If he had attempted to foist anyone else upon the group, either he or she would have been suspect from the outset. But no one raised a word of protest about the beauty who had invaded their proceedings. The members all stared at Faye, their eyes nearly bulging from their heads. Matthew would have stepped back, the better to enjoy the effect of her particular magic, but a determined grip of her fingers on his arm kept him near her side.

  "Gentlemen . . ."

  At Faye's first word, Matthew felt the air about him shiver with delight. So mesmerized were the men, they forgot to offer her a seat but, instead, stood frozen in place while she told them of her charity.

  Watching her now and feeling the power of the spell she wove, Matthew could not help but recall Ahmad's remark. It was no wonder his friend thought her a jinni, when she possessed so much magnetism as to make the very air about her hum. Faye made an impassioned plea on behalf of the almshouse, and one by one the gentlemen nodded as if their heads were strung like marionettes'. Matthew could almost see the guineas flying from their purses.

  "I have to thank Sir Matthew Dunstone for bringing me to see you, and for his own generosity in our cause," Faye said. She pressed herself against his arm, and he felt a radiant glow. "Sir Matthew, having so bravely traveled the globe himself, knows how terrifying it is to be abandoned in a foreign country, and because of this, he has taken a compassionate interest in our inmates."

  At her use of the word 'abandoned,' Matthew started. He glanced rapidly at the men's faces, certain he would discover a similar shock. Sir Julian Speck had certainly gone whiter against his cravat, but none of the others seemed to have noticed the irony of Faye's remark. It was as if they had completely forgotten Speck's accusations and the scandal Matthew had caused when he'd returned to refute them. Instead, the few who had been able to tear their gazes away from Faye were staring at Matthew with a new-found respect.

  Matthew frowned, uncertain whether Faye's remark had been the result of mere chance or if she had heard of his quarrel with Speck and had espoused his side. He had to wonder if he had let something slip to expose the injury that had been done to his reputation. However, when he looked down at her, he found no evidence of particular knowledge of those distressing events. Faye instead was beaming up at him with an adoring beam in her eye, as if he were the author of all her happiness.

  A jolt, like lightning, ripped through him. Even if she was smiling at him only for dramatic effect, her smile was so damned effective as to make him wish devoutly it were real.

  And the reason for his colleagues' respect was now plainly obvious to him. It was the result of pure male envy.

  Under the spell of her admiration, Matthew felt his pride swelling to the point of bursting. Certain he had colored up, he forced himself to look away. He saw a similar discomfort on the faces of the other gentlemen, who burned with such covetousness as to perspire. Even Sir Julian, who had reason to fear if Matthew were reinstated in the group, seemed to have overlooked the threat, so overwhelmed was he by the sight of her face.

  Faye seemed to sense that she had stirred these gentlemen to the boiling point. She lowered her eyes, and the frenzied heat Matthew had felt in the room began to fade.

  "Sir Joseph--" she smiled at the great man, and he almost seemed afraid to be singled out--"if you would permit, I should like to speak with each and every gentleman present to hear how much he would care to give."

  With his instant permission, Faye made a slow round of the table, pausing to take each gentleman by the hand. Matthew followed closely behind her, watching each one's reaction and marveling at her technique. With those mesmerizing green eyes turned away from him, he was better able to see how she managed it, but still he did not entirely understand how she produced the effect.

  A beautiful face, so rare in its perfection as to draw all eyes, was certainly a major part of her magic. Her musical voice made everyone wish to hear her speak and anxious to acquiesce. But there was some other ingredient--some strange, elusive quality Matthew had never experienced in all his travels that troubled him nearly as much as it attracted him.

  Suppressing that nagging sense of worry, he cursed himself for an ungrateful wretch. Whatever her magic was, he should only be thankful for it now, for the members of the African Association seemed to have forgotten their quarrel with him. As soon as she had passed Sir Joseph, he shook Matthew's hand and inquired after his health, welcoming him back to their proceedings. Matthew even got the distinct impression that Sir Joseph had begun to doubt Speck's story, an impression reinforced by every other member in turn.

  It was not until Faye reached Sir Julian Speck that her spell was broken. Something in his nervous glances, the fear that made him lick his lips, or the resentment that caused him to look on her with suspicion alerted her to the fact that he was the source of Matthew's pain.

  Trudy searched Matthew's face, where she found once again the tension that had accompanied them into the room. Instinct prodded her to play a trick upon this Speck human, to tweak his nose at the very least, but Matthew's strong, determined stare gave her pause.

  Matthew's reticence to discuss the cause of his embarrassment was something she had never come across. Certainly elves who had been wronged were never known for their reserve, and the humans she had seen seldom behaved that much better.

  Matthew, on the other hand, seemed to prefer to manage his own affairs. Filled with a sudden pride in him, Trudy sensed that she should let him handle this man his own way.

  With a sense of discretion, she did not know she possessed, she posed the same questions to Sir Julian that she had to all the other men. Only a certain frost in her tone conveyed her displeasure to him, and a spark in her eye--a very real spark--made him wince.

  The tour of the room complete, they had only to bid their hosts good night and retire. Trudy knew the gentlemen would have liked to ask her to stay, but such an invitation would have been most improper. Certainly every bit as improper as her appearance at their meeting in a tavern had been.

  Besides, she felt anxious to discover what mischief Grace had been up to during their absence. It wouldn't have surprised Trudy one bit if Grace had led Ahmad into the mists and destroyed all her plans.

  Fortunately, she and Matthew had not been gone long enough for Grace to become bored by the numerous swains who had gathered about her. Serving men quite cluttered the hall despite all Ahmad's admonishments, the strength of which Trudy and Matthew heard as they approached the door. Trudy regretted having exposed these poor, unfortunate footmen to her cousin, but she had overheard Ahmad's concerns that afternoon as she had hidden in Matthew's house and she had been desperate to produce some proof of her respectability. Nothing could have served so well as a maid, but involving her scapegrace of a cousin was bound to be a risk.

  "Grace," she scolded, trying to sound the part of an offended mistress though she ached to pinch her wayward cousin, "I am astonished by your behavior. I insist you go outside at once."

  Grace made an impudent face, and flounced out the door.

  All the footmen she'd enchanted would have followed her blindly if Matthew had not quickly stepped between them and the exit. One curt word from him, however, and they dispersed.

  Once Grace had been bustled into the carriage, Matthew turned back to Trudy and grinned with one eyebrow raised. "If I were you," he suggested, "I should find that girl a husband."

  "I would, if I thought it would make any difference." Trudy sighed. "But I fear she would continue to put me to the blush."

  He cocked her a glance. "Then why on earth do you employ her?"

  "Oh. . . ." Trudy groped for a logical answe
r and found one. "You would be surprised, I daresay, but not many respectable girls wish to be employed in a house headed by a woman. They are as mistrustful of their own sex as most men."

  "People can be fools." Matthew seemed troubled. "But I beg, if you have any difficulty at all in finding the servants you need, you must let me assist you."

  His offer brought a rush to her cheeks. An unexpected warmth. As if she had intercepted a ray from the sun.

  But before she could respond, he captured her hand, and she experienced a deeper heat, more intense even than before.

  "Thank you for coming with me this evening."

  "Not at all," she protested, breathless. "It is I who should thank you--for my society--"

  "Damn your society."

  Startled, Trudy caught her breath. She knew she should express virtuous outrage, but she knew too well what he meant. So, instead, she dimpled and was rewarded by his grin.

  Matthew's dark stare made her stomach churn with a mysterious swirling that made her head go dizzy.

  "At least, for the moment," he said, "I'd like to forget your most noble experiment to speak of something more immediate to me. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed how envy, no matter how premature--" with a quick blink, he corrected himself--"no matter how misplaced--could influence a group of intelligent men. I don't know how the devil you managed it, but with one stroke you have given me a chance I never thought to have again."

  "And what will you do with that chance?" With a stab of fierce worry, she said, "Surely, you don't mean to set out for Africa again? There must be far safer places to explore."

  Matthew shook his head. "I doubt I shall ever be fit for that much adventure again," he said. With a frown, he cloaked his thoughts.

  Trudy wondered what he might have said if she had not been so hasty with her foolish outburst. What reason did she have to worry over Matthew? She would soon be showing him those 'safer places' she had mentioned, and once she had him there, he would most likely forget all he'd known or wanted in this world.

  She considered leading him into the mists right now, now that he felt so grateful to her. But something stayed her, and, with a start, she realized it was because she did not want to. She'd felt so happy of late. These past few days, while she had been playing with Matthew and plotting all the many ways to help him, she had managed to forget her own restlessness. This unanticipated contentment, spiced with a healthy dose of excitement, felt so good, she would not be in a hurry to give it up.

  And, besides, Christmas was still two weeks away, which would give her plenty of time to win her wager with Francis.

  Trudy had forgotten that Ahmad was waiting for his friend, but now the big Pathan came to loom beside them. She offered to deliver them to their door, but Ahmad spoke for them both.

  "I have already taken the liberty of ordering Matthew saab a chair, and if he does not object, I shall enjoy the walk beside him."

  Matthew started to protest, but a look at Ahmad's face stopped him. The unfamiliar tension between them made Trudy feel dismayed. Ahmad's concern for his friend was well placed, and for that reason, she supposed, it made her feel guilty for the second time in her life.

  Fearful of something she couldn't define, Trudy bid them both good night. Then, with a stern eye on her two 'horses', both of whom had been shamelessly eavesdropping, she let Matthew hand her up, only hoping that her neighing relatives would behave long enough to pull the carriage out of his sight.

  Chapter Six

  That night, Matthew was beset by visions more tangled than ever before. All the usual strange and frightening ingredients were there. The endless sands, stretching for miles and miles between oases; the punishing heat; the desperate need to shield himself from the eyes of Mohammedans eager to kill the faithless Infidel--then, in a shift of scenery, from burning sand to dark, wet forest: bizarre ritualistic practices, the likes of which his English world had never seen; the violation of women; the torture of men.

  But in this dream, Helen was there, and with her husband, Sir Julian Speck, though Speck had never stayed with the expedition long enough to witness these last delights. Speck sat near the source of the Nile mounted on a camel with Helen perched sidesaddle on the animal's curved neck.

  Both were elegantly dressed for a ball. Both looked down their haughty noses at him. They had the same golden hair, though Sir Julian's locks had been heavily groomed with pomade.

  Matthew knelt anxiously before them in Mohammedan robes, his beard black and thick and itching. Chains weighed heavily on his wrists, and perspiration coursed down his cheeks. His feet were manacled, too, and he could feel the pain of countless slaves in the wounds that oozed upon his back.

  He could sense the threat Sir Julian posed. His jealousy, his ignorance and his scorn.

  "The man you have captured is not the Syrian doctor he would have you believe," Sir Julian intoned.

  Matthew did not have to peer behind him to see the ferocity of his captor, a cannibal chief. His body would be scarred by self-imposed wounds, his hair slicked down by elephant fat, and his eyes eerily emptied of a soul. What man could retain his soul who had killed as ruthlessly and as often as this chieftain had?

  "Helen . . ." Matthew tried to beg her for mercy, but his throat was constricted by chains.

  "Lud, Matthew! What gibberish is this?" Helen smiled and rapped her fan on the camel's head. "I do not speak Arabic, sir, and I will thank you not to assault my ears with it."

  "Do not tell them who I am," Matthew pleaded.

  Sir Julian smiled at the chief with sneering condescension. "Who is this? Why, he's the famed Sir Matthew Dunstone, explorer and linguist. Madman. Infidel. And my former partner. Tragic, isn't it, that he should have lost his mind?"

  The chains were tightened around Matthew's neck until he could scarcely breathe. His robes were stripped from him. And, even though desert winds were chafing the skin from his cheeks, the jungle moisture made him shiver at the thought of the death to come.

  He had seen those many deaths. Seen and witnessed them in silence for fear of losing his own life. What did it matter that he had saved the lives of the chieftain's children with simple remedies from home, when they would live to perpetuate the cruelties of their sire?

  "Helen . . . ." Matthew tried to croak out the word, but Helen's golden image faded as the blackness swamped him and his whole body was racked with pain . . .

  "Mannie?" Trudy hovered over his face again. "Can ye hear me? Are ye quite all right, my mannie?"

  Matthew closed his eyes and let her voice waft through him. Her breath upon his face soothed his raging fever like a cool, welcome breeze.

  "Trudy," he breathed, awash with joy and relief.

  "That's right." She seemed pleased that he'd remembered her name. "Ye know me this time, don't ye."

  "You're not that easy to forget. I don't know many elf maids."

  "Well, take it from me that I'm the best."

  He chuckled, but the memory of his nightmares was still deep inside his flesh, and he shuddered again.

  "I've got a question for ye, mannie." Her voice pulled him back from the dark.

  "What?" He wanted her to keep on talking, no matter how great a fool he was to listen.

  "Why are ye so sad? Why do ye sit in yer chair when ye ought to be out and about?"

  "I'm too ill."

  "Aye. That ye are sometimes, mannie, but not always. Why don't ye go out when yer well?"

  "And frighten all the women and children? With my wild ravings? It would be cruel."

  "Yer teasing me, mannie."

  "That I am. Although . . ."

  He had been branded a lunatic. Until this evening when Faye had used her incredible charm to reinstate him with his colleagues, he'd thought he would forever more be considered mad. Either that or a coward. And now that he was trembling from fever, he could not be certain such a scene had truly transpired. How could it? There had been something distinctly fantastic about the whole episode: the
gilt on Faye's coach, Grace's incomparable beauty, and the pair of horses one would have sworn had laughed. Nothing had seemed real, in fact, but Sir Julian's sneer and Faye's cool reception of him, as if she had guessed the part he had played in Matthew's ruin. And then, before they'd parted, when she had pled with him not to make another hazardous journey.

  "Faye does not seem to be frightened of me," he said unconsciously aloud.

  "Does that please ye?" Trudy's prying voice reminded him of her presence on his bed.

  "I suppose." He was done with being too honest with Trudy. How strange to be embarrassed by the teasing of his own illusion. But she seemed so real.

  "If ye thought she was pretty, then ye ought to go find her, don't ye think?"

  "To what end?" He curled his lips in a derisive smile. "To impress her with my strength?"

  "Ye don't look so weak to me."

  "I am ‘a shadow of my former self.’ I have heard it whispered many times."

  "By who?"

  "By all the tabbies."

  "Sure, and do ye mind what a bunch of females say."

  "And by the Toms." No, he did not mind so much what the ladies said, for they would insist on repeating what they'd heard from others. But that his colleagues should be such idiots . . . .

  "Tell me, mannie. Tell me what those ignoramuses say that bothers you."

  Matthew smiled. He had two champions now, it seemed. One in real life and one in his dreams.

  He opened his eyes, and the temptation to touch Trudy was almost painful. He wished he could draw her down to lie curled upon his chest and warm him. Matthew willed his shaking hands to stay at his sides. He would not go chasing after phantoms.

  He let his eyelids droop again. With his eyes closed, her presence was more soothing than tempting. He answered her question in his head.