The Christmas Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page B

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