Christmas Yet to Come (2 page)

He left, while Laura took her feet out of the basin now that the water was cooling. She toasted them before the fire until they dried, then bent her legs and tucked her feet up under her to keep them warm. Finally she leaned back in the armchair to think, which wasn't easy after the brandy, but she gave it her best effort.

It had to be the fact that he didn't observe Christmas, because—well, because that was what it was
always
about. And yet he didn't strike her as a miser who ill-treated his fellow human beings. Or her, for that matter.
Show hospitality to strangers,
the proverb went,
because some have entertained angels unawares.

What kind of angels, the proverb didn't specify.

Not that it seemed fair to repay his hospitality by frightening him out of his wits with visions of his death—assuming she could even do so now she was human. But the visions were only for the hardest and coldest people, those who had no compassion at all for others. Surely for someone like Justin Welland, she wouldn't need to go to such an extreme.

That was a much easier prospect on her mind, because she hadn't liked constantly orchestrating Act Three of a “soften 'em with sugar and hit 'em with horror” play. She showed people the truth, but there was something…dispiriting, for lack of a better word…to see how low they could sink. She didn't enjoy hearing them plead with her, even if that was better than her having no effect on them.

Though somehow she couldn't see Justin cringing and begging, not even if she put on the performance of an eternity.

She leaned down and stirred the puddled shroud with a fingertip, then relented and hung the cloth up neatly on a fireguard. But she didn't need to perform for him, did she? He wasn't anywhere near as bad as some of the people she'd intimidated with her faceless silence and the visions she showed them of empty lives followed by full graves.

So as long as he treated other people decently, why did it matter whether he kept Christmas or not? That might have been a blasphemous thought, but she'd been having a lot of those recently. Besides, she'd already been turned human and had apparently lost all her powers. What more could happen?

Justin came in, put a little folding table between the two armchairs and set a tray on it. She expected him to sit down, but instead he remained where he was, looking at her with a furrow between his brows.

Before she could wonder whether she'd given herself away, his gaze went to the bedroom slippers on the floor—a quick glance as if to check they were there, but thankfully it was enough of a hint for her. Of course, she shouldn't have sat with her feet tucked under her, no matter how warm that felt. Quickly she slid her feet into the slippers, wiggling her toes against the sheepskin lining.

Justin still didn't look as though everything was back to normal, but he sat down, and Laura turned her attention to the tray. If she pretended nothing was wrong, he'd be less likely to call attention to her mistake, and in any case, she was hungry enough that she didn't need to feign interest in supper. Her stomach rumbled and cramped from the smell of food, her mouth watered and she felt light-headed. Being human was a peculiarly fragile condition, and with her luck, she'd have to stay that way until she convinced him to deck the halls.

Preoccupied though she was with that, she still enjoyed her meal. The Ghost of Christmas Present always appeared with armfuls of roast turkeys, mince pies and ripe oranges, so if Laura had been used to such a feast, bread and cheese and a slice of cold meat pie might have been a crumb in comparison. But she was quite content with her supper, and ate with an appetite sharpened from the brandy. Justin watched her, much as he had done before, but she was too absorbed with the food to care.

Finally she swallowed the last mouthful, which she'd chewed slowly to make the taste last as long as possible. Crumbs clung to her fingers, and she looked at them, wishing she knew what to do about that. He gave her a linen handkerchief.

“Thank you,” she said. “That was delicious.”

He poured them both cups of steaming cocoa, looking amused. “Just whatever odds and ends I could find. Though now I'm certain you're not injured.” Some of her good mood drained away, but before she could think of what to say, he went on. “I'd send my coachman for a doctor anyway, but I took a look outside. The snow's coming down, and the wind's picked up. If the weather's better tomorrow, I'll alert the constabulary about your situation.”

“Oh.” She wasn't at all keen on that—would they take her away? Question her? Lock her up? Surely not, since she hadn't done anything wrong.

He gave her a keen look from under dark brows. “You don't want your family to be worrying about where you are, do you? Especially since tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”

“No, of course not.”

She'd become the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come twenty years ago. At least, she thought it was twenty, because she tried not to count those years any more than she speculated how many stretched before her. Occasionally she'd wondered if her family knew what had happened to her, because the river might well have carried her body far out of reach.

But her parents would have found her skates missing and seen a gaping hole in the rotten ice. She finished her cocoa, willing it to warm and fill her even if she could no longer taste it.

Once both their cups were empty, Justin stacked the plates on the tray. “You must be tired,” he said. “I'll show you to the spare room.”

“Thank you,” Laura said, mentally reminding herself not to try to walk through the door as he let her precede him out. Even if she had once been insubstantial, the meal felt decidedly less so, and she would have been content to curl up catlike on the parlor rug before the flames. The spare room certainly wasn't as warm, and she shivered after Justin showed her in and left, shutting the door behind him. He'd given her a candle, but the hearth was cold and empty.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she wished for nothing more than to slip beneath the quilt on the bed and close her eyes. But she couldn't afford to do that yet. She had to think. If the constables took her away tomorrow, she had no idea what would happen. She could keep claiming she didn't remember a thing, but thanks to one of her targets, she knew about hospitals that confined and dealt with people who had mental problems. No, she'd jump out of the window first.

Or better yet, save herself. Except she didn't think she had any powers any longer.

She had to sit down, though not in the bed, because she might drift off before she found an answer. There was a chair, but when she lowered herself into that, it jerked back and forth rhythmically, startling her. The dresser drawers were empty, but there were a few little pillows on the bed, so she slid those under the curved legs of the chair. It stopped jolting, and she could think without being distracted.

When she'd been a spirit, her powers had been limited to walking through walls and creating visions of the future. Even assuming she still had those, which was by no means a given, she couldn't see how they might stave off her eviction from Justin's house. If she showed him an image of some future winter where a blizzard raged outside, he might mistake it for a snowstorm in the here-and-now, which would buy her a little more time. But the illusion would fall apart the moment some neighbor knocked on the door to wish him a merry Christmas, or the carolers began warbling “Silent Night” outside.

She bent her head, her hair tumbling around her face as she did so, and covered her eyes with her hands.

After she'd fallen through the ice, after the short but endless moments of struggling for air, she'd sunk down until the glimpse of sunlight through the ice had grown pale and distant. It drew farther away, until it was tiny as a star, and when it blinked out, she was left in a great void.

She'd been twelve at the time, old enough to know better than to go skating alone without her parents' permission, young enough to be reckless. Old enough, certainly, to know she had died, yet she didn't feel afraid. The darkness around her was still and warm, which was an improvement on the river in two ways. And she had a growing, steady conviction she wasn't alone.

So when the voice spoke out of the void, it didn't scare her. Besides, she'd already faced the most frightening thing most people ever experienced. She'd been offered a choice. Her life had been intended to be a good and productive one where she changed the world for the better—except she'd thrown all that away for an hour of fun.

But she could make up for it by becoming the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, by guiding others away from the rotten ice of their lives, and the long dark fall waiting beneath.

Even returning to the world for one night, once a year, had seemed better than never seeing it again. So she'd made the choice, and her memories of her life had been leached away so she wouldn't be constantly unhappy as she thought of what she'd lost. She had never imagined she'd be sent back to the world with no past, no powers, nothing but vulnerable human flesh.

Then again, hadn't she already been aware that disobedience had consequences?

Well, it could have been worse, because she'd caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror earlier. Not easy to see much in the dim light, but she hadn't noticed anything hideous or even off-putting in the glass. She knew her long hair was a deep reddish-brown and her eyes the color of shadows, and she certainly couldn't be mistaken for a little girl now. But what good did that do? Justin wasn't so taken with her that he'd keep her in his house indefinitely.

She pressed her hands against her face, feeling the hardness of her cheekbones against her palms. “If I was sent here for a reason,” she whispered, “if I must stay here and change the course of a life…” She almost said,
you don't have a choice either
, but caught herself. “Then I need help.”

No voice answered her, even in the silence within her mind, but as her hands slipped away from her face, she felt a little better. She didn't think of that as praying, exactly. More like reporting in to a demanding employer who nevertheless would do more for her if she played by the rules than if she cocked a snook.

She got up, retrieved the pillows under the chair and curled up beneath the quilt. She supposed it would grow warm eventually, from her body, but before that could happen she was asleep.

Chapter Two

Who in the world was she?

Justin set his pocket watch and glasses aside, then hung up his clothes only out of long habit, because his mind was elsewhere. Specifically, twelve feet to the right, in the spare bedroom. Thanks to the mirror over the sideboard downstairs, he'd caught a glimpse of her undressing. Well, peeling off a hideous sheet, like a cocoon splitting open to release something all fire-shades and velvet wings.

And he had been completely unable to look away. Whoever she was, Laura Snow hadn't even worn underclothes. Candlelight glinted red on her undone hair, picked out the smooth skin of her arms, and made the shadow between her breasts look even deeper in comparison. If she hadn't picked up the dressing gown and slid her arms into it, he might have continued watching her, mesmerized. Thankfully she hadn't noticed.

Justin closed his eyes and saw her behind his eyelids as vividly as if she were undressing all over again for him, but now he tried to remember if there was any sign of injury on her body—what he'd seen of it, anyway. No, he didn't think so. He supposed it was possible for a woman to be robbed, stripped to the skin, and dumped by the side of the road to die—the ragged greying sheet looked like something a pauper might have been buried in—but why not simply tell him what had happened to her?

Unless she was afraid of the scandal it would bring to her family.

He got into bed, mulling that over. Impossible to tell where she was from—her clear sweet voice had no distinctive accent. She was as anonymous as a cat on the doorstep. A pity she refused to trust him, because his line of work had taught him to keep secrets, and now he didn't have any recourse other than to notify the authorities.

He shifted about, trying to make himself comfortable, and it occurred to him that if the constables were not searching for a Miss Laura Snow—or, indeed, any missing woman at all—what in the world was he to do with her? He couldn't keep her in the house once the servants returned. They would think she was, well…

Was she?

For the first time he considered that possibility. It might explain both her lack of dress and her unwillingness to tell him anything about herself. Not to mention her relative calmness. A well-bred woman should have been a little more agitated under the circumstances, but Miss Snow took everything in her stride, except for his profession, for some reason. He wished he hadn't mentioned that. Perhaps it had given her ideas.

No, he couldn't make such assumptions about her. Not least because it would be insulting to her if she wasn't a prostitute, and now that he came to think about it, he doubted she had any experience in that regard. A woman accustomed to dealing with strange men would have made up a more convincing story than loss of memory.

One thing he was sure of was that she hadn't done much menial work. Her hands had looked smooth and untouched, with neat shell-like nails. Though if she came from a refined background and was accustomed to much better food than what he could provide, he wouldn't have known it from her enjoyment of the meal.

Strange how he'd noticed so much about her—and couldn't get his mind off her. He'd met women through his friends and in his line of work, but it was the first time he'd lain awake thinking of one. Perhaps because no other woman had gone past his gates—and given the state of the house, that was for the best—but Miss Snow hadn't been deterred.

Anyway, she would no longer be his concern by tomorrow.

He finally managed to sleep, but when he woke, he thought it was still before dawn. Once he opened the curtains, he saw why it was so lightless. Snow fell heavily, flakes the size of pennies, and the garden was lost in a white haze. Justin set his teeth. That was all he needed.

But the weather was hardly her fault, so he couldn't take his mood out on her. He put on his dressing gown, went downstairs, filled kettles and set them on the stove. His coachman, Ben Price, struggled in through the servants' entrance as the kettles were starting to boil. The stable and carriage house were only yards away from the house, but snow whitened Ben's boots and caked his shoulders. Justin considered sending him out anyway, because even if the trains had been shut down, the doctor lived only eight miles away.

On the other hand, Miss Snow hadn't seemed physically hurt, and he didn't want to risk either Ben or the horses in what looked like a steadily worsening snowfall. “Never seen weather like it, sir,” Ben said as he collected his breakfast.

Justin couldn't help thinking that before the year was out, there might be other sights the like of which he'd never seen. “Is it warm enough in there?” he asked, and Ben assured him that it was; he'd slept in the stable. “Well, that's good.” He cleared his throat. “We—er, had an unexpected visitor last night.”

Ben's tea grew cold as he listened to the story. “How'd she get past the gate, sir?”

Justin had to shrug. Because he expected no one for Christmas, the gate had been padlocked shut once his cook and maid had gone. He supposed someone could have helped Miss Snow climb over it, but why?

Asking her was an option, but if he'd learned anything from last night, it was that she only answered those questions she wanted to answer, and remained unruffled by a more confrontational approach. He could imagine her gazing steadily at him with those eyes that were lovely even when the look in them was hard as steel, as she replied she simply couldn't remember how she'd got into the garden. For all he knew, she might have grown there like a snowdrop.

In the light of day, it all seemed barely believable even to his ears, and Ben watched him sideways as if wondering if he'd over-imbibed the night before. Finally he murmured that the lady was fortunate to be out of such weather, and expressed a hope that her family would not have to worry about her for long.

He let himself out. Justin thought if there was any such family, they weren't likely to be pleased about her staying alone with a man. Though if she hadn't found shelter last night, she would now be blanketed by drifts, snowflakes falling into her eyes. Better any amount of social repercussions than that.

He took a jug of hot water upstairs. Miss Snow's door was closed. Listening for any sounds of movement, he washed and shaved as quickly as possible. The routine helped, because as long as he had something to do, he was more in control of the situation, and by the time he had dressed, he felt almost normal again.

Straightening his jacket, he went to Miss Snow's door and tapped on it. No answer. He knocked again.

“Miss Snow?”

Silence.

What if something had happened to her? If she'd caught a chill from being outside with next to nothing on, could it have turned to pneumonia overnight? Kicking himself for not sending for the doctor, he turned the door handle—cautiously, in case she was still in bed.

The bed was empty, the covers thrown back. If not for that, he might have started to wonder about his own sanity. He glanced around, checked inside the wardrobe and even went to his knees to look beneath the bed before he told himself not to be ridiculous.

Instead, he raised his voice. “Miss Snow!” The echoes bounced off the walls.

“I'm downstairs,” she called back.

Justin sighed with relief, though when he went down to the kitchen, her appearance alone reminded him to be careful. She wore the dressing gown he'd given her, but she didn't seem at all self-conscious. Instead, she had set plates out and was slicing bread.

“Good morning.” She smiled, and there was nothing polite or expected about that smile. Instead, it was content. As if she didn't notice her state of undress or the hair tumbling over her shoulders rather than being pinned up. She must have brushed her hair, because it looked sleek rather than lank now, and it was a vivid deep auburn against the gown.

Justin cleared his throat and remembered to wish her a good morning in return. It was startling to see a woman in such a state of undress and so unselfconscious about it. She'd been like that last night as well, quite at ease with herself, as if she would be comfortable and natural in any clothes.

Or none whatsoever. He steered his thoughts away from that at once.

“I hope you slept well.” He took a jar of marmalade from the pantry, and turned around only to see that she'd crossed her legs at the knee, slanting a long bare limb out from beneath the hem of the dressing gown. The first thing to do after breakfast was to get her more clothes, though it would be a pity to cover up legs like those.

“Yes, I did.” She looked at the snow falling outside the window.

Justin broke two eggs into a pan, hoping there would be enough food for both of them until the snow abated. He dropped rashers of bacon into the pan too, and glanced at her while they sizzled. She dipped a knife into the jar of marmalade, dropped a dollop on her plate and tasted it, then wrinkled her mouth up as if she hadn't expected it to be so tart.

“That tastes better when you don't eat it alone.” Justin carried the pan to the table and divided the food, sliding two rashers and an egg onto her plate. Instead of reaching for the bread, she spread some more marmalade on a crisply cooked strip of bacon and seemed to enjoy the combination. He made himself look at his plate, because staring would be rude. Nothing she did was obviously wrong, but she was definitely…unconventional.

It would have been oddly appealing, if not for the fact that he knew nothing about her.

“It doesn't seem likely the weather will improve soon,” he said. The snowfall had worsened, and he knew he should have been more concerned. It trapped them in the house, after all, and that wasn't a good thing.

But the kitchen was warm from the stove, and the snow looked blurred and soft, like petals falling. Frost would etch patterns on the glass, almost compensating for the grim, utilitarian look of the rest of the house.

He set his fork down with a
clink
, wondering where in the world had that flight of fancy come from. Across the table, Miss Snow had finished her meal, her appetite apparently undiminished by the prospect of being confined to his house. “I'll try not to make any extra work for you,” she said. “Especially since your servants are away.”

Justin had once made do without servants for a few years, and he almost said so. He stopped himself in time. If she wasn't going to confide in him, he certainly wouldn't lay his life open like a kipper before her, and while being trapped together by the snow might provide an illusion of closeness, he wouldn't risk mistaking that for the real item.

“I'll get you some clothes after we've finished breakfast,” he said as he put the milk jug and sugar bowl before her. “Lucy—that's the maid—she's about your size, and she wouldn't mind.”

“Thank you.” She reached for a sugar lump, and popped that into her mouth. Justin's own mouth dropped open, but he caught himself before he could say anything. Like it or not, she was a guest in his house, and in any case her table manners were none of his concern. Any more than she was.

He filled the teapot, carried it back to the table and poured them both cups. But while he concentrated on preparing his own tea, he was very much aware of her as he did so. She watched his hands closely, and a flush rose up her skin, very noticeable against the open neck of the green dressing gown.

Then she added the same amount of sugar and milk to her cup, as though she really hadn't known what to do until she'd seen him. That was beyond strange—no matter how poor she might have been, she had to have drunk tea before—but he didn't want to embarrass her by drawing attention to it.

Especially since she was so accommodating. Not that a woman who'd ended up mostly naked in a man's garden could afford to be choosy about what she wore, but he'd known some well-bred ladies who would have been distressed at having to clothe themselves in a maid's apparel. Laura Snow clearly took that in a practical stride, and he wasn't sure whether to be confused or charmed.

It was even stranger when she went into the scullery to do the washing-up. Down-to-earth, as his father might have put it, no airs or graces at all. He went upstairs to the servants' quarters, and decided to leave Lucy an extra shilling to compensate for his going through her wardrobe as he picked out a spare uniform, petticoat, stockings and even drawers. By the time he went downstairs, Miss Snow had finished the dishes, and she took the clothes into the spare room to change into them.

Justin went to his study, but didn't bother opening the curtains. Even through tightly shut windows, he heard the wind howl through the garden. Not the kind of weather either man or beast should be out in. Oh well, he always had plenty to do at home—he could go through his correspondence and see to the household accounts, and once he was done with those, he could spend time with Miss Snow. The next few days wouldn't be lonely, if he had her company.

As if on cue—speak of the devil—soft quick footsteps sounded outside and she came in. Justin paused halfway through filling his fountain pen.

The long blue dress was serviceable and woolen-warm, but plain. Or it would have been plain if not for the lace she wore as an overskirt—the cloth off a tea-table, he thought, and she'd cinched it tightly with a cord that might have tied back a curtain. He was suddenly aware of the trimness of her waist, and the way the wool clung to the curves of her hips.

Not that she seemed aware of her own looks, because she didn't pose to ask his opinion or even pause self-consciously in the doorway.

“Would you mind if I went to the parlor to read?” she asked.

“Of course not.” Justin started to get up, automatically, then thought better of it. “Build up the fire in there—it must be cold.”

“I will. And I'll see to lunch.”

“You can cook?”

When she shook her head, her hair rustled in swathes over her shoulders. “No, I've—I'm not sure I remember how. But I'll find enough for us to eat, and I can at least boil water.”