O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,70

where her vision failed. She could not imagine sharing those quick, intimate glances with Davitt. Between Joe and Hazel, even before they were married, there had always been some closeness, some elusive spark. A spark that did not ignite between her and Davitt.

My life will be dull.

Again, Prince Selim swam into her mind, as he often did, the ideal that no other man lived up to. An impossible ideal, more imagination than reality.

And yet, what if Selim had offered for her hand two and a half years ago? What if Joe had consented, and she was now Selim’s wife? Would they be here at Brightoaks? Or in some far, distant land, where everything was new and different—the people’s dress and customs, the palaces and bathhouses, the scents of spice and eastern perfume… And most of all, Selim, holding her in his arms against this exotic background, kissing her with the passion she had always sensed but never tasted.

“That is madness,” she whispered aloud. “I would have lost all this.” There would be no Christmas among Muslims. And her view of Selim was surely distorted by time, some idealized version of a man she had barely known.

No, her future was with Davitt, a man she did know and like, and would come to love, surely in the weeks ahead.

Her gaze came back into focus on the place where the solitary star had been. It seemed to have vanished along with her foolish dreams—unless it was that flash lower in the sky? If it even was the sky. She could make out nothing in the freezing darkness except her own breath and odd swirls of mist that almost seemed to glisten. And the light approaching from the east, moving closer like a shooting star or a soul falling to earth.

She smiled at the fantasy. More likely it was a lantern light, although who would be outdoors and moving so quickly across the country in such weather, she could not imagine.

She dragged her gaze away and thought instead of Alice, to whom she had been unkind. Especially since the girl’s father was in financial trouble and could barely feed his family, let alone pay his rent. It was Alice, not Emma, who had more right to ill-humor.

Emma sighed and turned away. She would apologize to Alice tomorrow, for one should never be mean to servants who could not answer back.

A strange clank drifted eerily out of the mist, at once echoing and muffled, like some ghostly clanking of chains in the Gothic romances she loved. It came again, causing her to spin around, every hair on her neck standing up in alarm. She shivered with sudden chills that had nothing to do with the cold.

One hand reached blindly for the door, while she peered into the darkness for the source of the noise. A figure materialized in the mist, sitting on the stone balustrade that ran around the terrace.

Her breath caught, for his shape was weirdly reminiscent of the man she had just been remembering. A curved scimitar hung by his side. A fearsome, Turkish weapon.

No. No, it cannot be…

The figure did not move or speak. No breath disturbed the thick air surrounding him.

“Who are you?” she croaked.

And a ghostly whisper breathed out of the mist. “Selim. I was just Selim.”

Was. She grasped the door for support while the world came crashing around her ears. “Dead?” she gasped. “Oh, no, oh, no, please…”

Still, the insubstantial figure in the mist did not move, which did more than anything to convince her that a ghost hovered before her. She was not even afraid, for the hugeness of his death swept everything else from her mind.

“Was that you?” she whispered. “The star I saw in the east, moving toward me?”

There was a pause, then, “Yes….”

“Why?” she asked helplessly. “Why here, why now that you are dead?”

There was another pause as if her words filtered through some veil, some portal she could not see. Then he said, “I suppose, I needed to know the truth. If you loved me.”

A sob shook her. “How can I know that? You left before I could find out, before either of us could. I always thought you would come back, and you never did.”

“And yet, you weep for me.”

In surprise, she wiped her hands across her wet eyes and cheeks. It seemed he was right. “Oh, Selim, what happened to you?”

He was silent again. A swirl of mist over the already insubstantial figure terrified her that he would vanish. But no,