Page 12 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
His features were distinguished, compelling, the product of centuries of such ancestors breeding his sort of perfection. His eyes weren’t just blue, they held a startling lapis brilliance, as if backlit by something electric, like lightning. His spun gold hair was caught behind him in a queue. It shone lambent, as did his gauzy specter, barely able to catch the light that pierced through him rather than reflected off him. The square chin above his high, white collar framed a wide, hard mouth that curled in such a way, she might have called it cruel.
His eyes were kind, but that mouth was most certainly anything but.
The worddepravedcame to mind.
A corner of his lip lifted as she stared at it rather rudely. Not quite a smile, but the whisper of one.
The ghost of one.
He cleared a gather from his throat and turned away, dispelling the tension as he drifted over to the camera.
“So, this device is what you use to capture these photographs? This…camera?”
She would never not smile at the way he said that word.
Shaking off whatever had held her mesmerized, she hopped to engage. “Yes. Would you like to see how it works?”
“Very much.”
Vanessa had to stop herself short of clapping her hands like a delighted child. Photography was one of her passions, and while many people were curious about it, she’d never had the chance to show it to someone quite so captivated.
Or, rather, captive. But who was she to split hairs?
His feet levitated some six inches off the ground, and his hands locked behind his back in a posture befitting an officer of his class. He looked down at her from over his aristocratic nose and she had the sense he mentallydisassembledher for examination whilst sheassembledher tripod.
“I eavesdropped on you and Bess before,” he admitted.
“Oh?” She wasn’t quite certain how she felt about that, so she remained silent on the topic.
“I’m given to understand you didn’t go to Paris with your family because you’d rather stand on the frigid shores of the deepest lake in the world and try to photograph a creature that only exists in folklore?”
She glanced up from where she screwed on the mounting bracket. “And?”
He gave a rather Gallic shrug. “It can’t be astonishing to you that someone might remark upon the decision. It seems…rather out of the ordinary.”
Vanessa tried not to let on that his assessment stung, as if she weren’t aware that her behavior was remarkable. That she was doing what she could to make the most of her exile without advertising it. She didn’t allow herself to look up at him as she pulled the accordion-style lens and box from her case with a huff. “I’m a woman who is only interested in extraordinary.”
“Evidently.”
She cast him a censuring look as she affixed the camera to the tripod. “So says the iridescent apparition levitating above me.”
“Touché.” He twisted his mouth into an appreciative sort of smile as he studied her. “So, you believe in ghosts and lake monsters. What else? Fairies? Vampires? Shapeshifters? Dragons?”
“And why not?” She crossed her arms, wishing he didn’t make her feel itchy and defensive. “Did you know a woman, Mary Anning, found dinosaur bones the size and shape of the long-necked mythos of the Loch Ness Monster only decades ago? Which means creatures like Nessiehaveexisted, and perhaps still do.”
She held her hand up against his reply. “And if you go to church, they’ll tell you about angels and demons. Saints and spirits. Like you, for example. I’ve done extensive readings on the supernatural, and the stories are eerily similar across all sorts of nations and civilizations. If the native peoples of Australia and also the Scandinavians have similar myths of flying serpents and dragons, doesn’t it seem like their existence might be possible? Probable, even?”
His mouth pulled into a tight, grim hyphen, even as his eyes twinkled at her. “Historically, I’d have said no, but at the moment it does seem ridiculous to argue the point.”
“‘There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” she quoted, wagging a finger in the air like some mad scientist as she bustled around her camera, checking bits and bobs. “Truer words were never written.”
When she looked back up at him, he’d drifted close. Too close. Close enough that the fine hairs on her body were tuned to him, to the inevitability of his touch.
A touch that never came.
“People still quote Shakespeare?” he murmured.
She swayed forward, and had he been real—or rather, alive—she’d have bumped into him. Instead, her shoulder sort of just…passed through his and she was fascinated with that same odd sort of sensation she’d had in the bath.
