Page 76 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
“Lady Katharine, are you mad?”
“No, but you’ve shown me things I was incapable of seeing and I don’t know how to thank you, and I can promise you right now that I’m going to turn my life around and make things right, that I’ll apologize to Charles’s wife for the things I said to her, the way I felt about her, and Gareth’s wife too, because you were correct, I mean of course you were correct! Living with such resentment is a prison in its own right, and I don’t want to live in that prison any longer, I want to be happy again and I have you to thank for that for finally showing me the truth.”
Noel raised an eyebrow, trying to remember when he’d had this conversation with her.
“Areyou a dream, or is this really happening? Or are we both in a dream?”
“With no disrespect to you, Lady Katharine, this is more of a nightmare. My ribs ache, my head hurts, I’m worried about the whereabouts of my horse—”
“I thought you rode on a donkey.”
“—and I’m hungry. A damnable position in which to find one’s self. Did you just saydonkey?”
“Dear heavens, youswore!” She looked horrified.
“Did you just say donkey?”
“Yes, but—”
“I can assure you, no self-respecting highwayman would ride on a donkey.”
“But you’re notreallya highwayman, are you?”
Noel just looked at her, convinced that she was daft in the head. Such odd questions! “No, I’m not, though I have been for the last week and as for swearing, I tend to watch my words around ladies.”
“I would have thought that someone like you would watch your words around everyone.”
“Someone like me?”
“Well, since you’re ...Him, that is.”
Noel rubbed at the side of his temple with two fingers. His stomach gave a long, impatient growl and he wondered if this strange, beautiful woman would be inclined to give him something to eat before he set out on his way at daybreak.
“Areyou Him?”
“Well of course I’m him. Who else would I be? Didn’t we make introductions a few hours before?”
“Yes, but ... that was before I knew who you really are.”
“How can you know who I really am?”
“I had a dream in which it was revealed to me. A very realistic dream, more of a vision, really. There are so many questions I would like to ask you,” she said, moving further into the room and crossing her arms over her breasts. Her eyes were huge in the darkness. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Noel blinked. She had seemed cold, spoiled, hopelessly haughty but otherwise quite ordinary when she’d gone off to find something to bind his ribs with, but now ... He frowned, studying her. Maybe she was a sleepwalker. Maybe she had a crystal ball, a deck of cards, and skills as a witch. Maybe she was a bit too addicted to the poppy. Maybehewas the one dreaming, not her, because this was getting more and more bizarre by the moment. Yes, that was it. It had to be.
I’m dreaming.
“I mean, what does it feel like to be nearly two thousand years old? To have seen the face of God himself? To be able to raise people from the dead, turn water into wine, heal the sick, the lame, the paralyzed?”
Noel stared at her.
“I cried myself to sleep tonight,” she continued, her eyes pleading. “I cried myself to sleep because I felt sorry for myself. My fiance jilted me, and he was just the third of three and will no doubt be the last.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I guess he thought me a shrew.”
“Are you?”
