Page 33 of Christmas Spirit
“Ah, they are always trying to escape their tethers.”
“What are?” Roland asked.
Nicholas smiled as he stepped over to the Christmas tree.
“The reindeer.”
He bent and picked up a tree decoration that had fallen to the floor.
Roland, with Georgie at his heels, made his way over to Nicholas, who held a wooden reindeer in his hands. The carving was exquisite.
So lifelike. And those antlers—
His skin prickled with the memory. He had to ask, he couldn’t not ask.
“Before the crash, a herd ran across the driveway.”
Deer, like any other, except—
“But there was another. One like this. I saw it before I blacked out. It was huge.”
“There are deer in the grounds. There have always been deer.”
“But this was — I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in the Rockies, or Scandinavia.”
“The herd is very old, sir.”
“Old? But what’s that got to—”
From its place on the mantle shelf, the ornamental clock struck a deep, reverberating chime.
“Time is getting on, gentlemen. I’ve taken the liberty of lighting the candles in your room. The power, as you see, is still out.”
“Time? But…” Roland’s words faded to nothing as he met Nicholas’ clear blue eyes.
“Time, Mr. Fletcher Jones. It passes so quickly. Before you know it, it’s all behind you. All that time, full of everything you don’t want, empty of everything you do. Goodnight, gentlemen.”
Chapter Eighteen
Georgie had meant what he said about being glad to be marooned in the strange hotel. A hotel which seemed to have only one member of staff and no other guests. It made no sense, none at all, but the warmth and the quiet had lulled him into accepting it all — and it was that, almost more than anything, that really didn’t make any sense.
Almost more than anything… because what especially, absolutely, one hundred percentdidn’tmake sense, was Roland. Or, more precisely, his attraction to the man who, for almost six months, had been the cause of his life being a living, breathing hell.
If Roland had treated him with a modicum of respect, the smallest shred of civility, the rest of the staff at Pendleton Manor would have fallen into line. Yet here, in this strange hotel, hadn’t there been glimpses, much more than glimpses, of another man behind the frosty, distant façade?
The ill-tempered, disdainful man who ruled the kitchen at Pendleton with a rod of iron had softened, become less brittle and hard-edged, showing a side of himself Georgie suspected few, if any, saw. Generosity, or a rough sort of kindness, in Roland’s insistence on footing the bill for the hotel — a bill that had made Georgie’s stomach tighten when Roland had left a wad of cash — was evidence of that. But there was more, and that was Roland’s belief that a promise or commitment should be met. Roland hadn’t wanted to help him out, not at first, but the man had kept his word when everybody who had drifted through Georgie’s life had broken theirs without a second thought.
And Georgie liked that about Roland, he liked it a lot.
In the bedroom one solitary candle, fat and creamy, cast its wavering light over the bed, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. In the grate, yellow flames licked at the ashy logs.
Georgie tried to ignore the bed, the bed that seemed even bigger, the bed he’d be sharing again with Roland.
The bed where he’d had a dream that had been so vivid it could have been real…
Perhaps I should try and sleep in the chair.
“Roland.”
