Page 14 of So This Is Christmas

“So you’ve been to New York?” she asked, huffing a little on the steep slope. “You must have if you’ve noticed how starless it is.”

“Yes. The king and the princess travel to New York with some regularity, either on business for Morneau or for diplomatic reasons—the princess does quite a lot of work with the United Nations. I generally accompany them. So I’ve been many times, butin some ways I haven’t truly experienced it, as I’m usually working steadily.” He’d enjoyed the New York trips, though. The city had an energy, an ever-present thrum of activity that he found exciting. Which he realized might sound contradictory, as he loved Eldovia so thoroughly, and Eldovia, with its forests and mountains and Alpine lakes, was in many ways the opposite of New York. But both places were so vital, so very much themselves.

He had always idly thought he might take a leisure trip to New York sometime and actually play tourist. But of course he didn’t really take holidays, both because he sent most of the money he could back home, but also because he wasn’t a holidaying sort of person. If he couldn’t even find half a day to visit a local hot spring, how likely was it that he was going to jet across the ocean for no reason other than his own amusement?

“I love New York,” Ms. Delaney said, with a vehemence in her tone he hadn’t heard before. He wasn’t sure what to say in response. He wanted to ask her why, what specifically she liked about New York, but although the conversation was flowing more easily than it had on the way down the hill, he wasn’t sure he wanted to get into a discussion of such a personal nature. He had meant it when he said his antipathy toward her wasn’t personal. And as such, there was no need togetpersonal. Every flash of curiosity needn’t be satisfied.

Though he did rather wonder about those boots of hers. Collapsible boots. Probably an American innovation, but, he had to admit, a clever one. And she’d had painted toenails. Unlike the deep, almost-black red of her fingernails, they’d been a dark silvery-gray. He’d never seen nail lacquer that color.

“What’s the story with Kai?” she asked, startling him—but, hehad to admit, startling him because he’d been lost in thoughts of hertoes, for god’s sake.

“The story with Kai? What do you mean?”

“He’s very... quiet.” She huffed a little breath that might or might not have been a chuckle, as if something were privately amusing.

“Yes, he doesn’t talk much. It’s rather refreshing.”

“He certainly is... talented.” It was too dark to see Ms. Delaney’s face, but why did Matteo get the impression that every time she used an adjective to describe Kai, she was smiling? It was as if he couldhearit. She was huffing more overtly from the steep incline now—it was a strenuous climb if one wasn’t accustomed to it. “I still think he could make a fortune selling those snow globes,” she panted.

He wondered if her skin was pink. The dark prevented him from knowing, but her skin was so naturally pale, it seemed likely that exertion would turn it pink. “He probably could. And you should see the gingerbread replica of the palace he makes a little closer to Christmas.”

“So? What? He doesn’t like money?”

“Not everything needs to be monetized.” He paused. That had come out too sharply. It wasn’t Ms. Delaney’s fault she came from the land of the quick buck. He needed to do a better job separating his distaste for her mission from his conduct toward her personally. He tried again. “Kai makes a good living doing custom carpentry—bookshelves and the like—and he and Leo, the princess’s husband, have a business making custom log cabins.”

“Kai builds log cabins? Like, by hand?”

“Well, he and Leo do, yes.”

She whistled.

Ah. He understood now what all these questions signified, what those smiles he’d heard in her voice were about. He felt simple for not seeing it sooner. Simple, but also annoyed. He was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, trying to do a better job conversing with her, and she was pumping him for information to fan the flames of a crush? How gauche.In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Matteo had learned this breathing exercise years ago when all the business with his father had come to light and his mother had hauled him and his siblings to a counselor who had taught them some strategies to combat anger and anxiety. Ms. Delaney’s presence was making him resort to the technique more than he had in years.

“Is Kai single?”

How to answer?Whetherto answer—it really was none of her business. “Yes and no.” There. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t encouraging.

“What does that mean?”

He might as well tell her the truth. It would temper her expectations. “He is, but he’s in love with Imogen.”

She laughed, though this time he hadn’t been trying to be amusing. “Does Imogen know that?”

The real question was whetherKaiknew it, but Matteo wasn’t getting into it with an interloper.

Matteo liked to think of himself as the kind of person who meddled for good causes. He had described, earlier, what he thought of as his extended mission. By which he meant thathe looked for opportunities to help people. Usually that meant economically—a job, a connection. And, of course, the Christmas baskets, which were the main expression of his extended mission. But occasionally he resorted to playing Cupid when presented with two people too idiotic and/or stubborn to get the job done on their own. Torkel had once accused him of being a closet romantic. It wasn’t that so much as it was Matteo couldn’t stand to see such blatant displays of stupidity endure when he had the power to do something about them.

He had wondered, in recent months, if he should turn his attention to Imogen and Kai. They were so obviously smitten. But so far he had held his tongue—and his bow and arrow. He wasn’t precisely certain why. Perhaps because he sensed a deep well of... something in Kai. Pain of some sort, he thought? But he didn’tknow, and as such he didn’t know if whatever it was would get in the way of Kai’s actually being happy even if he got what—who—he wanted.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said to Ms. Delaney as the palace came into view, deliberately not answering her most recent question. If she wanted to fruitlessly pursue Kai while she was here, that was her business.

“You don’t live in the palace?”

“No. I have an office in the palace, but I live in an apartment above the original stable building.”

“Huh.”

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