Free The Christmas Spirit by Patricia Wynn

when Matthew started to apologize, he saw that Ahmad was not amused as he had been on that particular occasion. Instead, his brow was heavy with concern, and his eyes flickered with a hint of fear.
    "Do you know what we say in my country when a beautiful lady appears and disappears so suddenly?" Ahmad asked.
    Matthew wanted to sigh, but since he had treated Ahmad so roughly already, he merely replied, "No. What does one say?"
    "We say she is one of the jinn."
    Matthew had seen the notion coming. He had experienced much superstition on his travels, in all its forms, so he knew when it typically arose. When objects appeared but no one could remember how they came to be in that place. When strangers entered a village, unaccompanied and unannounced. When a plague was visited upon a people who needed someone to blame.
    Except Ahmad had never been one for supernatural beliefs, aside from his Mohammedan religion, which he scrupulously observed. Long ago, he had hoped to convert Matthew to his faith and had even braved the extreme sacrilege of smuggling him into Mecca disguised as a Syrian doctor in order to attain that goal.
    Matthew had been sincerely sorry to disappoint him, but he had not been able to accept Ahmad's religion, any more than he had the one into which he had been born. Faith had not come easily to him then, and it never would come to him now, not after all the cruelty he'd seen and the treachery he'd experienced.
    And if religion would not come to him, he saw no reason to submit to fruitless superstition. He grinned at Ahmad, who retired in the face of Matthew's amused disbelief. Diverted, Matthew went up to his study to read.
    It was not until he was half-way up the stairs that he recalled the elves who visited his hallucinations: Francis and Trudy. The memory of those visitors made him halt.
    Strange, that Ahmad should have had a suspicion so near to his own feverish delirium. Matthew did not recall ever having told Ahmad about the elves.
    Wondering at the bizarre coincidence, he shook his head and resumed his climb.
    * * * *
    Whatever anxieties might have troubled him had he been forced to wait that evening, he was spared them, for Faye kept to their appointment. Not only did she arrive precisely at the stroke of midnight, but the carriage that brought her appeared in the next instant after his own.
    Matthew stepped to its door with the thought of helping her down as soon as he saw her attempting to alight. But he was momentarily distracted by her horses, which turned their heads in unison as he passed them, rather like two opera dancers on a stage. They must have suspected he had a lump of sugar in his pocket. 
    As Faye made her descent, however, cutting them a startled glance, they swung rapidly back to face the street, for all the world like a couple of naughty children.
    "Hummph!" Ahmad was heard to grunt behind him.
    Matthew chuckled at this odd equine behavior, then turned to greet Faye, who looked enchanting in a hooded, fur-trimmed pelisse. "I did not know you kept a carriage," he said.
    "Yes." Excitement raised roses in her cheeks. "It is quite new. Do you admire it?"
    Matthew obliged her by looking it over as well as he could in the lamplight. He had already noticed Faye's penchant for gold and glistening materials, so he told himself he should not be surprised by the quantity of gilt on the wheels.
    Even so, he was. Such luxury was seldom indulged except by persons of enormous fortune, and nothing Faye had ever said had led him to believe her father had been that wealthy. Gentlemen who sought occupation in the army and diplomatic service were rarely men of great wealth, but perhaps Faye had withheld some part of her father's history. Perhaps, he had been a nabob after all.
    As quickly as these thoughts flitted through his brain, Matthew responded, "I think it a quite remarkable conveyance. It rather . . . shines."
    Faye peeked out from beneath her hood, and her enthusiasm began to fade. "Do you think