Simon and the Christmas Spirit (6 page)

“
That sounds like a
perfect day,” he said wistfully.

“
Well, it’s much like
every day in our house, but with slightly better food.” Christopher
paused, then added, “You should come.”

“
What?” Simon
asked.

Christopher made a grand gesture in
the air, as if conjuring a scene. “Yes. You should spend the day.
You won’t have one second to be quiet or morose. There are too many
people and too much going on. But…I suppose you have other plans.
Of course you must.”

“
No plans at all,” Simon
admitted before he realized how pathetic it made him sound. “It
sounds lovely, but I…don’t believe I shall be able to attend.” How
stiffly formal he sounded. Ridiculous considering he sprawled naked
with a leg flung over Christopher’s legs, and the other man’s arm
draped across his chest.

Why not? Why couldn’t he? To be part
of a loud and creative family, if just for one day… Hadn’t that
been a desire of his since boyhood? His own home had been deadly
quiet and extremely orderly, with only Simon, a sober, well-behaved
child, and his father and mother living in near silence.

But to actually go to a stranger’s
home and participate in a family celebration seemed too daunting.
Simon didn’t think of himself as a snob, but if he were being
honest, the fact that Christopher was from an entirely different
social class did affect his decision. It was one thing to have a
single clandestine encounter, quite another to attempt to build a
friendship beyond this peculiar and spectacular night.

“
I appreciate the offer,”
Simon interrupted Christopher’s silence.

“
It’s fine.” He didn’t
sound disappointed or crushed. “If you change your mind, simply
show up at any time on Christmas Day. No advance warning required.
You’ll find my clan at 54 Ruggard Street.”

Now Simon’s warm drowsy glow began to
shred and drift away, and awkwardness crept in. The few affairs
he’d had were circumspect but ongoing relationships. He wasn’t
certain how a fleeting event like this was supposed to end. He
couldn’t sleep here and wake in the morning with Christopher beside
him, no matter how appealing that sounded. Someone might see them
leaving the room and realize they’d slept together. He should leave
now, return to his own quiet, orderly house, and resume his dull
routine. Simon shifted restlessly.

“
You want to get up?”
Christopher asked. “We could play a game of cards or share a drink
and talk some more. No hurry about parting. I’ve nowhere better to
be.”

Nor I
. “Unfortunately, I have an early appointment I cannot be
late for. I should go home and sleep.” The lie fell like a lead
weight from his mouth. He hated giving it and felt Christopher knew
it was an untruth. Simon might have some bad qualities, but lying
had never been one of them.

“
All right, then.”
Christopher dropped a small kiss on Simon’s shoulder and drew away.
He moved with the grace of a cat, springing off the bed and
slipping into his smalls and trousers. He regarded Simon while
buttoning his fly. “It was a pleasure knowing you, Mr. Harris, if
only briefly. I hope our time together has made your holiday season
a little cheerier.”

“
It has, and I thank you
for it.” Simon nearly added the truth.
I
wish it could last longer. I would like to spend the holiday with
you and meet your family, but I’m too shy, too set in my ways, too
rigid, and too damned deadly dull, just as Millard said.

Instead, he rose and gathered his own
clothes so recently shed. He dressed quickly, then faced his
unanticipated new friend with hand outstretched to
shake.

Christopher glanced at Simon’s
extended hand and smiled slightly before clasping and gravely
shaking it. That small smile expressed how silly the handshake
seemed to him after the other things they’d just done. But all he
said was, “Pleasure knowing you, Simon Harris. I say again, if you
get bored or lonely come Christmas Day, drop by our place. There’s
always an extra seat at Mum’s table.”

That warm and welcoming smile was
nearly enough to make Simon crumble. Almost but not quite, as he
took his leave and slipped from the room to make his way
home

Chapter Five

“
What have you done? What
were you thinking?” Will berated Christopher as they walked from
the gentlemen’s club to home. It was too late for a street car, so
they relied on their own legs to carry them all the way to their
own run-down neighborhood. “And why the hell do I always give in to
your plans?” he added.

“
Ah, I feel the need to
act, and to go forth and conquer.” Christopher stepped into a rut
hidden in the shadows and got his foot doused in rainwater. He
cursed and shook it.

“
And look how well that’s
turned out for you in the past,” Will muttered.

Christopher held up a hand. “Don’t
start going on about the Russian again.”

“
My point is, did you stop
to think how your inclination might harm you or affect me? What if
you’d been wrong about Mr. Harris, and he complained to the
management that you tried to have it on with him? Or what if some
other gent had seen the pair of you go in or out of that room? Or,
God forbid, heard you making noise? You put yourself in danger too
often, without a thought in your foolish head.”

Christopher had had enough scolding,
considering he was already miserable from his wet foot and the
disappointing end to his evening. Of course he’d been silly to
think a gentleman like Simon would care to socialize beyond the
bedroom. He didn’t know why he’d made the offer, except that Simon
seemed entirely downhearted and lonely. And, if he was being
honest, because he quite liked the man and wanted to see more of
him.

“
If you land yourself in
prison someday, I don’t think Mum would be able to bear it,” Will
droned on. “Or something even worse could happen. You’ve heard
about the man who got beaten to death by a mob for being too
obvious in public with his lover.”

“
Enough, Woolly!”
Christopher used the nickname that used to drive Will mad when they
were younger, a small jab about his woolgathering. “I understand,
my boy. I ought to control my habits as you do quite nobly. Lesson
received and memorized. You could have been a
headmaster.”

Will managed to remain quiet for all
of two streets, and they were passing the large church with the
clock tower when he started up again. “I’m not suggesting you deny
that part of yourself, only be more careful about whom you reveal
it to.” He paused. “Like I am.”

Worried, overly emotional Will, who
hated to cross anyone. Christopher couldn’t remain peeved with him.
He threw an arm over his brother’s shoulders. “How’d we end up this
way? Two oddities like us in one family? Is such a thing passed
down through the blood, or is it a very special gift from God?” He
pointed up at the statues of saints in their niches on the towering
edifice. “Scientists believe such desires are a delusion. Religious
folk swear the perversion is Satan’s work. What do you
think?”

“
I think it doesn’t matter
where it comes from. We’d do better to worry about where that
Christmas goose will come from,” Will answered. He hated such
talk.

“
Cleverly and simply put.
Practical as always.”

Christopher moved on to what presents
they might buy for the younger children to open on Christmas Day.
But his mind poked away at the idea of desires and why a man was
attracted to one person over another. He’d had quite a few lovers
and particular friends in his life and had never been so quickly
and strongly drawn to a man as he had been to Simon Harris tonight.
The feeling was strange. He didn’t like it but was intrigued by it.
He practiced the expression of a smitten Romeo to accompany the
thought, and that action cleared the matter. When he was with
Simon, he’d forgotten to entertain and existed in a place where he
acted the part of only himself, whoever that was. Yet Harris’s
smiles had only grown brighter.

Not that his attraction mattered, for
nothing would come of it. Mr. Harris had been very clear their
friendship would not progress beyond a single night’s fling. Best
to put all these unwanted emotions in a box marked Do Not Open and
pack it away someplace deep inside him.

They’d long passed the church when the
bell tolled for the hour: one, two, three deep gongs marking the
passing of the night. In one of his typical flights of fancy,
Christopher imagined it sounded a death knell for budding feelings
quickly aborted. And then he laughed aloud at his morbidity and
urged Will to race him the rest of the way home.

* * *

This is a fine
fiddle
, Simon thought as he sat down to
breakfast late the next morning. Whinging and mourning for one lost
lover shifted in a finger snap to another.
Apparently his feelings had no more strength or tenacity than
a flitting moth if he were able to almost completely forget Millard
to dwell on laughing Christopher instead.

Too easy to see now that
though he’d loved Millard, he hadn’t always
liked
the man. Millard had lingered
in hopes of more gifts and money. But Simon had also done their
relationship a disservice by clinging, not only because he was
hopelessly besotted, but also because he didn’t like change. It was
an unattractive quality he didn’t care to admit to, but there it
was.

As he nibbled his way
through toast points and coddled egg and stared blindly at
the
Times
, Simon
clearly saw himself for perhaps the first time ever, and he
recognized that habit was a constricting snake that would strangle
him if he didn’t take care. This breakfast, for example, it rarely
varied to include kippers or sausages because the cook knew
precisely what he wanted. The clothes he wore—new and well-made but
the same pattern of suit he’d worn for the past ten years. Nothing
in the house had been moved or changed since his parents’ deaths.
Correction. The wallpaper had been freshened once, but with exactly
the same pattern. It might as well still
be
their house, and Simon a
perpetual child dwelling in it.

Millard had been the only installation
in the house that had added the contrast to the theme of Simon’s
past.

Shocking that he’d ever taken a lover
at all since it was a dangerous risk and well beyond routine, but
Simon supposed even he had his moments of need that forced him to
take a chance.

Last night, for one. He could’ve
pretended not to know what Christopher wanted. He could’ve ended
the conversation and sent the man on his way, but instead followed
him upstairs and into an adventure. Perhaps there was hope for him
after all, a tiny spark of something alive that simply needed to be
fanned.

His mind began spinning a daydream in
which he became bold and not just about arriving unannounced at the
Andrewses’ home for Christmas day. He could do something heroic,
something marvelous, climb a mountain, join a scientific
expedition, or discover the cure for some disease in a laboratory,
some mark to leave behind so the world knew he’d been there. But
while his mind galloped a knightly landscape, his body went through
the motions of a regular day.

He laid his napkin next to his plate,
folded his newspaper and left it on his chair, then went to his
room where his valet helped him get ready to go out. He walked
through the park on his way to his more usual, staid club. He
slowed once when he saw a clown juggling for a group of children
near the bandstand. The man was too heavy to be Christopher, and
once Simon got close, he could see the performer was nothing like
the trim acrobat, yet Simon listened to his patter all the same
before continuing on his way.

Once ensconced in his usual chair at
the United Conservative Club, Simon wondered why he’d bothered to
exchange home for club. What was the difference between one leather
armchair and another? Between one book and another? Especially on a
day when the rooms felt almost deserted.

He finally rose and stared out the
huge windows instead at a day that matched his mood. The overcast
sky spat a few halfhearted snowflakes, more like coal-gray sleet,
that pattered against the windowpane.

He decided to take a long walk to
while away a few hours of the afternoon. On the way out, he greeted
the club porter who’d been there since his father’s time. “Best
wishes to your sister, sir,” Mapleton said.

“
Yes, she should be very
happy. Do you have plans for the holiday?”

“
Our daughter and her
family have come to the city to visit.”

“
Wonderful. I’m certain
you shall enjoy having them.” He buttoned his coat. “Thank you for
your work, Mapleton, and a happy Christmas to you.”

“
Happy Christmas to
you
, sir.” Mapleton
hesitated before adding. “Have you any special plans?”

“
A quiet supper for me.”
Simon pictured himself sitting alone in the formal dining room at
one end of the long table. Although preparing a standard Christmas
feast for only one person would hardly be fair to his staff. “But I
may pay a visit to some friends.”