Christmas Carol (31 page)

“Help me,” she gasped, risking her life on
the chance that they were no more fond of her pursuers than she
was. “The civil guards are after me.”

“Hah! Them. Come this way.” Without
questioning her they handed her along from person to person in the
dark, finally pushing her through a gate into an alley at the rear
of the arcade. The gate closed behind her and she was alone
again.

Here all was silence and, freed of the
requirements of haste, caution returned. Her way was darker now,
and from what Carol could distinguish of it, the area where she
found herself was in a sorry state. There were no electric street
lamps burning, nor well-kept houses. In a black quietness disturbed
only by the scurrying of the occasional rat or the snarls of a pair
of fighting cats, she crept along, not knowing where she was, but
too frightened to stop lest she be discovered and taken by the
civil guards.

She would never be able to explain by what
route she arrived—perhaps there was some supernatural hand in
it—but suddenly she walked into an open space and saw before her
the World Tree with its empty, grasping fingers and, directly
across the way, Marlowe House.

Carol came to an abrupt halt. Commander Drum
had spoken to Leader Fal about having seen her here, so it was
possible that he had sent some of his guards to watch for her. But
she had to get home—for Marlowe House
was
home and it
represented all that existed of security and warmth in this hideous
future world.

And Nik was there, in Marlowe House. She
could not lead Drum’s men to him, but she had to get to Nik, to
warn him. At this point she scarcely knew anymore what it was she
wanted to warn him about, but the need to feel his arms around her
was a burning ache in both her mind and her heart. Perhaps, if she
went very carefully, and if she were lucky, she could reach the
house without being seen.

She slipped into the deeper shadows of a
broken stone wall, all that remained of an elegant old building.
Slowly she began to edge her way around the square toward Marlowe
House. She was half frozen from the cold, worn out after a night
without sleep, and so frightened that her wits were as numb as her
hands and feet. Which was why she did nothing when she first heard
the soft step behind her.

It was the lightest, faintest crunch of a
foot upon broken stonework and mortar ground into dust. Then
silence. Nothing. Not even a breath came out of the darkness. All
the same, Carol was certain that someone was standing directly
behind her. She could not turn around. She could not move at all—or
breathe—and her heart had stopped beating.

A wool-covered hand clamped down over her
mouth, stifling the scream she was unable, from sheer terror, to
utter. An arm wrapped around her chest, pinning her hands at her
sides before she could raise them to fight off her attacker. Carol
felt her knees begin to buckle. Her stomach lurched. She knew she
was going to faint. Blackness swirled around her as she crumpled
against the person who was holding her.

“Where in the name of all the worlds have you
been?” demanded a low, harsh voice in her ear. Made frantic by
fear, Carol gasped, struggling against restraining arms, trying to
get her feet down on the ground so she would have more leverage to
push away from the man who held her. Blind terror gripped her.
Though she could not see him, she was certain he was a member of
the civil guards, sent by Commander Drum to lie in wait for
her.

“Stop fighting and answer me, damn it. We’ve
all been sick with worry looking for you. Where were you?”

“
Nik
.” Recognizing him at last, she
went weak and limp with relief. But only for a moment. There was no
time to indulge herself in weeping or hysterics. There was too much
that she ought to tell Nik at once, lest he inadvertently betray
his friends and his cause by carrying her directly home.

“The guards commander—Commander Drum—Nik, he
saw me again and he recognized me. His men chased me. I tried to
lose them, but I’m not sure I did. He talked about having seen me
here, in this square, during the ceremonies. He may have sent
guards to look for me in case I return, and if they find us
together you will be in trouble, too.”

“All the more reason to get you safe inside.”
Nik did not seem to be the least bit disturbed by Carol’s
information.

“Didn’t you hear me?” she cried. When she
tried to wriggle out of his arms so she could stand up and confront
him, he only held her more tightly. “Nik, you could be in serious
danger.”

“I don’t think so. Car, surely you know that
we have our own watchmen, and our own system of monitoring the
movements of the civil guards. There is no one in this square who
should not be here.”

“Oh.” Of course he would have sent out his
own people to stand watch. Nik was not a careless planner and he
held many lives in his hands. She felt foolish for her nearly
hysterical warning. “I was so frightened,” she whispered, her face
pressed hard against the coarse cloth of his outdoor coat.

“You are safe now.” He carried her across the
square to the broken steps at the side of Marlowe House, then past
the barricade that Bas moved aside at his call, and on into the
servants’ kitchen. There he set her down in one of the chairs at
the table.

“She’s over-chilled,” Nik said to Jo. To Bas
he added, “Call the others back. They’ll be glad of a hot drink and
their beds.”

“You have all been out looking for me, when
you should have been safe here, planning for tomorrow. I am so
sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.” Carol felt like crying. Now
that she had reached her destination, she was weak and trembling
all over again, and her hands and feet began to ache as they warmed
from a state of near frostbite.

“Drink this and stop apologizing.” Jo thrust
a cup into her hands. Carol tasted brandy mixed with hot water and
herbs. “We’d have done the same for any other member of our group.
You were trying to divert the guards’ attention away from our
headquarters, and we appreciate the risk you were running for our
sakes.”

“I learned something that may be of use to
you,” Carol said, her eyes on Nik. Quickly she recounted the
conversation she had overheard between Commander Drum and Leader
Fal. She did not, however, mention what she believed about
Commander Drum’s real identity. That particular piece of
information was important only to her and, possibly, to Nik and
Lady Augusta. To her other friends, the most important news of the
evening was what she had learned that might affect their plans for
the following day.

“I don’t think Leader Fal is particularly
intelligent,” Carol said, finishing her report on her activities
since leaving the square that afternoon, “but Drum is sharp as the
proverbial tack, and I do not imagine for a minute that he is the
kind of man to take chances when it comes to security. And he did
see me outside that house where the party was being held. I’m sure
of it, Nik. Drum will probably send extra guards to this area just
in case I show up here once more.”

“It won’t matter,” Nik told her, “because we
will all stay indoors until it is time for the uprising to
begin.”

“They could make a house-to-house search,”
Carol insisted, recalling the history of her own century with
frightening accuracy. “They could arrest everyone they find in any
house on this square and hold all of us for days—or for years. From
what I’ve seen of this time, the authorities don’t worry too much
about civil liberties for ordinary people.”

“We will be safe until tomorrow,” Nik
repeated.

“How can you be so certain?” Carol cried.

“Because Aug has returned with news of the
other groups she has contacted. And when Aug is here, she protects
us.”

“Where is she?” Carol wasn’t sure she wanted
to see Lady Augusta again. Not yet. She was afraid of what the
ghost’s presence would mean to her. She wasn’t ready to return to
her own time, not even to escape Commander Drum. And the prospect
of being forced to leave Nik was unbearable.

“Aug is with Al and Pen and the others,
searching for you.” Jo refilled Carol’s cup with more brandy and
hot water. “She will return soon. Meanwhile, you ought to get out
of those clothes and into something like a blanket or a robe that
has been warmed by the fire. And from the look of you, a few hours
of sleep would be in order, too.”

“How can I sleep, knowing my presence here
may put all of you in danger?” Carol demanded. “Or knowing what we
are going to begin in just a few hours?”

“Jo is right, Car.” Nik lifted her out of the
chair where she still sat. “You need to rest and so do I. I will
take care of her, Jo. When the others return, tell them to go to
bed, and you go, too. There is no need for any of us to rise until
mid-morning. We are less likely to become nervous and get into
trouble if we are all asleep. Of course, some of us manage to get
into a fair amount of trouble while in bed.” With a chuckle worthy
of a man who had no more on his mind than a few free hours ahead of
him to spend as he pleased, Nik carried Carol up the steps and
along the hall to his own room.

“I don’t think you understand what is going
on here,” Carol warned. “You are in danger because of me.”

“No,” he corrected her. “I am in danger
because of what I and my friends plan for later today, but we
planned the revolt, and its timing, long before you came to me.
What you have done, Car, is make these last few days both beautiful
and precious. I will never forget them. Or you.” He set her down on
her feet and stood holding her with his hands at her waist. Carol
leaned against him, loving him, wanting his touch.

“Take off these cold clothes,” he whispered,
working at the buttons on her raincoat. “I have a robe you can use
until you are warm again— until I remove that garment, too.”

He had to take off her shoes for her. Carol’s
fingers were still too numb to untie the laces for herself. She sat
on the edge of his mattress, wrapped in the scratchy woolen robe
he’d found for her to wear, and let him chafe heat and feeling back
into her feet. And her ankles. And her calves and knees and
thighs.

“I want something of you,” he murmured, his
mouth against her right knee.

“Anything.” She was ready to sink down on his
bed and let him take her there and then, in any manner he chose, so
long as he stayed with her. She was afraid to let him out of her
sight.

“Dance with me.” Amazingly, when he lifted
his head to see her reaction there was mischief in his eyes.

“Dance,” she repeated blankly. Then,
understanding. “As in waltz?”

“Wait here.” He was gone only a moment, just
long enough to give her reason to begin to panic for fear he would
not return. She told herself her nerves were playing tricks on her.
Here with Nik she was safe. Commander Drum would not find her. Lady
Augusta was still away from the house. All the same, she sighed
with relief when Nik reappeared, his eyes on the portable disk
player, his fingers working the controls. He set it for the tune he
wanted. When the music started he held out his hand to her. Carol
rose from his bed.

In her bare feet, in a bathrobe fashioned
from one of the common olive-green woolen blankets that were used
whenever a warm, sturdy fabric was required, she went into his arms
and once more they danced as if they were in a ballroom, wearing
formal evening dress, with a full orchestra playing.

“Never forget me,” she pleaded. “Nik, I don’t
know why I am so frightened. If something happens to either of us
in the uprising tomorrow, know that I love you.”

“Hush.” His lips caressed her forehead and
her eyelids. With a soft laugh he attempted to tease her out of her
gloomy mood. “I do not want to think about
that
uprising,
only about the one I am personally experiencing at this
moment.”

“It’s not even tomorrow,” she corrected
herself, so obsessed by the deadly fear chilling her veins and her
heart and brain that she scarcely heard him. “It’s today. Just a
few hours from now.”

“Woman, will you be silent? Or must I compel
you? I do not want to worry about what may, or may not, happen
later today. For the next few hours, I want to hold you in my arms
and dance with you one last time before we move on to a grander
place. When next we dance together, Car, it will be in the Leaders’
palace, and we will be free, all of us. But I want this waltz to
stay in my memory, so I never forget what it is like to live here,
in this house, with you.”

His voice dropped to a lower, more thrilling
note, capturing all of Carol’s attention. He had the power to make
her forget her serious concerns about the future. Nik could make
her think only about the present moment.

“When this waltz is over,” he said, “I want
to lie down on my bed beside you, and put my hands on you, and kiss
your lovely breasts and your soft belly and then your beautiful,
rosy entrance, where you always welcome me so deliriously. I want
to push myself into you slowly and hear your sigh of pleasure when
I fill you. There is no other sensation on earth so marvelous as
the one you produce when you tighten and convulse around me while I
am deep inside you, when you give yourself to me completely while I
am still hard and barely able to control my own reaction to your
approaching release. The way your face softens and glows with an
inner light, the way your breath catches, the taste of your lips
and then your mouth when I put my tongue in you. Do you know how
eagerly I wait to hear you moan at that last moment when I can
restrain myself no longer and I dissolve into your sweetness?”

“Nik. My dear love.” They were no longer
standing as a couple dancing the waltz should stand, a little apart
from each other so they had space to move for the dance steps.
Instead, Nik pulled her close until they were touching body to
body. He was clad only in shirt and trousers, having removed his
outer garments when Carol took off her clothing. The front of the
robe she wore slipped open, so a narrow strip of her quivering
flesh was pressed against him. She could feel his hot hardness
against her abdomen. She moved restlessly, wanting him closer
still.