A Clockwork Christmas

by JK Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail; Jenny Schwartz

  “I…” She was so stunned she could barely put a coherent thought together. “How can you say I needed this horrible thing? I thought it was going to kill me.”

  “Yet despite that belief, you would have rather died than steal from a helpless child, which is what I fully expected from you. Don’t you see, Cornelia? This is not the act of the monster you claim to be. You’ve been taught to believe you’re unworthy and despicable, but time and again your actions show the beauty of your heart, from returning a ring to a devastated victim and fretting over a group of uneducated street urchins, to choosing death by electrocution rather than steal again. I’m the one who’s despicable, coming up with this mad scheme to control you, yet at the time it was the only thing I could think of to compel you into righting a terrible wrong committed six months ago.”

  “I could throttle you for putting me through this, and if I didn’t know my own actions hadn’t forced you into such an extreme frame of mind six months ago, I do believe I would.” The flash of anger that zipped through her vanished just as quickly as she could see how it all unfolded. Roderick, with his shattered heart full of grief and vengeance, had done all he could to find a way to make her jump through his hoops. The plan hadn’t been for them to become intimate; that was one variable neither had counted on. “I must say, you were very convincing. You didn’t even want me to get it wet.”

  “It’s not waterproof.” He had the grace to look both sheepish and shamefaced. He kissed her tentatively, as though half expecting her to bite him. “You would have been free once the timepiece came to a stop, and at that point in our association I couldn’t afford that. Then, when we began to share intimacies and you seemed hell bent on proving just how heartless you were, I thought the best way to convince you of what a good person you are was to let things play out.”

  “What if I had stolen the egg?”

  “I had every confidence you wouldn’t be able to do it. And I was right.”

  His arrogant smirk made her want to cork him. “You cocky bastard, do you have any idea what this did to me?”

  “I hope it put to rest the belief that you’re not good enough to be loved, Cornelia. Or did I misunderstand when you wrote a good man like me might not want the pitiable gift of love from an undeserving thief like you?”

  Her heart stumbled to a graceless stop. “Uh…”

  “It’s damned cold up here, so naturally I put my hands in my pockets,” he went on conversationally. He pulled out a familiar envelope to wave it under her nose. “Imagine my surprise when I found this missive waiting for me to find it. I nearly dropped the airship on the front lawn and stormed in when I finished reading it.”

  “Did it distress you that much?”

  “Distress me? Cornelia, you’re priceless.” With a derisive snort he cupped her face as if it were something precious. “The love of my life was breaking into the most dangerous house in Boston, and you wonder if I was distressed? The only thing that stopped me from springing into action was my absolute faith in what I like to call your superhuman stealth abilities. Fumble-footed professor that I am, I would have been more of a hindrance than a help to you at that point.”

  “You’re not fumble-footed.” The response came out as if on automatic, while the words she thought she’d never hear reverberated in her mind. “Coddington, did you just mean to…what you just said—”

  “I love you.” As if to underscore his meaning, he captured her lips in a tender, somehow reverent kiss that stole her breath as surely as the most intimate touch. “God knows I didn’t plan for this to happen, but plans mean nothing when it comes to love. We belong together, Cornelia. We both know it, so there’s no use fighting it a second longer.”

  “But what about Beth? I know you still love her, and I’m the one who—”

  “I will always love Beth,” he confirmed, nodding. “As she was my twin sister and my other half, I will probably go to my grave feeling like I’ve lost a part of myself. But her health was so very poor and her death, while agonizing for me to bear, brought about a quiet end to her lifelong suffering. I no longer blame you for this, Cornelia. The only reason I blamed you in the first place was because my grief was so intense I couldn’t think straight.”

  “Twin?” In a night full of surprises, that seemed to be the biggest shock of all. She opened her mouth to question him further when the tolling of midnight from Faneuil Hall sounded through the frozen winter night. With a gasp she looked to her timepiece and saw the second-hand had come to a stop on the number twelve.

  Midnight. Christmas morning. Wonder of wonders, she was still alive.

  No. It was more than that. She now had a reason to be alive.

  “Merry Christmas, Cornelia.” Again he kissed her, and in their positions she could feel his mounting hardness pressing at the juncture of her thighs. “Would you do me the honor of celebrating it with me, and every Christmas to come?”

  “Coddington…are you sure?” She had to ask. In a life where nothing lasted forever, forever was the one thing now lying before her like a dream. It seemed too good to be true. “Don’t forget who I am. I’ll never be a respectable lady of society.”

  “God save me from those boring creatures.” Pulling on the edges of the coat he had draped around her shoulders, he settled her against his chest, the cocooning warmth of his arms wrapping around her. “I know who you are—you’re my counterpart, my challenge, my goddess, my undying passion, and I hope one day, the mother of my children. Together we can build a life where you will never again know what it is to be lost and alone in the world.”

  “My dearest Coddington.” For the second time that night the unfamiliar sensation of tears welling up and overflowing caught her by surprise, and only then did she realize a person truly could cry with sheer, unadulterated joy. For a heartbeat in time, she thought of the cherub hidden within the egg and its expression of exultant peace. In that moment she understood the depth and breadth of that serenity. How could she not, when all the painful events in her life had led to this, the truest meaning of completion?

  “Yes,” she whispered as the airship’s engine continued to purr. “I will spend this Christmas with you, and every Christmas thereafter. Will that do?”

  “Yes, my little thief.” With a carefree smile she had never seen from him before, Roderick nuzzled her lips with his to warm them. “That’s the best Christmas present you could ever give me—the perfect, most precious gift of you.”

  About the Author

  A competitive figure skater from the age of eight, Stacy Gail began writing stories in between events to pass the time. By the age of fourteen, she told her parents she was either going to be a figure skating coach who was also a published romance writer, or a romance writer who was also a skating pro. Now with a day job of playing on the ice with her students, and writing everything from steampunk to cyberpunk, contemporary to paranormal at night, both dreams have come true.

  This Winter Heart

  This Winter Heart

  By PG Forte

  Santa Fe, The Republic of New Texacali, 1870

  Eight years ago, Ophelia Leonides’s husband cast her off when he discovered she was not the woman he thought she was. Now destitute after the death of her father, Ophelia is forced to turn to Dario for help raising the child she never told him about.

  Dario is furious that Ophelia has returned, and refuses to believe Arthur is his son—after all, he thought his wife was barren. But to avoid gossip, he agrees to let them spend the holidays at his villa. While he cannot resist the desire he still feels for Ophelia, Dario despises himself for being hopelessly in love with a woman who can never love him back.

  But Dario is wrong: Ophelia’s emotions are all too human, and she was brokenhearted when he rejected her. Unsure if she can trust the man she desperately loves, she fears for her life, her freedom and her son if anyone else learns of her true nature…

  30,000 words

  Dedicated to the Nine Naughty Novelists: Your finger
prints were all over my back while I wrote this!

  “In every winter’s heart,

  there is a quivering spring,

  and behind the veil of each night,

  there is a smiling dawn.”

  Author Unknown

  “there are no signs

  there are no stars aligned

  no amulets no charms

  to bring you back to my arms

  there’s just this human heart

  that’s built with this human fault”

  St. Vincent ~ All My Stars Aligned

  Chapter One

  December, 1870

  At a border checkpoint just outside Santa Fe, capital of the Republic of New Texacali

  The battered airship creaked in feeble protest as the mooring lines were winched tighter, tethering it to the landing dock. As the ship was forced lower, the grumbling of the overworked engines sent a faint shudder rippling through the entire structure, too mild for most people to feel. Ophelia Winter, however, was not most people. Her grasp on the brass handrail that circled the passenger lounge tightened imperceptibly as an answering vibration rattled the steel in her bones. She wished she’d had the funds necessary to travel aboard a newer ship, or at least one that had been better maintained, but she’d already stretched her meager finances as far as they would go. If things did not work out as she hoped, she wasn’t sure what her next step should be. She prayed she need never find out.

  Metal scraped wood and the ship lurched slightly as it finally touched down upon the planks, this time with enough force to jostle the passengers gathered in the lounge. A rumble of displeasure circulated through the room but Ophelia paid it no mind. Such discomfort was to be expected when traveling, especially when one’s circumstances were so greatly reduced.

  While a few of her fellow passengers were travelers from the still-wealthy Louisiana territories, Ophelia knew most of those on board were not. The majority were emigrants from the newly defeated Union. People who’d lost their homes or their livelihood in the chaos that had followed hard on the heels of the Confederate victory and who were now hoping for a fresh start in this burgeoning new country.

  People who, in that respect at least, were not so different from herself.

  She stared out one of the ship’s round portholes at the surrounding countryside. The pale earth was dusted with snow, but was otherwise rocky and bare except for the few twisted trees that clung to the craggy hills. Unlike many of the others, Ophelia knew this place well. She knew how hard and unyielding, how frustratingly difficult, it could be at times. Quite like many of its inhabitants, in fact. Still, as she also remembered, and all too well, it was surprisingly easy to overlook its flaws in moments such as these, when the light of the setting sun had spread itself like a blanket over the harsh winter landscape, warming it, softening the sharp edges, turning everything a gentle shade of pink.

  All things considered, it appeared this part of New Texacali had changed very little in the years since she was here last. Ophelia wasn’t quite sure how she felt about the lack of progress—either comforted, or desperately and depressingly nostalgic.

  “What sort of trees are those, Mama?” a small voice piped at her side. “I don’t believe I recognize them.”

  Ophelia smiled fondly down at her son. “There’s no earthly reason you should, Arthur, since they’re a kind of tree you’ve never seen before. Those are piñon. They do not grow back East.”

  “Piñon,” Arthur repeated thoughtfully.

  Just hearing the word spoken aloud, for the first time in years, called up sense memories. Ophelia remembered the soft sigh of the wind rustling in the branches, the bright crackle of fire on a cold winter’s night, the spicy fragrance of resin, so different from the pine trees she knew back home in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania.

  “Will Papa be here on the dock to meet us?” Arthur asked hopefully, bringing Ophelia’s thoughts back to the present.

  “No, love. Your father is unaware of our arrival, as yet. I decided not to write ahead of time to let him know we’d be coming.”

  Arthur frowned. His expression, when he looked at her so, reminded Ophelia very forcefully of her estranged husband. In general, people noted the strong resemblance to Ophelia when they met her son. Her own father had often proclaimed him to be the very image of her. Other than his eyes, that is. Arthur’s inquisitive brown orbs owed nothing to his maternal parent. Right now, those eyes were trained upon his mother’s face with an appraising gaze that seemed far too old and serious for his seven years. “Why, Mama? Did you think he would not be pleased to meet me?”

  Ophelia forced a smile. “Nothing of the kind. I just thought it might be more…fun if we were to surprise him.” It was not often she chose to tell her only child an outright lie, but in this case, what else could she do? Arthur would be more than a surprise to his father, he’d likely be an absolute shock. And, as Ophelia’s all-too-brief experience of the man had taught her, Dario Leonides did not respond well to shocks.

  Influential, aristocratic, overly impulsive and completely impossible to reason with while in a temper, Dario could make it very difficult for her to enter the country if he chose, and if he had the chance to do so. Ophelia would very much rather he not get that chance.

  She needed to speak with her husband in person. She needed to appeal to his better nature. She was sure he still had one, even if it had been years since he’d shown it to her. Most of all, she needed to win his cooperation. Even if she could no longer hope to win his love, at least he could give her that.

  When Arthur said nothing more, Ophelia was happy to resume her study of the world outside the airship. Laborers ran about on the dock, shouting orders, securing the ship’s moorings, wheeling a gangplank into position as the passengers prepared to disembark.

  “Did you really live here?” Arthur asked, sounding vaguely anxious. “I can’t picture it. It seems a very different sort of place than home.”

  “Indeed, I did live here.” Ophelia tried to invest as much confidence in her tone as possible. “And very happily too. I assure you it’s quite nice once you’re used to it.” In truth, for the short while she’d lived here, she’d felt herself more at home than she ever had before. Although, as she was forced to acknowledge, that might have had very little to do with the location itself.

  She had first come to Santa Fe as a new bride, brought here by her husband to take up residence in the home he’d had built for her on land that had been in his family’s possession for three generations. She’d spent the first two-and-a-half years of her marriage here, blissfully unaware of what lay ahead. “This is where your great-grandparents chose to settle, you know, so in a way, this place is a part of you. I’m sure you’ll soon find you feel right at home here. Even as I did.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Arthur replied dutifully, though his subdued tone suggested he thought otherwise.

  Ophelia could guess what her son’s next question would be, and she had no desire to discuss with him the reasons why she no longer made her home here. “Come along now,” she said, in an effort to distract him. “It’s time to go. I can see our luggage stacked there on the dock. We must engage a porter with a cart to help us with it.”

  Finding a porter presented no problem, though the absence of the steam-powered coaches so prevalent back home necessitated the hiring of a horse-drawn carriage to transport them to their hotel. Luckily, Arthur viewed this as an adventure and, in his excitement, completely failed to notice—or remark upon—his mother’s increased nervousness as they crossed the border.

  The border guard’s demeanor had been one of obvious boredom, as he paged without interest through their papers, vigorously stamping each one as he went. Suddenly, his hand paused and he bent his head to look more closely at the papers in his hand. “What is it that brings you to Santa Fe, Mrs…Leonides?” As he glanced up at her now, his expression reflected surprise mixed with curiosity.

  Entirely too much curiosity. “I’m here on bus
iness,” Ophelia replied in what she hoped were quelling tones. Not for the first time since leaving Pennsylvania behind her, she wished she’d had the forethought to procure papers for herself and her son using her maiden name. Of course the Leonides name would be recognized here, in the capital of the very republic the family had helped found. How could she have overlooked something so obvious? And what had her father been thinking to have allowed her to marry such a very public person in the first place?

  Perhaps he was counting on Dario, with all his wealth and the power that brought, to be able to protect her. It was much more likely, however, that he’d been too absorbed in his work and simply hadn’t been thinking at all. Not that she could blame him overmuch. Even if he had attempted to dissuade her, it would have done no good. She was in love and it was unlikely she’d have listened to him in any case.

  Upon seeing the guard’s raised eyebrow, Ophelia reluctantly amended her answer. “I’m sorry. Family business, I should have said.”

  “Of course.” The guard smiled slyly as he gathered up her paperwork. He returned it to her with a small bow. “Enjoy your stay, madam.”

  Ophelia sighed. She knew exactly what that avid gleam in the guard’s eye meant. By night’s end, word of her return would have spread clear across the city. She only wondered how long it would take before Dario heard about it. Suddenly it seemed that not alerting him ahead of time of her plans to come here might not have been her best move after all.