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could afford to be honest. "Because she's the loveliest thing I've seen in a long while."
    Trudy's brows shot up. "Truly? Ye didn't act as if ye thought so." The resentment on her face made him grin. Then, she muttered something that confused him, "By all rights, she should be the most beautiful sight ye've ever seen."
    “Why?”      
    “Herumph!” Trudy crossed her arms in a gesture of pique that reminded him strongly of Francis, only Matthew realized at once that indeed she was more ravishing than anything he’d ever imagined before. Even in his delusion, however, he could not bring himself to say such a thing aloud.
    With his head propped on the pillows, he could just see her delicate body and her enchanting face between the tall posts of his bed. The curtains fell on either side of her, making a stage, as if she were putting on a private performance for his sake.
    The ache of ague racked his joints, and he ought to want nothing so much as the oblivion of sleep. Still, he kept his eyes open for the pleasure of watching her. When he'd closed them, he had found that her image faded quickly, just as Francis's did, whereas his other dreams always seemed to be enhanced.
    "So." She seemed strangely ill at ease for an illusion. "Ye did find this Faye passable at least."
    "Far more than that."
    "Then, why did ye let her go without asking to see her again?"
    He shook his head and sighed. "My dear girl, I quite see you are taking the part of devil's advocate, but there is no point, truly."
    "Why?"
    "Because I shall never tilt at windmills again."
    "And why would it be tilting at windmills to see what she did with yer money?"
    Because I would not be going to see where my money was spent so much as to see her again, which was what you asked.
    Strange, Matthew felt suddenly, but this conversation had none of the logic his speech with Francis always had. It was more like the twisted talk ladies engaged in when they were hoping for compliments. He would not be manipulated by his own delusion, though he could enjoy the way her pixie-like features betrayed her emotion from hope to joy to chagrin.
    He discovered a perverse wish inside himself to make her smile.
    “I should not see Miss Meriwether again for fear of making a fool of myself."
    To his intense delight, a blush suffused her face. "Yer never a fool."
    "Oh, no?" The memory of his most foolish moment slapped him in the face. "I beg to differ. It is certainly most foolish to nourish feelings for a faithless woman."
    "Sure and it is. But ye don't know, do ye, if Faye is such a one."
    "I was not speaking of Faye."
     
    Trudy felt the bitterness in his words like a weight down deep inside her stomach. So, he had been lured by someone before, and to no end. That was why he had not wished to follow her.
    She stared at Matthew's ravaged face, shadowed by the bed curtains, and could almost feel the intense heat emanating from his body. Some would be due to the fever, of course, but that last almost-blast had come from the fury inside him. She knew he was angry with himself, however, and not with the woman who'd abused him.
    A desire to make him forget all about that woman grew powerfully inside her.
    She tried another tack. "If ye feel that way, then there's nothing to worry about. Ye'll never have to see this Faye again. But it seems ye've forgotten about one thing, at least."
    She liked the way his dark eyes glowed darker when he responded to her.
    "What would that one thing be?"
    "That it's the Yuletide, the time to be generous to yer inferiors. Don't ye think ye should be thinking of others and not of yerself?"
    He raised an offended eyebrow. "Am I mistaken? Did I not just give that young lady a draft for twenty-five pounds?"
    "Sure and ye did. But there are others who are needful, ye know, and it might do ye some good to think of their misery instead of yer own."
    "Now, you even sound like Miss Faye Meriwether." The similarity did not seem to disgust him, though. As he