LONDON WAS unchanged, still the same smoggy mess of battered buildings and unbroken spirits. Laurence moved without thinking, booking himself into the Charing Cross Hotel—still somewhat the worse for wear after the Blitz—until he could find proper lodgings, then popping down to the news seller on the station concourse to buy a paper and catch up on what new troubles had wracked the world in his absence.
He couldn’t finish reading it. Instead he just stared out his window, running through everything that had happened over and over again.
He’d known he needed to come back to London—known it had to end. He just hadn’t expected it to end like this.
That night he dreamed of holly, glossy and sharp on every side of him as he staggered and slid along a muddy path. Twice, as the path curved, he glimpsed Avery’s figure far ahead of him, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, but no matter how much he tried, Laurence couldn’t reach him.
He forced himself to leave the hotel the next day, walked the tired, tatty streets of central London until his feet ached, getting lost more times than he cared to count. He made himself see a show, though he took in nothing but a vague impression of cheerful singing and brightly clad dancers.
He walked back to the hotel through heavy wind, remembering Avery’s voice singing carols and stopping at every intersection to check his direction.
The wind did not let up for days, though the snow seemed to have faltered out for another year. The tempest got under Laurence’s skin, made him dream of dark seas under sullen skies. He found rooms in a lodging house and started scanning the small ads in the paper for work. Nothing appealed, so he took himself off to see his old professor for advice.
“Leave medicine?” Baldwin growled at him. “Why the devil would you do that?”
“Tricky to prescribe when you’re essentially innumerate,” Laurence observed.
“Pah. Get yourself one of those mechanical devices, or better still, a wife.”
Laurence grimaced.
“That’s the thing,” Baldwin continued, warming to his theme. “Plenty of girls will leap at a doctor. Get yourself a bright young nurse who can add up, and you’re set for life. Plenty of them going spare these days.”
“And what an appealing prospect for her,” Laurence observed, not quietly enough.
“Doing yourself down, boy. A pretty nurse and a country practice, and all’s well that ends well. Plenty of jobs out there, if you can put up with this nationalization lark.”
Laurence, who was quite in favor of a national health service, held his tongue and nodded his way through the rest of lunch. He didn’t want a wife.
He wanted Avery, and that would have been a daunting realization even if his lover hadn’t vanished from the face of the earth.
On the way back to his lodging house, still annoyed, he muddled a turning and somehow ended up on Charing Cross Road. Since he was already there, he dropped into Foyles. Despite failing to find the book he wanted, settling for another, and being roundly abused for queuing in the wrong line, he emerged feeling oddly patriotic and wandered over the road to browse the secondhand shops.
It was there that he stumbled on something interesting—a narrow battered volume in the local history section, Legends and Folklore of Alton and Surrounding Villages. Pulling it out, Laurence flicked to the index. Under Privett, it read See fairies, curses and enchantment.
He bought it without really registering the price and clutched it close to his chest all the way to the Underground station and back to his lodgings. There he spread out the battered little volume on his desk and turned to the passage indicated, his fingers clumsy as he turned the pages. It read:
A charming Christmas legend associated with the village of PRIVETT, southwest of ALTON, warns of the dangers of rejecting fairy favors. One Avery or Aubrey Copland, supposedly a warlock living in the area, is said to have attracted the attention of the fairy queen. Stories vary as to whether the unfortunate wizard trifled with her affections or not, but all agree that he rejected her advances and was punished with transformation, either into a copse of holly or a mistle thrush. Legend claims that the wizard is granted twelve nights a year, from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, to seek out the true love, which will break his curse. Older stories insist that wizard Copland was once seen frequently in the area at Christmastide, and young girls were warned to beware strange men lingering by a certain holly copse near to the ruined Mistle Cottage. He has not been seen for many a year—perhaps some kind-hearted village maiden has finally freed him from his curse!
Laurence put the book down and thought of Avery on that first night, telling him how he no longer made plans for Christmas. Had he given up searching for love?
Twelve days a year. Laurence’s brain could not process how long that must have been in total—how many Yule logs Avery had burned to mark the passing of each chance.
It could just be a tale and his Avery a local man who knew it and had hidden behind it to seduce a stranger.
No. Laurence had felt the touch of that magic. He believed.
And for the first time since he had understood his career was over, he felt like he had a purpose. He glanced at the calendar on the wall. January 15. That was—well, that was many days until next Christmas, even if he couldn’t work out how many. It would come again, though, and Laurence would be ready.
He wasn’t sure if he was in love with Avery or Avery with him—for all the lonely yearning of his heart, twelve days was hardly long enough for more than lust or infatuation. But maybe twice twelve days could do it, or thrice twelve. Maybe all he would manage would be to help Avery find someone else.
But he owed the man, and it would a damn sight more satisfying than wasting away doing nothing for the rest of his life. By the time the afternoon was out, he had penned a note to his solicitor, asking him to find out who owned the cottage and how much they would sell for, and was busy jotting down every other idea that dashed through his mind.
To his disappointment, a week later, his solicitor informed him that Lady Copland was not immediately willing to sell, but would appreciate it if he called on her at the Savoy to discuss the matter at 3:00 p.m. on the twenty-fourth.
Both frustrated and a little irritated by the peremptory summons, no matter how intriguing the surname, Laurence decided not to risk the Tube when he was in no state of mind to concentrate on navigating the exits. He took a cab to the Savoy and had to force a genial smile as he made his way inside. It felt like stepping back ten years—everything inside was discreetly luxurious in the way the best London hotels had always been. It felt as if the war had never happened.
He was shown into a private parlor with a quiet murmur of “Surgeon Captain Payne, milady.”
“Excellent,” a hearty voice said, and a woman who could only be Lady Copland strode across the room to him, offering her hand in a firm shake. She was about his own age, more handsome than pretty, short-haired, and clad in a garment so shapeless and ugly Laurence couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. She was clearly unconventional in the way only the upper classes could truly get away with, and Laurence’s initial animosity faded a little. He liked people who had the courage to thumb their nose at convention.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Copland.” The name might be familiar, but he could see no resemblance to Avery in her face.
“Likewise. Come and sit down, Captain—or is it Doctor now you’re on land? Tell me, what in the world brought your attention to Mistle Cottage? You don’t look like one of these developer johnnies, so what do you want with the place?”
“Do let him get a word in edgeways, Althea.”
Lady Copland, who certainly did not look like Laurence’s idea of an Althea, huffed but then waved to the woman already sitting at the tea table. “My secretary, Miss Hellier. Well?”