Abby shrieked and jumped back. All she succeeded in doing was smacking herself smartly against the stone of the stairwell.

"Who's there?" she said, her voice warbling like a bird's.

" 'Tis I," a cultured voice said from the darkness. "Your beloved Sir Sweetums."

Against her better judgment, Abby strained to see into the shadowy hallway across from her. What she really needed to be doing was getting up and looking for a weapon, not peering into the shadows to catch a glimpse of a ghostly cat who seemed to be having delusions of conversa-tion. Maybe that big cleaver in the kitchen would be protection enough.

And then, before she could gather her limbs together and move, Sir Sweetums himself appeared across the gaping hole that separated the stairwell from what should have been, and likely would be again, a hall-way leading to bedrooms.

63 Abby sank down onto a step and gaped at him in amazement. "Sir Sweetums?" she managed.

"But of course," he said, giving his paw a delicate lick and skimming said paw alongside his nose. He finished with his ablutions and looked at her. "Who else?"

"Ooooh," Abby said, clutching the rock on either side of her. "I've really lost it this time. Garretts aren't supposed to hallucinate!"

"No hallucination, dearest Abigail," Sir Sweetums said placidly. "Just me, come to bring you to your senses. I've been trying for years, since the moment you lost your wits over that pimply-faced chap named Mad Dog McGee when you were twelve."

Garretts never whimpered. Abby thought moaning might not be a blot against her, so she did it thoroughly.

"No vapors, I beg of you!" Sir Sweetums exclaimed, holding up his paw.

"You're talking," Abby said, hoa.r.s.ely. She shook her head. "I'm talk-ing to a cat. I can't believe this."

"We've talked before," Sir Sweetums pointed out. "I have many fond memories of conversing whilst I stalked the b.u.t.terfly bush and you put-tered amongst the hollyhocks-"

"That was different. You were using words like 'meow' and 'prrr.' You weren't going on about me puttering amongst my hollyhocks." Abby glared at him. "This is unnatural!"

" 'Tis the season for giving, my dear, and this is the gift given to ani-mals each year from midnight on the eve of the Christ Child's birth to sunrise the next morning."

"But you aren't alive," Abby whispered. "I know you aren't."

"Ah," Sir Sweetums agreed, with a nod, "there's the heart of it. I wished I could have come to you and told you, but once a feline enters the Guardian's a.s.sociation, he cannot go back. Unless he has further work to do." Sir Sweetums c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "And to be sure, I had fur-ther work to do with you, my girl!"

Abby leaned back against the stone and shivered once. When it had pa.s.sed, she took a deep breath and let it out again.

"All right," she said. "I can handle this." She laughed, in spite of her-

64 .

self. "I'm living in 1238. If I can believe that, I can believe I'm talking to you." She looked at her very beloved Sir Sweetums and felt her eyes begin to water. "I missed you so much."

Sir Sweetums coughed, a little uncomfortably it seemed to her. "Of course, my dear."

"Did you miss me?"

"Of course, my dear," he said, gently. "Out of the mortals I had charge of during my nine lives, you were my favorite. Didn't you know?"

Abby smiled through her tears. "No, I didn't know. But thanks for telling me."

Sir Sweetums smiled, as only a cat can smile. "My pleasure. Now, on to the reason I am here. You really must get hold of yourself in regards to The Miles. He is a perfectly acceptable human. Indeed, I would have to say he is the best of the matches you could have made."

"He's a total jerk," she grumbled.

"Strong-willed," Sir Sweetums countered. "Sure of himself and un-afraid to speak his mind."

"He may speak, but he doesn't listen. I told him my most precious dream yesterday morning and he didn't even acknowledge it!"

"Maybe he was giving thought to your words."

"Hrumph," she said, unappeased. "If that's true, why did he leave?"

"When he returns, you'll ask."

"I'm not going to be here when he gets back."

"Tsk, tsk," Sir Sweetums said. "My dearest Abigail, you don't think I brought you all the way here just to have you leave, do you?"

"You?" she screeched. "You're the one responsible for this?"

"Who else?" he said, with a modest little smile.

"Why?" she exclaimed. "Why in the world did you drag me all the way here?"

"Because this is where you need to be," he said, simply.

"Right. Without chocolate, my superfirm mattresss, and running wa-ter. Thanks a lot."

Sir Sweetums shook his head patiently. "Really, my dear. Those are things you can live without."

65 "No, I can't. I'm going home."

"Conveniences there may be in the future, dear girl, but who awaits there to share those conveniences with you?"

Well, he had a point there. Abby scowled and remained silent. She was not going to let a cat, no matter how much she loved him, talk her into remaining in miserable old medieval England.

"Abigail," Sir Sweetums said gently, "Miles is a dashedly fine chap."

"He's a convicted heretic!"

"Abigail," Sir Sweetums chided, "you know the truth of that."

"Well, then . . . he's always trying to kiss me into submission," she finished, triumphantly. "It's barbaric."

"Consider his upbringing, my dear! The man is a knight. He is used to taking what he wants, when he wants it."

"And what if I don't want to be taken?" she said, feeling peevish. Peevish was good. It beat the heck out of feeling hurt.

"Then tell him so. But I rather suspect you would find you like it."

"I'm surrounded by chauvinists," she muttered-peevishly.

Sir Sweetums looked unruffled. "Think on the alternatives you've had in the past, my dear. What of Brett? Would he have fought for you? Ex-erted himself to do anything but help you spend your funds and deplete your pantry?"

"No," she admitted reluctantly.

"And what of those other insufferable fops you managed to find yourself keeping company with? Anyone there who had the spine to care for you?"

"Lord over me, you mean."

Sir Sweetums conceded the point with a graceful nod. "As The Miles does. Perfectly acceptable behavior for a medieval knight. A most modern medieval knight, if I were to venture an opinion. He's quite liberal-minded in his thinking, my dear. I've no doubt that you two will see eye to eye in the end."

"He has a big check mark in the Red Flag column," she insisted. "Running out is the kiss of death with me."

"Perhaps he had affairs to see to."

"It would have been nice to have been told, you know. How are we

66 .

supposed to work things out, not that I'm sure I want to, when he isn't even around?"

"You've waited all this time for him, my dear. What are a few more hours in the grander scheme of things?"

Abby looked at her most beloved of cats and, in spite of herself, found she had to agree with him. Maybe Miles had left for a reason. A good reason.

"It'd better be a d.a.m.n good reason," she muttered. "And he'd better come rolling back in here before long, or I'll give my second thoughts a second thought!"

A throat cleared itself from immediately behind her. "Actually, my lady, there was very little rolling involved. I walked in quite well on my own two feet."

Abby whipped around to look at Miles, who was standing at the crook of the stairs. He climbed up another step or two. He smiled at her, then his gaze drifted across the gap to Sir Sweetums.

Miles sneezed.

"Likewise, I'm sure," Sir Sweetums said, with a swish of his tail.

Abby couldn't decide who to watch. Miles looked like he was going to faint again-she knew that look. She put out her hand to steady him.

"That's Sir Sweetums," she supplied.

"So I gathered."

"He's talking. But only until sunrise."

"How positively lovely," Miles managed.

Sir Sweetums grimaced. "Ye gads, boy, get on with this, won't you? 'Tis almost dawn. I'd like to see The Abigail comfortably settled before the night is out."

"Maybe I don't want to be comfortably settled," Abby interjected.

"Sir Miles?" Sir Sweetums prompted.

Miles came up another step and knelt. Abby stiffened her spine and reminded herself of all the reasons she had to be angry with him.

"Abby?" he said, quietly.

Oh, great. Now he decided to call her Abby. She scowled at him.

"This isn't going to work."

He looked at her solemnly. "Juts what about me doesn't suit? My vis-

Gift of Christmas Past 67 age? Tis too ugly to be gazed at for the rest of your life?" He flexed an arm for her benefit. "Too scrawny? Too frail? Here, come sniff me."

She leaned close, then wrinkled her nose. "All right, so you don't smell too great. What have you been doing?"

"I've been riding hard since midday yesterday. Now, in what other thing do I fail?"

"You dress better than I do. A very important issue with me."

Miles plunked a small, jangly bag in her lap. "Hire a seamstress. Anything else?"

Abby fingered the money in the bag. She looked at Sir Sweetums, who was watching her silently. Then she looked up at the stars; she couldn't look at Miles.

"I want it all," she said, quietly. "Kids, a garden, Christmas." She cleared her throat. "And a husband who loves me."

"And I would not?" he asked.

She looked at him. "You left. What am I supposed to understand from that? I tell you what is most important to me, you ignore me, and then you leave."

"I went to fetch a priest."

She frowned at him. "Why? So you could have me exorcised?"

Miles smiled. "Nay, Abby, so he could see us properly wed."

She blinked.

"Wed?" she asked.

"Aye."

"I-".