A Clockwork Christmas Angel Read Online Free

springs inside lost their motive force and locked into position. Abigail realized with horror that she had forgotten to wind up her arm that morning. Her eyes grew wide, staring uselessly at the wine that would never reach her lips.
    “I say, I wonder... what was that noise?” the other lady mused.
    “I haven’t the faintest,” Elizabeth replied from nearby. “Miss Hogarth? Are you all right? Do you feel ill?”
    “Y..yes... I mean... no,” Abigail gasped. “I need some... air. Excuse me.” The rest of the women looked on with concern as she staggered to the door and lurched outside before the tears broke for real this time. She hurried down to the carriage at the curb, her arm still stuck in its ridiculous position and her only thought to leave before her shame took over. She had been a fool to think that she could go back to the way things were.
    ****
    Matthew looked up from grinding out his third cigarette and saw the lady who had accompanied Lady Talbot running oddly back towards him. She staggered once which raised all kinds of alarms in his conditioned brain. He rushed forward and caught her before she could fall, one arm around her waist and the other around her forearm, but her glove rolled up to her wrist under his grip and revealed the sheen of burnished metal. “Oh, no! No!” She sobbed and tried to pull away from him.
    “Ma’am,” he drawled and maintained his strong hold, “I can’t begin to help you if’n you run away. What’s the trouble?”
    Abigail stared at the blurry image of the man through her tears. “I’m a monster, can’t you see that?” Her voice shook with agitation.
    “No, m’am. I see you’re missin’ an arm. That’s all.”
    “What?” Her mind became lucid at the sudden unexpected turn of his words.
    “I was in the War ‘tween the States. Saw lots of folks, men n’ women, have to get ‘em.”
    “But I was an actress,” she sobbed. “My life is ruined.”
    “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. I ain’t going to start believin’ a pretty little thing like you is ruined.” A handkerchief appeared out of his jacket pocket as he guided her behind the carriage. “Best you not be seen from the house,” he explained. “Talk seems deadly in this part of the world.”
    “Now,” he said once he had concealed her from curious eyes, “what happened to your arm?”
    Abigail stared at the man and realized with a shock that it was Matthew the cab driver but his cultured speech was gone, replaced with an American drawl. “What happened to your voice?” she sniffed.
    “Good question. But I asked first.”
    Abby looked down. “I forgot to wind it up.”
    “Oh,” he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to have to wind up a limb. “Do you have the key?”
    “Yes.” she said and flushed a deep red.
    Again, he seemed to know her meaning. “I’ll just... uh, turn my back while you... get it.”
    After a moment of the tantalizing rustling of fabric, her voice said, “I’m going to have to rely on you as a gentleman to help me wind myself.”
    Matthew turned to see her perched atop one of the carriage wheels, her dress exposed at the shoulder, the delicate curve and pale skin making his breath draw in. “I’m sorry for having to be so familiar, Miss...?”
    “Abigail Hogarth,” she replied and closed her eyes as his hands touched her. They were rough hands, used to work, but they were almost reverential in the delicacy with which they made contact with her flesh. The harsh sound of winding gears and springs came to her ears, and she let out a sigh. His hands stopped moving.
    “I’m not hurtin’ you, am I?” he asked.
    “Not at all, Mister... ?”
    “Matthew Boucher, but you can call me Matt, ma’am. I don’t stand much on manners.”
    He resumed winding up her arm, and Abby closed her eyes. She was enjoying his hands on her. It had been so long since she had... She shook her head at the inappropriate thoughts and then realized that her