(Author’s note: I’m taking the week off. Merry Christmas!)
Buford hunched his shoulders as he trudged through the slush toward home after a long shift at the factory. He lived in a big city, though at times he forgot which city it was. Other times he decided it wasn’t worth the effort to remember what city it was because they were all alike anyway.
Then he reminded himself to be grateful he had a job. It was 1934, and most people were out of work. But his job drained his soul so much he could not enjoy the Christmas season. Besides that, he had no one to share his life with. Seven days before Christmas. What difference did it make?
In the gloomy twilight of his big city street, a glimmer caught in the corner of his eye. As he turned to look into a street level room of a tenement building Buford saw a young woman place a lit candle in the window. No one would have given her notice if she walked along the street, but flickering candle revealed her face in such a way that made him feel both sorrow and affection for her.
The next night Buford did not hunch his shoulders quite as much as he had before walking home. He automatically looked toward the tenement window. The young woman placed two lit candles on the sill. He studied her face as best he could and thought he sensed quiet desperation in the curve of her mouth. His sleep was restless that night.
The third night Buford thought he detected a tear glistening in her eyes as she put three candles in the window, and his heart began to break a bit. He hardly ate any of his supper at his boarding house and again had a restless night sleep. The vision of the young woman and the growing candle illuminations haunted him.
Buford’s step quickened the fourth night. His shoulders were full back, and his face took the sting of the sleet straight on. Hoping the woman would be putting out another candle, he dreaded seeing her face tinged with pain. There she was, in the tenement window putting down four candles. This time a sweet smile graced her face, which make Buford smile.
Work at the factory went swiftly for the next three days. Buford’s mind was filled with thoughts about the young woman. Would she place yet another candle in the window? Would the shimmering light reveal despair, hope or joy? On Christmas Eve Buford walked briskly toward the tenement building. He felt his heart beat faster. Would there actually be seven candles in the window? And would the angel be smiling? He was startled by the image that crossed his mind. Yes, she had become his angel.
When he stopped in front, he saw the young woman carefully place the seventh lit candle in the window. He could no longer contain his curiosity and affection. Buford went toward the tenement and tapped on the window. He smiled as she noticed him and raised the window.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been putting candles on the window sill for the past seven days.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. It’s just some silly dream I had.”
“Dreams are never silly.” Buford had never given much thought about dreams before now, but now he wanted to believe in them. “What did you dream?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“I promise.”
“I dreamed Santa Claus told me to light candles for seven nights and I would get my Christmas wish.”
“And what did you wish for?”
“I wished for someone to love.” She smiled gently at Buford. “I think I wished for you.”

Previously in the novel: War Secretary Edwin Stanton held President and Mrs. Lincoln captive under guard in basement of the White House. Duff and Alethia find pretending to be the Lincolns difficult, especially with Tad coming down sick. Stanton interrupts their dinner to make sure Duff is not eating too much.
“I don’t see why you can’t eat what you want.” Alethia’s fingers covered his hand, quivering at the hair across his knuckles and the warmth pulsating from his skin. “You’re a big, robust man who needs his food.”
“You should have seen me back in Michigan.” He turned to smile at Alethia. “I was near three hundred pounds. Biggest man in town.”
“Oh my.” She fluttered her eyes.
“My body’s used to having a heap of meat on it,” he said, “not like Mr. Lincoln, who’s always been a bag of bones.”
“Prison must have been terrible,” she consoled Duff. “To lose all that weight.”
“I don’t like to talk about that.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then stood and paced to the door. Pausing there, he hung his head. “Being here is like prison. Not getting to eat. Mr. Stanton’s mighty close to being a prison warden.”
“I thought the way he put his hand on your abdomen was disgraceful.” Alethia stood and went to Duff. “It was so unseemly.”
“I hate him,” he whispered. “I hate being here.” He turned to smile bashfully at her. “But not you. You make this bearable.”
“Why, thank you.” She touched his arm. “I feel the same.” After Duff pulled his arm away, Alethia looked back at her plate filled with food. She said, “If you wish to leave while I finish my dinner, you may. It must be frustrating to watch someone else enjoying food you can’t eat.”
“That’s very sweet of you, ma’am.” Duff walked to her chair and pulled it out. “It wouldn’t be proper for a husband to abandon his wife and let her eat alone.” He smiled. “Please. Sit. Enjoy. It smells delicious.”
Alethia gratefully sat and began to eat, thinking of his words—a husband and his wife. She wished that were true in the real world. Perhaps, after all this was over, she dreamed as she chewed on the collard greens. For the next half-hour they chatted and laughed, reminiscing about the pleasant times of the last two months, as though they were years of family memories—the irrepressible Tad, the lovely surroundings, the kind servants. In that suspended glow of romantic lies, Alethia felt happy, even loved. After she finished, she strolled to the stairs with Duff, who opened the door for her. She thought her heart would stop when he put his large arm around her shoulders. It was the first time Duff had ventured to make physical contact, and she held her breath, trying to keep from crying. They went into Lincoln’s bedroom where Alethia hoped Duff would dare make the impertinent suggestion that they spend the night in the same bed as man and wife. He removed his coat, hung it up, and then turned to smile at her.
“Good night, Mrs. Lincoln.”

Depression-era Texas farmhouse
(Author’s note: This is chapter one of my children’s novella Burly in which a little boy in Texas during the Depression received a best friend for life, a home-made burlap Teddy bear.)
Tiny rivers of rain rolled down the misty window pane by Herman’s bed in the loft of his parents’ farmhouse. They lived fifteen miles south of Cumby in North Texas, basically in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t know what time it was. All the thin sandy-haired boy knew was that it was wet, cold, dark, and he was lonely.
Now it was odd that he would feel lonely. His brother Tad lay in a bed not three feet from him and across the room behind a curtain held up with clothes line was his sister Callie. Downstairs in the room behind the kitchen were his parents. But still, Herman felt very lonely and very, very sad. Why should he feel this way? He didn’t know why; after all, he was only five years old. Soon the sad and lonely feelings became too strong, and little Herman began to cry softly until he finally fell asleep.
The next morning, after Callie and Tad had gone to school, Herman summoned his courage to talk to his mother about how he felt so lonely late at night, when everyone else was fast asleep. He didn’t dare mention it while he, his brother and sister ate breakfast. Tad, he knew, would have made fun of him.
“Mama,” he began hesitantly. “Do—do you ever feel sad and lonely—like at night?”
His mother stopped washing the dishes and looked quizzically at Herman with her soft gray-blue eyes. She brushed a wisp of light brown hair from her face and asked, “Whatever makes you say a thing like that?”
Herman shifted nervously in his home-made cane-bottomed chair and looked around the big room, first at the pot-bellied stove and then at the worn couch and chair in the far corner.
“Oh, it’s just that, late at night, when I can’t get to sleep, I start thinking that I’d like to have a friend.”
“Why, you have plenty of friends,” she replied with soft laughter. “There’s me, I’m your friend. And your papa. And Callie thinks you’re adorable. And your brother Tad–”
“I don’t think Tad likes me very much,” Herman interrupted.
“Oh, he’s your friend,” his mother reassured him. “It’s just he’s going through that age when I don’t think he likes anyone much.”
Herman almost added he didn’t think his papa liked him much either, but he didn’t because that really wasn’t what he was talking about.
“I mean, I want a friend my own age.”
His mother threw back her fragile head and giggled. “Well, there’s not much I can do about that. Living on a farm out here in the country like we do, we don’t have many youngsters running around for you to play with.”
“But still…” Herman’s voice trailed off. He knew his mother was right, and there wasn’t much use in talking about it anymore.
After a moment of silence that seemed as sad and lonely as the rain on the window pane, Herman’s mother said quietly, “You go on and gather the eggs in the hen house.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He walked slowly through the front door and around the side to the hen house. He stopped short when he saw his father unloading sacks of grain from their old pick-up. His father never beat him nor had he ever said a harsh word to him. But Herman was still a little afraid of him.
Father was a tall, boney man who looked like he had long worms all over his arms. Mother tried to explain to him once that those were just papa’s blood vessels. They stuck out like that because papa wasn’t very fat, but he was very, very strong. Still, Herman thought they looked scary. Maybe they would not seem scary if his father ever hugged him, but he didn’t, so the fear still pestered Herman like a mosquito on a hot summer day.
“Hi, papa!” Herman yelled out, trying to be friendly. His father looked at him, grunted and went about his work. So Herman went about his own chores. He did have to admit he felt good about helping out. He brought in the eggs, kept the kindling box filled which was next to the pot-bellied stove and helped his mother set the table every evening. He went into the dark hen house and felt into the warm, downy nests to find eggs.
Soon he became aware of voices outside by the barn. It was mother and father talking. Herman knew it wasn’t very nice to eavesdrop, but he put his head to a crack in the hen house to listen anyway.
“Woody,” his mother said warmly but with just a touch of urgent pleading, “it would mean so much to the boy if we could give him a teddy bear for his birthday. It’s next week.”
“Now you know we can’t afford any fancy extras like toys,” his father replied wearily.
“Just this morning he was telling me how he wished he had a friend,” she continued. “A teddy bear, just a little stuffed something for him to hold onto at night so he won’t be afraid.”
Herman’s heart jumped a moment. A stuffed animal to hug at night. It was too good to be true.
“Opal, we just can’t afford it,” his father said in his voice that meant he was tired of talking.
Just then something odd happened. Peeking through the crack Herman could see his father looking down at the burlap bag underneath his hand. His father stroked it and patted it for a second then looked at his wife. She stepped closer to him, and they talked in low tones, so soft that Herman couldn’t hear them anymore so he went back to gathering eggs.
Herman didn’t think much about what his parents had talked about that day. The next weeks he was too busy gathering eggs and kindling and playing with rocks which he pretended were cars and trucks. He sang songs with his sister Callie and had a fight with his brother Tad, for which his mother gave them both spankings.

Woodcut illustrating Shanghai Massacre
Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite.
(Author’s note: this chapter contains mature situations.)
Lady Elvira Chatsworth could not contain herself. At the exact moment of climax with the Prince of Wales, she emitted a scream, a glass-shattering scream. Not that it mattered because it was eight o’clock in the morning in the prince’s stateroom aboard the HMS Wyndemere one day out from Shanghai. They had danced and drank champagne all night. Her husband, the ambassador, went back to his cabin because he had an important diplomatic strategy session that morning, which allowed her to have an experience of a lifetime—being bedded by the future king of England. And no one could hear a sound.
David nuzzled her neck. “I am pleased the British ambassador was so preoccupied with his staff that I had the opportunity of entertaining his wife.”
“Yes, he’s quite upset,” Elvira said, trying to keep her body from tingling for the third time. “Everyone at Downing Street is in a dither over this Shanghai Massacre scandal.”
“Massacre?” David asked as his tongue darted into her bellybutton, tasting her body. “What massacre?”
“Don’t you know about the Shanghai Massacre? It’s the current world crisis!”
“That’s why the Royal Family has prime ministers, ambassadors and such to worry about unpleasant matters.”
“Unpleasant indeed.” Elvira tried to continue even though her breath was becoming labored. ‘The embassy in April overreacted to a student protest and ordered soldiers out onto the street. Several students were shot down. Now we are in a fix. If we relieve the ambassador in charge it would been an admission of guilt which Great Britain cannot do. But we cannot ignore the entire incident. The empire’s reputation is in shambles.”
“And when did this happen?”
“April.”
“Of what year?”
“This year, 1925.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Of course! The whole world is shocked.”
“I thought it was still 1924.”
“You are such a naughty boy.” She giggled.
David drew himself up and planted a kiss on her lips. “Those things have a way of resolving themselves.”
Elvira turned her face. “You mean you don’t care?”
“My dear, I don’t care much about anything.” He smiled. “Right at this moment I care about you.”
“And why is that? Why are you always involved with married women? Why weren’t you interested in Princess Stephanie of Germany? What a diplomatic coup that would be. A royal wedding between Britain and Germany. But no. You’re mad about women who belong to other men.”
“But, right now in this place, aren’t you glad?’
“You cad.”
“That’s what my father calls me.”
“I know very most of the women you romance believe you will demand they divorce their husbands and marry you.”
David nibbled at her ear. “Gossip.”
“I loathe gossip,” Elvira announced.
“Rot. You love gossip. You did nothing but gossip about the affairs of London high society from midnight until the sun rose. You almost bored me to tears. Most of what you said was wrong.” He clucked her under the chin. “I know you can’t wait to disembark at Shanghai, have tea with the other ladies of the embassy and tell them you have slept with the Prince of Wales.”
“You are a scoundrel.”
“In fact, why don’t you tell them I am ill equipped to mount any woman and you spent the entire evening listening to me complain about my father?”
“How low can you be?”
“Oh, much lower. Tell them I’m a homosexual and am using all these wives as a cover.”
She slapped at his bare shoulder. “Why would you spread such lies about yourself?”
“If people keep busy spreading the lies they can’t figure out the truth.”
“And what is the truth?” For a flickering moment Elvira anticipated hearing some truly outrageous admission by the Prince.
“I want to make love to you one more time before breakfast.”
She studied his lean, tanned, handsome face. One eye squinted more than the other, making him more intriguing. She didn’t know why she pretended to be indignant. His reputation was as clear as a polished goblet. He traveled the world shaking hands for his country. And he shook hands like an expert. That was no gossip. Sliding down under the covers, Elvira smiled.
“As you command, Your Majesty.”