Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl Read online

  Set sail for love in this sparkling new adventure in #1 New York Times bestselling author Victoria Alexander’s Lady Travelers Society series.

  Harry Armstrong has spent years in Egypt, recovering relics and disregarding rules. Now he’s back in England with a new title and a new purpose: penning his exploits. But his efforts are overshadowed by London’s favorite writer about Egypt—a woman they call The Queen of the Desert, of all things. Worse, her stories—serialized in newspapers and reprinted in books—are complete rubbish.

  Miss Sidney Honeywell didn’t set out to deceive anyone. It’s not her fault readers assumed her Tales of a Lady Adventurer in Egypt were real! Admitting her inadvertent deception now would destroy her reputation and her livelihood. But when the Earl of Brenton challenges her to travel to Egypt to prove her expertise, accompanied by his dashing, arrogant nephew, what choice does she have but to pack her bags?

  With the matchmaking founders of the Lady Travelers Society in tow, Harry is determined to expose Sidney’s secret. But the truth might not be as great a revelation as discovering that love can strike even the most stubborn of hearts.

  Praise for Victoria Alexander’s Lady Travelers Society series

  The Lady Travelers Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen

  “Alexander celebrates the spirit of adventure, elevates dubious scheming with good intentions, and advocates for the yielding of judgment and practicality to hedonism and happiness. Readers will savor every page.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Readers will immediately find themselves thoroughly disarmed by Alexander’s deliciously droll wit and flair for clever characterization, both of which are on full display in this exceptional start to the author’s sparkling new Lady Travelers Society series.”

  —Booklist

  “A delightfully humorous romantic adventure...the fun read of the season!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “The Lady Travelers Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen is a mouthful to recite, but a delight to read.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “[It’s] exactly the sort of thing when you’re in the mood for a non-angsty, funny and well-written historical.”

  —All About Romance

  The Lady Travelers Guide to Larceny with a Dashing Stranger

  “A wonderful continuation of a highly enjoyable series.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “For love, laughter, and lots of fun, read Victoria Alexander.”

  —Stephanie Laurens, New York Times bestselling author

  “Victoria Alexander’s second Lady Travelers Society novel is a sparkling gem filled with witty dialogue, intriguing characters, and a delightful romance. I didn’t want to put it down.”

  —The Romance Dish

  Also available from Victoria Alexander

  The Lady Travelers Society

  The Lady Travelers Guide to Larceny with a Dashing Stranger

  The Rise and Fall of Reginald Everheart (novella)

  The Lady Travelers Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen

  The Proper Way to Stop a Wedding (in Seven Days or Less) (novella)

  Victoria Alexander

  The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl

  You always need friends to help you through the desert—in Egypt and everywhere else. This book is for Lizzie, April, Mary, Jenn and Laura with gratitude and thanks for their generous and continuous help navigating the wilderness.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  London, January 1892

  “WOULD ANYONE CARE to explain this to me?” Sidney Althea Gordon Honeywell looked up from the newspaper clippings spread before her on the table in her small dining room. “Well?”

  Across the table, three of the dearest ladies Sidney had ever known stared back at her, the very picture of elderly innocence.

  “Anyone,” Sidney prompted. “Anyone at all?”

  “I think it speaks for itself, dear,” Lady Guinevere Blodgett said in a vaguely chastising manner.

  Mrs. Persephone Fitzhew-Wellmore nodded. She and Lady Blodgett had long insisted Sidney call them by their given names—Poppy and Gwen—in spite of the nearly fifty-year difference in their ages as it made them feel terribly old otherwise and they weren’t at all fond of that. “I don’t really see what needs to be explained.”

  The third member of the trio, Mrs. Ophelia Higginbotham—Aunt Effie—wisely held her tongue.

  Sidney narrowed her eyes. “You have nothing to say?”

  “Not quite yet.” Effie—her grandmother’s dearest friend and an aunt by affection rather than blood—smiled pleasantly. “I would rather hear your thoughts first.”

  “No doubt.” Sidney studied the clippings on the table although there was no need. The words had burned themselves into her mind the moment she read them. “It appears we have a series of letters to The Times from—” she picked up a clipping “—the Earl of Brenton in which he alleges that I don’t know what I write about. That my stories are total fiction. That I’ve never been to Egypt. That I am in fact a fraud. And, as we all know—” she blew a resigned breath “—I am.”

  “Rubbish,” Aunt Effie said staunchly. “You never claimed your stories were anything other than fiction.”

  “It’s not your fault that the public decided your adventures were real,” Poppy added.

  “Regardless, I should have corrected the mistaken impression the moment I became aware of it.” It still bothered Sidney that she had allowed herself to be talked out of doing exactly that.

  When Sidney had begun writing her Tales of a Lady Adventurer in Egypt in an attempt to supplement her modest income shortly after her mother’s death four years ago, she had no idea her work would ever be published, let alone become popular. Sidney’s father died some thirteen years ago, leaving Sidney and her mother a cozy house near Portman Square and an adequate income from a small trust. Father no doubt assumed Mother would eventually remarry or at least that his daughter would find a husband, but Sidney had not had the opportunity. Mother never recovered from losing the love of her life and her grief took a toll on her health. It was left to Sidney to run their small household as well as care for her mother, a responsibility Sidney neither questioned nor resented.

  “Your popularity did take us all unawares. But when your book was published with all of your previously published
stories from the Daily Messenger it did seem everyone was reading it and clamoring for more of your work. By then it really was too late.” Gwen shrugged. “It’s hard to undo something like that. No one ever believes it was inadvertent. We know you, of course, and we are well aware that you simply didn’t notice the attention your stories were receiving. You do tend to live in your own little world when you’re writing, Sidney dear.”

  In hindsight Sidney felt like something of a ninny but writing did sweep her away to another world altogether. A world of adventure and romance that at times seemed more real than the London she lived in.

  “Besides, we thought it was quite thrilling,” Poppy said, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Why, you’ve become famous. The Queen of the Desert and all.”

  Sidney winced at the title her readers had bestowed upon her.

  “And wasn’t your Mr. Cadwallender rather pleased that your readers thought your adventures were true?” Poppy pointed out.

  “The man was ecstatic. He said it would make the stories more popular and I allowed myself to be convinced.” Sidney struggled to keep calm even as her future, her dreams, were crumbling around her. “I should have known it would come to this.”

  Sidney still wasn’t sure how the public misunderstanding had happened. After all, the main character in Sidney’s stories was Millicent Forester, a charming young widow and intrepid adventurer who had lost her husband shortly after they arrived in Egypt. A woman confident and courageous and all the things Sidney was not. But while Millicent was nothing more than a figment of Sidney’s imagination, her writing was based on the journals of her grandmother Althea Gordon. Admittedly Sidney did take a fair amount of poetic license, and with each new work, her stories bore less and less resemblance to her grandmother’s experiences. Sidney wouldn’t have known anything about her grandmother at all had it not been for Aunt Effie.

  It was shortly after her father’s death that Sidney first made Ophelia Higginbotham’s acquaintance. She was the wife of a military man who had then become an explorer and adventurer when his days of service to the Crown ended. Effie had met Sidney’s grandmother through mutual acquaintances. Years later, Effie would tell Sidney it was as if they’d each discovered a sister they never knew they had. They forged a friendship that would last the rest of Althea’s life. Much of that life was spent in Egypt with Sidney’s grandfather Alfred, locating and excavating ancient ruins and recovering lost artifacts. Althea regularly wrote her dear friend of their adventures and kept scrupulous records in the form of her journals that she would leave with Effie for safekeeping when she and her husband headed back to the desert.

  It was through her grandmother’s letters to Effie that Sidney learned of her mother’s estrangement from her parents. It had always been something of a mystery and while Sidney was named in part for her grandmother, her mother had avoided further discussion. The Gordons were lost at sea when Sidney was very young and she never knew them. But with each of her grandmother’s letters the story of her life unfolded. Sidney’s mother had accompanied her parents on their Egyptian expeditions when she was a girl but grew to detest travel in general as well as the climate, the desert and all things Egyptian. When she was old enough, her parents allowed her to stay in England and attend school although, to read Grandmother’s letters, leaving her only child behind was a heart-wrenching decision. In spite of visits home to England, Althea and her daughter grew apart. Mother blamed Egypt and she never returned to the land of the pharaohs.

  Effie became Sidney’s friend and, in many ways, her mentor. Neither woman thought it wise to let Sidney’s mother know of their relationship which did seem wrong but also necessary. There was no doubt Mother would not take it well and, given her fragile health, Sidney did want to avoid any upset. What would have been even worse in her mother’s eyes was that Sidney fell in love. Passionately, irrevocably in love with the idea of travel, of seeing foreign lands and, most especially, with Egypt.

  From then on, Sidney read everything she could about the country, its past and its present. She took night classes at Queen’s College on Egyptian history and civilization, hieroglyphics and excavations, and all sorts of other fascinating subjects. She attended lectures and exhibits, often accompanied by Effie and her friends.

  When Mother died, Sidney realized her trust would continue to keep a roof over her head but little else. Her dreams of traveling the world and at last seeing Egypt for herself would remain nothing more than that unless she came up with a way to generate additional income. Aunt Effie had not only encouraged her writing, but had brought her initial offerings to the attention of Mr. James Cadwallender at Cadwallender’s Daily Messenger, the paper that now published her work.

  “There’s really no getting around it.” Sidney shook her head. “His lordship is right. I am a charlatan, a fake, a fraud.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Effie huffed. “The fact that these adventures are not technically yours—”

  “Although you do own the writing you based them on,” Poppy said, “so in the strictest definition of the term, one could easily argue that they do belong to you. Therefore they are yours.”

  “—does not make them any less true, at the heart of it at least,” Effie continued. “Really, there are two points to consider here.” She held her hands up as if balancing a scale. “On one hand—” she raised her left hand “—you have never claimed you personally had these adventures. On the other—” she lowered her left hand and raised her right “—they are, more or less, true stories.”

  “Although as Althea was married to Alfred, I suspect there were not quite as many dashing gentlemen in her experiences as Sidney has in her stories,” Poppy murmured.

  “Millicent Forester is a young widow, Poppy,” Gwen reminded her. “It wouldn’t be any fun at all if there wasn’t the occasional dashing gentleman in her way.”

  “They’re simply not your experiences,” Effie finished.

  “And therein lies the problem.” Sidney sighed and shuffled through the clippings on the table. “Or one of the problems.” In her dismay over the earl’s scathing comments, she had completely ignored the rest of this disaster. “His lordship’s letters are not the worst of it though, are they?”

  “They are dreadful letters.” Poppy huffed. “Simply dreadful.

  Gwen sniffed. “Very nearly rude, I would say.”

  “And yet—” Sidney’s tone hardened “—not the worst of it.” She moved several of the clippings to one side. “These are the letters from the earl.” She waved at the remaining clippings. “While these responses are allegedly from me.”

  The ladies wisely said nothing.

  “I did not write these.” Sidney narrowed her eyes. “Which begs the question of who did.”

  Gwen, Poppy and Effie traded glances. Effie drew a deep breath. “It’s my fault I’m afraid. I started this. When that vile man wrote the first letter I should have ignored it.”

  “But it really was rather boorish,” Gwen added.

  “And it did seem he was laying down a kind of gauntlet.” Aunt Effie grimaced. “So I picked it up.”

  “And wrote him back?” Sidney’s voice rose. “In my name?”

  “It seemed appropriate at the time,” Effie said weakly. “But, upon reflection, it might have been a mistake.”

  Poppy nodded. “As it did seem to incite him. The man obviously has no sense of moderation. As you can see, the second letter was even worse.”

  “He compares my stories to penny dreadfuls.” Sidney drew her brows together. “That’s not at all fair. My stories are adventurous but not nearly as far-fetched and melodramatic.”

  “You’re right, he wasn’t the least bit fair.” Gwen nodded. “You can certainly see why we all felt it necessary to respond to that particular letter.”

  “We did help Effie write that one. More than help I suppose. You might call it a collaboration.” Po
ppy winced. “As well as the one after that. We really couldn’t help ourselves. Someone needed to defend you. Why, the man even criticizes your style of writing.”

  Effie shook her head. “We could not let that go unchallenged.”

  “And you never thought to mention this to me?”

  “We wanted to protect you, dear.” Gwen smiled.

  “We did think his lordship would give up.” Effie paused. “Eventually.”

  “But he hasn’t given up, has he?” Sidney glared at the older ladies. “No, in fact the man has challenged me to travel to Egypt and prove that I know what I’m writing about. If I fail, he intends to petition the Egyptian Antiquities Society to rescind my membership.” Sidney had paid little notice to the praise and attention her stories had received but being granted membership in the Antiquities Society a few months ago was an honor she cherished. Her grandparents were among the founding members of the society and, while she had not yet attended a society event, being a part of that illustrious organization was the very best part of her newfound success.

  “Fortunately, we’ve given this a great deal of thought,” Poppy said. “Indeed, we’ve thought of nothing else since the moment we saw the earl’s latest letter this morning.”

  “And promptly came here to tell you about—” Gwen gestured at the clippings “—all of it.”

  “Not promptly enough, it’s after noon.” Sidney blew a long breath. This might well explain why she’d received a note within the past hour from Mr. Cadwallender requesting she come to the Messenger offices at her earliest possible convenience. “Mr. Cadwallender wishes to see me and I suspect this is what it’s about.” She shook her head. “What a dreadful mess this is. What am I supposed to do?”

  “You should definitely pay a call on Mr. Cadwallender,” Poppy said firmly.

  Gwen nodded. “At once, I should think.”

  “And then?” The most awful helpless note sounded in Sidney’s voice. She did so hate sounding helpless.

  “And then.” Aunt Effie rose to her feet. “Then you shall go to Egypt.”