The Dance Before Christmas Read online

  The older woman shrugged.

  “This man—” Lady Farstead cast a disgusted look at Wesley “—is an imposter!”

  Father groaned.

  Lady Farstead marched into the room. “I don’t know who this man is but he certainly isn’t who he says he is.” She gestured grandly at the door, and the gentleman who had approached Anabel at the Egyptian Society ball swept into the room. Wes had suspected who he was the moment he had seen him. “This is the son of Reginald Everheart!”

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Earnest Everheart.” He swept an overly dramatic bow and Wes’s suspicions were confirmed. “And I am at your service.”

  “He resembles his father,” Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore murmured.

  “No, he doesn’t, because he’s not the son of Reginald Everheart,” Lady Blodgett said pleasantly.

  Lady Farstead glanced at her. “He’s not?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Mrs. Higginbotham shrugged and nodded at Wes. “But then again, neither is he.”

  Lady Farstead stared at Wes. “Then who are you?”

  “It’s always difficult to come in toward the end of a performance, isn’t it?” Lady Blodgett smiled.

  “This is why no one should ever be seated after a play has begun,” the actor said under his breath.

  “My name is Wesley Grant,” Wes said. “I’m American. I’m not penniless.” He slanted Anabel a fast look. “Sorry.”

  She shrugged.

  “Why on earth would she mind that he’s not penniless?” Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore said under her breath.

  Wes met Lady Farstead’s gaze directly. “And I’m in love with your niece.”

  “He’s the man I plan to marry, Aunt Lillian.”

  “I see.” Lady Farstead frowned. “No, I really don’t but it doesn’t matter at this point, I suppose.” She turned to the actor. “It appears your services are no longer needed.”

  “Who is he?” Frustration rang in Sir Archibald’s voice.

  “Apparently it no longer matters.” Lady Farstead waved off the question. “He’s merely an unreliable actor of my acquaintance.”

  “I’ll have you know, I am unfailingly reliable.” The actor bristled. “Why, Earnest Henderson has never missed a scheduled performance in his life.”

  “Earnest?” Wes said to Anabel.

  “So, he’s the actor?” Sir Archibald said.

  “It’s really not the least bit important at this point, Archie.” Mrs. Higginbotham smiled. “It’s best if you just let it go.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Henderson,” Lady Farstead said pointedly and waved at the door.

  “Yes, of course.” Henderson started for the door, but then paused and lowered his voice. “About the money...”

  “Keep it.” Lady Farstead again shooed him toward the door.

  Sir Archibald shook his head. “I don’t mind saying, I’m rather confused as to who is who and what is what.”

  “I’m not,” Wes said firmly. “Sir Archibald, may I have the honor of your daughter’s hand in marriage?”

  “Haven’t we already done this?”

  “Wesley Everheart did. It’s Wesley Grant’s turn.” He met Anabel’s gaze firmly. “If she will still have me.”

  Anabel considered him for an endless moment. He held his breath. “So, you’re neither struggling nor penniless.”

  “Actually, I’m considered quite successful and I have a sizable fortune.” He shrugged apologetically. “People do like to know what time it is.”

  “I would think his not being penniless is something she can overlook,” Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore said in an aside to Lady Blodgett, who nodded in agreement.

  “I can give away all my money if that will make you happy,” he said staunchly. “I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy, and if being poor will make you happy...”

  “Come now, Wesley.” Mrs. Higginbotham huffed. “Of course she doesn’t want to be poor. Do you, Anabel?”

  “Poverty doesn’t really appeal to me,” she said in a serious tone but her green eyes twinkled.

  “I thought as much.” Mrs. Higginbotham nodded. “Go on, Wesley, finish it up.”

  “As I was saying before I was interrupted—” he shot a pointed look at the elderly ladies “—I love you, Anabel Snelling, and I promise I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never want for warmth or joy or laughter. Do me the very great honor of becoming my wife. Dance with me, Anabel, now and forever.”

  Aunt Lillian sniffed back a tear.

  “Reginald would be so proud,” one of the ladies murmured.

  For a long moment Anabel didn’t say a word. “Well,” she said at last, her voice decidedly unsteady. “I did say that how we came to this point didn’t matter.”

  Wes nodded. “You did.”

  “And I’ll probably never get a better offer. I am almost twenty-one, you know.” Her gaze locked with his.

  “I will love you when you’re a hundred and one,” Wes said simply.

  “I have already given you my answer once.”

  “It bears repeating.”

  “Very well then.” Her lips curved up into a slow smile. “I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you. Yes, Wesley Grant, I will marry you and I will dance with you forever.”

  Wes hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until now. At once he was at her side, taking her into his arms and kissing her for an endless moment, knowing this was only the beginning.

  “Apparently I’ve missed a great deal,” Lady Farstead said softly.

  “You have no idea.” Mrs. Higginbotham chuckled.

  Sir Archibald cleared his throat.

  Wes raised his head but couldn’t quite bring himself to let her go. Judging by the way she looked at him, she didn’t want him to.

  “I shall announce your engagement tonight as planned,” Sir Archibald said.

  “I really don’t think you should.” Anabel sighed and stepped out of his arms. “Not until we come up with a way to explain why he was using Everheart instead of his own name.”

  “And we have.” Father grinned. “Or rather Effie and her friends have. It’s really rather brilliant.”

  “And quite simple.” Lady Blodgett smiled smugly. “Wesley assumed a different name, as it was imperative no one knew he was in London.”

  Anabel frowned. “Why?”

  “Yes, why?” Wesley asked.

  “Business, my dear boy.” Mrs. Higginbotham smirked. “The world of new inventions is highly spirited. No doubt there are other watchmakers and clockmakers with their own chronographs who would do anything to edge out the competition. A competitor wouldn’t suspect that the son of Reginald Everheart, a well-known, intrepid explorer, was actually here to present Wesley’s chronometer to the Explorers Club. It’s entirely too bold.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense.” Anabel’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  “It’s business, dear.” Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not expected to make sense.”

  “Now, may I announce your engagement?” Impatience rang in Sir Archibald’s voice.

  “Frankly, sir—” Wes took Anabel’s hand and gazed into her eyes “—I can’t wait.”

  “Why, I believe it’s going to be a perfect Christmas after all.” Anabel smiled up at him. “And only the first.”

  * * *

  IT DID SEEM there was a great deal to talk about.

  Not more than a moment later, Lady Farstead began discussing wedding plans, Anabel asked about Wesley’s real family and he started telling her about his life in America. All the while, Archie tried to herd them back to the ballroom. Effie suspected Archie thought if he didn’t announce this engagement immediately, Wesley might make his escape and then Anabel would be doomed to life as a spinster. Silly m
an.

  Effie, Gwen and Poppy paused at the doorway after the others had left the room.

  “That turned out nicely,” Gwen said with a satisfied smile.

  “It always does when we lend our assistance.” Poppy grinned. “Perhaps we should do it more often.”

  “I think we meddle in other people’s lives quite enough already, but it is satisfying.” Effie chuckled. “And a great deal of fun.”

  “All’s well that ends well.” Gwen stepped into the corridor. “Come along, we would hate to miss this.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever see him again?” Poppy said wistfully.

  “Who?” Caution sounded in Gwen’s voice.

  “Reginald Everheart, of course.” Poppy sighed. “I rather miss him.”

  Effie resisted the urge to remind her that her old friend Reginald was never anything more than a figment of her imagination. A dashing, handsome, charming figment but a figment nonetheless. She took the other woman’s arm and the three friends started after Archie and his family.

  “Stranger things have happened,” Gwen said. “We certainly never imagined we’d meet his son.”

  “And one never knows what might happen next. Life is full of unexpected possibilities.” Effie chuckled. “Especially at Christmas.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl by Victoria Alexander.

  Settle in for another unforgettable trip with the Lady Travelers Society! Don’t miss the delicious new book by #1 New York Times bestselling author Victoria Alexander. Read on for a special preview of The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl, coming December 2019!

  The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl

  by Victoria Alexander

  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 previous stories it did seem everyone was reading it and clamoring for more of your work in the Daily Messenger. And 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 she 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 Aunt Effie’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 known 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 e
nough, 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 her mother would not take it well and, given her mother’s 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 that moment 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 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 could come 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.”