The Dance Before Christmas

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Wes’s grandfather had started life as a watchmaker and had gone on to establish the Grant Watch and Clock Company. It was now one of the largest such companies in America, thanks to his father’s business skills. When Father died three years ago, the running of the company, with its multiple manufacturing sites, fell to twenty-five-year-old Wes, who proved to be more than up to the task. And while the company continued to prosper, Wes’s true passion was in the development of new instruments. But the budget for development was not nearly what was necessary, and he could not continue putting his own money into his projects. He had a mother, three sisters and a younger brother to support after all. His board of directors had admitted that progress was important, but felt producing a chronometer for a small, specialized market was not especially profitable. The gentlemen on the board did acknowledge Wes’s argument that the endorsement of a prestigious organization that sponsored exploration would expand the potential market from scientific endeavors to leisure travelers, casual adventurers and anyone eager to acquire some of the prestige of true explorers by owning the same instruments they did. The board agreed that if Wes could procure such an endorsement, they would allocate additional funding.

Three months ago he had written to the Explorers Club and had received a response that anyone else would have accepted as a dismissal. But Wes had taken to heart the closing lines of the organization’s secretary’s letter, inviting him to further discuss the matter should he ever be in London as an opening. Two days later he was on his way to England. Even Uncle Nigel’s warning that the club rarely endorsed anything of a commercial nature failed to dissuade him.

Still, while Wesley Grant might not be able to convince the Explorers Club of the benefits of his new chronometer, Wesley Everheart just might.

Wes finished his glass of champagne, handed it to a waiter and made his way out of the ballroom. Now that he was supposed to be Everheart, it made no sense to stay.

“Goodness, don’t tell me you’re leaving so soon?” An older lady smiled and hooked her arm through his. “Why, we haven’t had a moment to chat.”

“And we would be devastated, simply devastated if we allowed this opportunity to pass.” Another older woman took his other arm and, before he could protest, propelled him down the hallway. “We’ve waited far too long to meet you.”

“To meet me?” Was he once again being mistaken for someone else?

“Oh my, yes,” the shorter lady on his left said. “We would never forgive ourselves if we failed to make the acquaintance of the son of Reginald Everheart.”

Wes bit back a groan. He couldn’t very well deny he was Everheart now.

They stopped in front of the library doors, which opened at once, and practically pushed him into the room. Apparently the library was the hub of clandestine meetings at an Explorers Club social event. Another older lady awaited them.

“Good evening, Mr. Everheart,” she said and waved at a chair that was facing the door. “Do sit down.”

One look at the determined faces confronting him, and he knew any protest would be futile. Still... “I was just about to leave. Perhaps another time.”

“Oh, there’s no time like the present,” the lady who had first approached him said. “And I think you’ll want to hear what we have to say.”

“As we very much want to hear what you have to say,” his second escort added.

“All right.” He cautiously took his seat. “May I ask what this is about?”

“Of course you may, but first allow me to introduce myself and my friends.” The third lady smiled pleasantly as if she and her friends had not just essentially abducted him. “I am Lady Guinevere Blodgett, the wife of Sir Charles Blodgett, currently on expedition in Africa, along with the husbands of these ladies.” She nodded at the shorter woman. “This is Mrs. Persephone Fitzhew-Wellmore. Her husband is Malcomb Fitzhew-Wellmore. And this—” she gestured at his first kidnapper “—is the wife of Colonel William Higginbotham, Mrs. Ophelia Higginbotham.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ladies,” he said as politely as he could manage.

The women looked to be somewhere in their sixties, but that was nothing more than a guess. They were all trim and...well-preserved