Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“I’m s-sorrry,” I sputter again as I pick myself up off the floor, brushing stray petals from my coat sleeve. “I was just trying to—” I flap a hand toward the other side of the pub. “But the door was locked, or stuck, and I couldn’t—”
“And there’s no time to remake it before the actual nativity tomorrow night,” Pink barrels on. “This was just the rehearsal.” She sniffs and wipes at her cheeks. “Now, we’ll have to use a doll like every other school pageant.”
“Oh no, Belinda, really?” a velvety voice sounds from the audience. “We’ve already told everyone that the baby Jesus would be something special this year.”
Belinda?
Oh God…
Oh no, that means Pink is—
“I’m sorry, but there isn’t time, Caroline. Not with all the other holiday obligations I’ve already made.” Belinda’s voice could freeze vodka as she glares at me, still standing in the middle of the botanical crime scene. “Speaking of holiday obligations, I won’t be making any with you. You’re Emily Darling, aren’t you? The party planner? From America?”
I nod sheepishly. “Yes, but I—”
“That’s what I thought,” she cuts in, her cheeks flushing pinker than her hair. “We won’t be working together. Ever. Come on, Carina. We’re leaving. Now.”
She grabs her wide-eyed daughter and sweeps out. The rest of the parents follow suit, collecting their various biblical characters and guiding them toward the front door, which seems to be functioning perfectly for everyone else.
Within minutes, the pub has mostly emptied, leaving just the bartenders, a few old men by the fire, who are regarding me with the kind of judgment usually reserved for people who fart in church, and one well-dressed man still sitting in the corner.
Even considering the dramatic circumstances, I can’t believe I didn’t notice him before. He’s strikingly handsome in an aristocratic sort of way, all sharp cheekbones, luminous skin, and perfectly tousled dark hair.
He looks like the kind of guy who commands a room with a word, an impression he confirms as he murmurs in a rich, slightly smug voice, “Well, you certainly know how to clear a room, don’t you, Red?”
I’m trying to formulate a comeback that doesn’t involve sticking out my tongue or bursting into tears when my heel catches on a string of fairy lights. I go down again, this time taking a stuffed cow posed at the edge of the stage down with me.
I thud down three stairs to the main floor of the pub, landing with a soft grunt of pain.
From my new position on the floor under the cow, I hear Slightly Smug clucking his tongue like I’m the saddest thing he’s ever seen.
London—two falls and a professional fail.
Emily—zero.
Chapter Three
THE HONORABLE OLIVER DAVID DAWSON FEATHERSWALLOW
A man looking for his missing
Christmas spirit and, sadly, not finding
it at the bottom of a whiskey glass…
The evening started predictably enough…
Mother sends her third text about tomorrow’s charity luncheon—Please confirm for tomorrow at your earliest convenience, darling. Edward’s receiving the service medal. Your presence is required, Oliver. Not suggested. REQUIRED. And they’ll have Christmas pudding. You love a Christmas pudding—which I ignore while nursing my second Macallan at my usual table.
I needed a night away from it all, and The Crown and Thistle is the perfect place.
It’s quiet, charmingly dilapidated, and far enough from Mayfair that I’m simply “that odd bloke who brings a novel to the pub,” not “the Featherswallow spare.” The regulars are a mixture of geezers who worked at the textile mill before it closed and young professionals raising families in the outrageously expensive flats that now fill the former factories. Both are too well-bred, too drunk, or both to acknowledge that they know exactly who I am.
And my favorite bartender, Reggie, has perfected the art of shooing away the random tourist who’s wandered too far from the city center and starts pestering him about the Viscount in the corner.
I’m not the Viscount, of course.
I’m The Honorable Oliver David Dawson Featherswallow, a title befitting a secondborn son. My older brother, Edward, is the Viscount.
He has been since last Christmas, when our father passed away…
I take another slow sip of my whisky, gaze drifting to the holiday lights strung along the stage, where a group of local children are slogging their way through a nativity play rehearsal, overseen by Belinda Moore, supermom, small business boss, and florist to the London elite. The perky piano player in the far corner transitions smoothly from one Christmas classic to another with a skill that would usually warm my cockles.
I’ve always adored the holidays.
Just like my father.
We were the ones who set out at dawn on the first of December each year, tromping through the woods around our country estate until we found the perfect fir for the drawing room. As a boy, I’d watch father chop down our tree and “help” carry it home by riding on his shoulders while he pulled the cart. In later years, our roles reversed. Father would watch, sipping hot tea from a thermos, regaling me with tales of how much he loved hunting these woods with his father as a boy, while I took my turn with the axe.