A Visit From Sir Nicholas (2 page)

"
The Wedding Bargain
is the laugh-out-loud romance of the year!

With its sparkling dialogue and delightful characters,

Ms. Alexander has created a merry frolic of the heart.

This is one battle of the sexes that everybody wins, especially the reader!" Teresa Medeiros

"Polished and delightful, this duel of words, ,

wit and hearts between a princess on a quest ,

and an aristocratic balloonist fallen on hard times ,

sparkles with humor even as the romance sizzles."

Publishers Weekly
on
Her Highness
,

My Wife
(*Starred Review*)

By Victoria Alexander

A Visit From Sir Nicholas The Pursuit of Marriage

The Lady in Question

Love With the Proper Husband

Her Highness, My Wife

The Prince's Bride The Marriage Lesson

The Husband List The Wedding Bargain

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An Imprint ofHarperCollinsPublishers

10 East 53rd Street

New York, New York 10022-5299

Copyright © 2004 by Cheryl Griffin ISBN: 0-06-051763-8

www.avonromance.com

First Avon Books paperback printing: December 2004

Avon Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. and in Other Countries, Marca

Registrada, Hecho en U.S.A.

HarperCollins® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers

Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A.

This story is dedicated to the memory of Rosemarie and Robert Griffin,
who are always in my heart

and taught me everything I know about

the spirit, the hope and the love

that is Christmas.

It was a strange figure
—
like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through
some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and
being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back,
was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on
the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of
uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members,
bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen
of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular
contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the
strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of
light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller
moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest
quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was
light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being
now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a
head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the
dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again;
distinct and clear as ever.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Scrooge.

"I am!" The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it
were at a distance.

"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

"No. Your past."

—
A Christmas Carol
, Charles Dickens, 1843

Christmas Past December 1843

Affectionately Yours, Lizzie.

Lady Elizabeth Effington stared at the words she'd just written and grimaced. No.
Affectionately
was entirely too personal, and
Lizzie
too informal. He'd never called her Lizzie and she doubted he'd start now. Indeed, with one significant exception, he'd never been anything other than completely proper with her. It was most annoying. She crossed out the line just as she had the previous three attempts.

"That was truly wonderful." Behind her, her younger sister, Juliana, sighed with heartfelt satisfaction.

"I knew you would like it," Lizzie said absently and stared at the sheet of white velum lying on the desk in front of her in the sitting room she shared with Jules.

"It was so… so…" Jules thought for a moment. "Wonderful."

"Quite," Lizzie murmured and wrote
With Sincere Best Wishes, Lady Elizabeth Effington
.

"No, more than wonderful. I daresay it's the best story about Christmas—no—the best story about anything I have ever read."

That wasn't right either.
With Sincere Best Wishes
had an obligatory ring, as if one were writing to an elderly relative one didn't particularly like but was required to be pleasant to nonetheless. Besides, while
Lizzie
might be too personal,
Lady Elizabeth Effington
was far and away too formal for her purposes. She slashed a pen stroke through the bothersome phrase.

"In point of fact," Jules continued in a tone that sounded far more like a literary critic than a mere girl of sixteen years, "I think it's quite the best story Mr. Dickens has written. Of those I've read, of course, but I do think I've read most of his stories as he is possibly my favorite author. It's not as amusing as
Nicholas Nickleby
but a far better ending to my mind than
The Old Curiosity Shop
, although I do so love stories about girls having adventures." Jules paused. "Even if Little Nell's were rather dreadful."

"Yes, well, dying at the end of one's story does tend to make one's adventures a bit less than cheery," Lizzie said under her breath.

With eternal friendship, Elizabeth.

"I dislike books that don't end well. Mother's books always end well. This one does too, in a fashion, although it is something of a pity Scrooge did not discover the error of his ways until he was old. He would have had a rather wonderful life if he had married Belle. Don't you think so?"

"Urn hmm."

Friendship
was good. Not the least bit improper. And Elizabeth had the right tone. Perhaps… Lizzie sighed and crossed out her latest effort. Why on earth was this so blasted difficult? All she was trying to do was come up with an appropriate inscription for a book to give as a gift. Still, her words were as important as the book itself. Even more so.