Fiend seize it, there was a feather mattress! Adam sank down upon it and, with a hesitant hand, pulled back the cover. The sheets at Cresswell House were fine, but they were not silk, thank goodness. Otherwise he would have to doubt both his sanity and all the laws of nature as he knew them. As it was, he was having trouble believing the amazing coincidence of finding Johnny Cresswell just when he wished for a place to stay the night.
He could not have found more comfortable accommodations at the Pulteney or the Grand Hotel, if they had found his person and his purse acceptable, which he doubted. Here the servants were more than anxious to please. With none of the family in residence except the young officer, and no other guests, Adam was their best hope of earning extra money for Christmas.
The lieutenant’s man was altering a coat to fit Adam’s more muscular frame. The cook was fixing a special dinner. The stable lads were giving the dog a bath, while the head groom was making Lucky a leather collar and lead. The housekeeper was even arranging a bed for the dog in Adam’s room, out of an old yellowed petticoat from the rag bag . . . a silk petticoat.
Adam shook his head. No, what he was thinking was impossible. On the other hand, he decided to stay on for Miss Relaford’s party. He would send funds back to Standings in the morning, so there was no need for him to race home tomorrow, not when he had such luxurious digs in town, and not when he could see the woman of his dreams once more without having to be asleep. Just a few hours ago he had decided not to stay, not to torment himself further with what he could never have, but now . . . Well, now the impossible seemed not quite so improbable, and never was not so far away.
After the best dinner Adam had had in years, and after they had caught up on all the news of other schoolmates, the progress of the war, the price of corn, Lieutenant Cresswell suggested they go for a hand or two of cards to one of the gambling parlors, far more entertaining than the sedate gentlemen’s clubs.
“You must know,” Johnny told him, “that I am feeling particularly lucky tonight, having found an old friend to share my meal. I hate eating by myself.”
Adam had never thought about it, but now that he did, he realized that he ate all his meals with an agricultural journal or a newspaper propped in front of him. Conversation would be nice, and a pretty face to look at. Not that Johnny was not good company, just not the company he’d rather have. He said, “I am glad to be of service to stave off your solitude, but, as for the cards, you’ll have to excuse me. My funds are limited enough without chancing the loss of a single groat.”
“You never were much of a gambler, now that I recall. Still, come along, won’t you? There is always free wine and pretty girls, and you are growing as somber as a Sunday sermon. Besides, one never knows. If I win enough, I might even be able to repay that blunt you lent me.”
“I never lent you—oh, you mean the hundred pounds? Lud, I never meant that as a loan. It was a gift, so you could buy your colors when your father would not advance you the ready. I could not go off to fight for king and country, not with my own father ailing, so I provided the funds for you to go.”
“Yes, but with brass you could ill afford to give, that inheritance from your mother. I never forgot, although I must admit the money has been in and out of my hands any number of times. Still, I have every intention of repaying you.”
Granted, when Adam gave over the money, he had not known quite how bad things were at Standings, but he did not regret helping his friend. “Gammon. If I had not given you the blunt, my father would have used it to buy more horses, or to wager on the ones he already owned.”
“Yes, well, my own pater still keeps me on a tight rein or I would have repaid you ages ago. It always seemed I had a pressing need when the dibs were in tune. Now I am beforehand with the world, thank heaven, and living at Cresswell House at no expense, so perhaps tonight we will both be lucky.”
“I have to admit that sum would be more than welcome to meet my own commitments so, yes, let us go to your gambling den for wine, women, and wagering. Lud knows I wish that you end the night a wealthy man!”
There he was in his borrowed finery, looking fine as five pence, with more than five pence in his pocket for once, yet Adam was not truly enjoying himself. The ladybirds held no interest for him, and he had barely recovered from the day’s headache, so saw no reason to give himself another pounding skull by overindulging in wine. He did find some old friends to greet, but they were more interested in losing their blunt than making conversation. Some of the others present were not men Adam wished to know, not with their glittering, feral eyes and nervous, darting hands.
For the most part, he watched Lieutenant Cresswell play. Johnny was not any Captain Sharp, but neither was he a gullible flat. He won some, then lost it back, then won a bit more. He went from faro to piquet to the dice to vingt-et-un. Adam could not see what pleasure anyone got in watching their stacks of counters disappear, but he supposed the mere thought of winning was enough for the serious players with their intense stares and sweating brows.
“Here,” Cresswell said, holding out his heavy Bath blue superfine, having decided to leave off his uniform for the decidedly off-duty night. “Be a good fellow and hold my coat, won’t you? It’s deuce hot in the place.” He looked around. One of the men at the roulette wheel had his coat on inside out, to bring him luck. “Perhaps the cards will go my way without it.”
They did not, and in a way Adam was relieved, as if somehow his own wishes might have weighted the dice or marked the cards in his friend’s favor. He wanted Johnny to win, naturally, but naturally, not by any havey-cavey happenstance.
The wagering went on, and Adam was starting to yawn, wondering when his friend would have enough of this empty enterprise, when a commotion arose by the door. A liveried servant was trying to gain entry that the doorman wished to deny. Adam could hear shouts about disturbing the gentlemen at play, about a message, about life and death.
“Let him in, man, if his news is so important,” Lord Symington, one of the men at Johnny’s table, called across the smoke-filled room as he put down his cards. The others followed suit, the dealers held the decks, the croupier stopped the wheel, and the ladybirds ceased their twittering. All eyes followed the footman as he headed straight for the table where Johnny sat.
Oh, no, Adam thought, frantically trying to recall his earlier words. Had he wished Johnny won his fortune at the tables? Or had he, as he feared, simply wished that Johnny become wealthy tonight? The surest way for Lieutenant Cresswell to come into an instant fortune was to inherit it, on the demise of his father. Racing through Adam’s thoughts were feather mattresses and gold coins and reward monies and invitations to parties he was never meant to receive and women he was never meant to meet . . . and a dog. Lud, what if his wishes were coming true? He’d be murdering Johnny’s father!
He liked the man. Lord Cresswell had always tried to be strict with his devil-may-care son, curbing his wilder starts, but only out of affection, Adam knew, not out of meanness. He’d been kind to the other boys at school, earning their respect. Zeus, he could not die just so Adam could pay off his mortgage!
Adam grabbed the lucky coin out of his pocket, staring at it as if the penny piece could tell him its intentions, its essence, its magic. “No,” he whispered. “I take it back. I’d like the hundred pounds, but I do not wish any harm to befall Johnny’s father. I do not wish it, do you hear?”
Johnny heard, and looked at Adam quizzically. He would have asked for an explanation but then the footman neared their table. Adam held his breath. The messenger reached them and beamed at Lord Symington. “A boy, my lord. Your lady wife has been delivered of a healthy son!”
The cheers and congratulations and champagne toasts rang out. None were more sincere than Adam’s.
“We might as well go home,” Lieutenant Cresswell said after the noise had abated and the new father had rushed off to see his wife and infant, breaking up that game. “The cards are cold tonight anyway.”
The weather was cold, too, that bitter December night, so Adam held out Johnny’s coat for him. A bit unsteady on his feet after a night of imbibing and then all those recent toasts, the lieutenant dropped the coat, then bent to pick it up. In his fumbling, a paper fell out of the pocket.
“Zeus only knows what it is. Haven’t worn this old coat in ages. Too hot in Spain, don’t you know. If we hadn’t been up in the attics finding you clothes, I never would have unearthed it.”
The light in the gaming parlor’s hall was too dim to read by, so they stepped outside, toward a streetlamp.
Johnny unfolded the paper and read it. “Why, it’s a draft on my father’s bank, for a monkey!”
“You have five hundred pounds, and you’ve let it sit in a coat pocket for months or years? Deuce take it, Johnny, not even you could be so careless with your blunt.”
The lieutenant staggered back against the lamppost. “I swear I never knew it was there. Here, see if it bears a date.”
He held the check out, and Adam saw Lord Cresswell’s signature, and a date some four years earlier, one month after Adam’s mother’s death, one month before Johnny left for the Peninsula.
“He must have put it in my pocket when I went to say farewell,” Johnny calculated, “after ranting and raving over my enlisting, how I was breaking my mother’s heart and endangering the succession.” The lieutenant blew his nose, pretending that it was the cold night air making his eyes water and his nose run.
Adam brushed a bit of dampness from his own cheek. “He truly cares for you.”
“Yes, although the old rip would be hanged before he admitted it. Damn, how I wish I could go home for Christmas—after we go to the bank tomorrow morning!”
“We?”
“Of course. That hundred pounds is yours, my friend, with interest if not a reward for helping me find the check.” He put his arm around Adam’s shoulder as they waited for a hackney cab, and laughed out loud. “By Jupiter, did I not say you brought me luck?”