Regency Christmas Wishes(14)

“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.”