He was careful to refrain from making wishes, except to wish that he would prove worthy of Jenna’s love. Nothing happened to convince him—or Mr. Beasdale.
Fast or slow, the night of the party for Lord and Lady Iverson arrived.
For all the masterpieces and works of art Adam had seen this week, none compared to Miss Relaford in her red velvet gown. He might never be able to afford such a gown for her, or the pearl and diamond pendant at her neck, and he might never get to touch the milky skin the low bodice revealed, but just the sight of her greeting the guests in the drawing room before dinner took his breath away.
No, that was the hearty slap on the back from his old friend, Lord Iverson, jarring Adam’s still-sore ribs.
“Move along, man,” Ivy teased. “No ogling the hostess, pretty as she is. I want to make you known to my wife. Darling, here is my friend Standish, the one to whom I owe that hundred pounds.”
Ivy’s wife was a petite redhead with freckles and a radiant grin. She was dressed in the height of fashion in ecru satin, with a strand of pearls so large and heavy that she might have fallen over on her elegant little nose, but for her arm tucked comfortably, lovingly, possessively in the crook of Ivy’s elbow. Adam could instantly see that his friend was smitten, and wished them every joy of—“What hundred pounds?”
“Why, the wager we had about which one of us gudgeons would marry first. Don’t you recall?”
Adam remembered something about a Benedict’s bet while they were just out of university, in London, on the town. They were foxed, and if he had the right occasion, Ivy had a buxom blond barmaid on his lap, swearing he would never step into parson’s mousetrap, that bachelorhood was simply too much fun. Of course he would marry, Adam had countered. Ivy needed to ensure the succession to his title. He, on the other hand, would never take a wife to live in genteel poverty. Ivy had laughed that Adam was too tender-hearted a chap to live his days alone—and the bet was on, with the first to wed having to pay the forfeit.
“I forgot that silly schoolboy twaddle entirely until now,” Adam confessed. “So must you. Consider it a belated wedding gift.”
“Nonsense, man. It’s a debt of honor, and one I am eager to pay, seeing how I am reveling in my wedded state. Lud, what fools we were.”
Adam’s eyes followed Miss Relaford around the room as she greeted this guest or that, making certain everyone’s needs were seen to. “No, we were just young.”
Ivy watched him watching her. He smiled. “I was right, though, was I not? You do not wish to live your life as a lonely old bachelor, with a cat for company.”
“A dog,” Adam murmured without looking at his old friend. “I have a dog now. Lucky.”
“Yes, you are,” Ivy said. “She is a fine girl. Not to compare with my own bride, of course, but a perfect choice.” Lady Iverson was speaking with an older couple a few feet away, but not far from her husband’s side.
“What? Oh, no, you misunderstand. There is no . . . That is, I have not . . . Mr. Beasdale . . .”
Ivy was still smiling. “I understand, all right. You always were the slow, deliberate one of us. It was Johnny Cresswell who fell in love every other week.”
They both picked the lieutenant out of the small crowd, an easy enough task to do with the laughing officer in his dress uniform and a handful of young ladies in their pastel gowns surrounding him. “He has not changed, has he?” Lord Iverson asked. “But you, Adam, do not wait too long. You’ve selected the prime blossom, but others will be buzzing around the nectar if you don’t pick it soon.”
Sure enough, Leonard Frye was hovering at Jenna’s shoulder, casting surreptitious glances down her décolletage. “Excuse me, will you, Ivy? Tell Lady Iverson . . . a pleasure. I need to go strangle someone. That is, I need to straighten my neckcloth.”
Ivy took his arm. “Not in Beasdale’s parlor, you don’t. That will not win his favor, you know.” Then, to distract his old friend from the sight of that mushroom Frye holding a glass to Miss Relaford’s lips, Lord Iverson went on: “I say, you are looking quite the thing for a turnip-grower. Mind telling me the name of your tailor?”
“Johnny’s attic, and Johnny’s batman. I do not even have the wherewithal for a valet of my own,” Adam despaired.
Ivy slipped a folded note from his pocket into Adam’s. “Now you do. Our debt is paid.”
Another hundred pounds! What he could do with that! For a start, he could tip Hobart the butler to rearrange the dinner seating.
Hobart might like the coins and he might like the young man, but he liked his job better. Mr. Beasdale himself had altered the seating chart from Miss Relaford’s original plan, and so it would have to stay, so that Hobart might stay in his comfortable post.