“Because he thought as you did, that Johnny was a reckless daredevil, taking any challenge or chance.”
“So you helped young Cresswell thwart his father’s authority? If you think that recommends you to me, you are mistaken.”
“I helped my friend follow his dreams. Sometimes a parent does not truly know what is best for a child, and sometimes a father has to let his grown son make his own mistakes, to become his own man. Nestlings will grow up and fly away, despite all the love of a mother or father . . . or uncle.”
“Harumph,” was Beasdale’s only reply to the not-so-subtle gibe. “I suppose the only way he could pay you back was with gambling winnings.”
“No, he had the money from his father, who must have reconsidered. And before you blacken poor Lieutenant Cresswell’s name further, he carefully invested most of the money in the Funds, after giving me my share.”
“Well, perhaps he does have a modicum of sense after all,” Beasdale conceded. “I am sure his father will be relieved that his heir is not a total want-wit.” He straightened a stack of papers on his desk as if to conclude the meeting.
“There is one other thing, sir: Miss Relaford’s invitation to the party for Lord and Lady Iverson.”
“Yes? What about it?”
“I wish to accept, with your permission.”
“You are asking me?”
Adam brushed at the sleeve of his—of Johnny Cresswell’s—coat. “The invitation came from Miss Relaford but the gathering is being held in your home. I would not want to offend you if my presence is unwelcome.”
He was not asking about any silly party, and they both knew it. He was asking permission to address the banker’s niece. A lesser man, a conniving fortune hunter, for instance, would have accepted the invitation without a scruple for Beasdale’s wishes, using the occasion to further his own cause. Beasdale had to respect Sir Adam for the courtesy.
“Harumph. I suppose you’d better come along to tea this afternoon, then, to tell Jenna herself that you are going to be accepting. I am liable to forget.” Right after he forgot the combination on the bank’s vault.
Adam brought the dog with him. One could tell a great deal about a person, he had always believed, by how he or she treated an animal. Not that he had any doubt that Miss Relaford was the kindest, sweetest, most gentle female in all of creation, but she was a Londoner, unused to being around anything but horses or the occasional kitchen cat. What if she were afraid of dogs, or thought them vermin, as the innkeeper had, or thought that all four-legged creatures were beneath her notice? That would not bode well for Adam’s future. He was a farmer and needed a farmer’s wife, not a mere decorative beauty.
Jenna did not disappoint him, instantly bending to scratch Lucky’s ear, without regard for getting brown dog hairs on her jonquil gown. She sent Hobart the butler back to the kitchens to fetch the dog a bowl of water.
Beasdale, however, was a surprise.
“Why, I had a pup just like this one when I was a lad,” he said, patting his ample lap in invitation for Lucky to join him on the damask-covered chaise. He called after Hobart to fetch some of the kidneys from breakfast for the dog, too. When he heard about the near drowning and how Adam came to own the dog, he smiled at the baronet for the first time.
He said, “You can always tell a lot about a man, I always believed, by how he treats a dog.”
Jenna smiled at Adam, too, relieved as much as he was by her uncle’s approval.
They were both hopeful until Jenna’s uncle added, “Of course, a dog is all devotion and no deliberation. A pup will love a poor man as easily as a rich one. Foolish creatures cannot think ahead to their next meal, or worry that their owner will not be able to provide one.”
Adam’s hopes lasted as long as the dish of kidneys. Mr. Beasdale approved of Adam’s dog, not his courtship of the banker’s niece.
Beasdale was discussing Lucky’s aptitudes and possible antecedents with Hobart, who felt the mongrel’s best point was that he belonged to Sir Adam and not the Beasdale household.
Meanwhile, Jenna spoke for Adam’s ears only, next to him on the love seat. “Don’t worry. He likes you.”
“I know. He follows me everywhere.”
“Silly, I mean my uncle.”
“He does? He did not seem at all pleased that I am accepting your kind invitation for Friday’s gathering.”
Jenna was pleased enough for all of them. She decided to have dancing, after all. How better to have Sir Adam at her side? “Oh, I am certain my uncle is coming to admire you. He invited you for tea this afternoon, didn’t he?”
“That’s true. He did not have to.”
“So you will have your extension soon.”
Adam set his tea aside to look into the loveliest green eyes he had ever seen. The color of Christmas pine boughs lighted with golden candles, they were, and he was mesmerized by their glow. An extension was not what he wanted from Mr. Beasdale. “I no longer need extra time to make my payments. I came into a bit of cash last night. Actually, a friend who owed me money came into it, so I am solvent again. With excellent prospects for the spring,” he added, lest she think he led a hand-to-mouth existence, which had not been far from the truth. He could not lie to her, so he explained, “I would be doing fine, except for a run of bad luck. My luck has definitely changed.” He did not have to say that meeting her was the proof. His smile said it for him.
Jenna returned his smile, thinking that, although his business was concluded, Sir Adam had stayed on in town. She would have the orchestra play nothing but waltzes, to match the lilt in her heart.
Beasdale frowned in their direction until Lucky reached up and licked his chin, drawing the banker’s attention away from the two grinning mooncalves.
“My uncle is merely protective of me,” Jenna explained away the glare. “He does not mean anything by it.”
“Of course.” Adam, however, knew Beasdale’s scowl meant no trespassing. He sighed, wondering what it would take to change the banker’s opinion of him. A miracle, most likely.
“And I have been singing your praises to Uncle Ezekiel, too.”
Was that miracle enough? Adam had to be encouraged by his lady’s championing his cause, and had to be amused also. “How do you know I will not run away with your uncle’s money, never to repay his bank what I owe?”
“I know because I have heard you speak of the land and the people. You would never abandon them, no more than you would a poor dog.”
“You know all that after so short a time?”
Suddenly shy, Jenna looked down. “I think I knew it from the first time you smiled at me.”
Adam held her hand under cover of her jonquil skirts. “I, too. I thought you were a Christmas angel, and I wished I could be worthy of you. I fear your uncle will never consider me to be.”
“He is not as close-minded as he appears, but I am his only chick.”
“No, he is right to be wary of impoverished gentlemen, with you his heiress. We could all be fortune hunters. I am glad he would not give your hand to the first needy man who offered, but, deuce take it, I wish your uncle were not so wealthy!”
Adam could have bitten his tongue off. He had no more made his impulsive wish than Hobart reentered the room and whispered in Beasdale’s ear. The banker’s high complexion faded to the white of his neckcloth, and he half rose, sending Lucky to the floor.
“What is it, Uncle?”
“Ruined. We are ruined.”
Jenna and Adam were both standing now, ready to go to his aid if necessary. He waved them away and sank back onto his seat. “The Majestic Star went down with all hands, with all its cargo. We are ruined.”
“Did you not have insurance on the ship?” Adam asked.
“Leonard Frye, the bank’s junior partner, was supposed to pay it. He ran off as soon as he heard about the ship, and no one knows where. There is suspicion he embezzled the insurance money and fled when the loss became known. We are ruined.”
&
nbsp; Jenna was weeping. “All those men. Dear Captain Ingersoll.”
Adam naturally put his arms around her in comfort.
Beasdale was shaking his head. “Good thing you did not marry that dastard, poppet.”
“Captain Ingersoll?” Adam asked.
“No, Frye,” Beasdale answered. “And take your hands off my niece, Standish. I cannot let her wed a poor man now. How would you keep her? In a pigsty? No, she has to marry money, so I know she and her children are cared for, now that I cannot see to their welfare. I owe my sister’s memory nothing less.”
“Uncle!” Jenna protested while Adam was frantically trying to remember the words of his latest wish, that Beasdale not be so wealthy. He desperately unwished it.
And Hobart came back, with a handsome, well-dressed man of about Adam’s age, who was out of breath.
“Frye?” Beasdale stared at the man. So did Adam, whose hopes of winning Miss Relaford’s hand were again as dashed on the rocks as the Majestic Star.
“Yes, sir. I am sorry I took so long to get here, but I raced to the harbor myself to verify the ill tidings, and I have excellent news! It was the Majestic Tzar that went down, not our ship!”
“Not . . . ?”
“No, sir. The Star is reported on course and on time.”
“And the insurance? It is paid?”
“Of course, not that we will need it, I trust. Why do you ask?”
“No reason, none at all. Good job, Frye. You’ll stay to tea, won’t you? Jenna, my dear, fix Mr. Frye a cup. You know how he likes it.”
Frye did not like the dog, which did not sit well with Mr. Beasdale. Frye did sit next to Miss Relaford, in the choice seat Adam had so recently occupied.
Adam refrained from wishing the well-favored young man to perdition, although he was sorely tempted.
And Jenna suggested that, since Adam was staying on in town until her party on Friday night, perhaps he might care to see the sights, the galleries and exhibits. Adam would go look at a pig dancing on a dung hill if it meant another minute in Miss Relaford’s company, so he accepted.
Frye spilled his tea, and Mr. Beasdale went “Harumph.” Jenna offered Lucky, not Mr. Frye, the last biscuit, and Adam went back to Cresswell House whistling.
8
The rest of the week passed too quickly, and too slowly. For Jenna, the days passed too slowly. She was waiting for the dancing and the mistletoe and a chance to slip away for a private moment or two, away from the careful chaperonage her uncle insisted upon for the sightseeing excursions. She knew her own heart and thought she knew Adam’s, but he was too much the gentleman to speak without her guardian’s approval. When Uncle saw Sir Adam among their friends and acquaintances, surely he would relent. When he saw that the baronet was the only man of all she had ever known whose very presence delighted Jenna, surely he would put her happiness above Adam’s finances. If not, surely the mistletoe and wassail and her low-cut red velvet gown would encourage Adam to set his scruples aside for the evening. Who knew where that could lead? To the altar, Jenna wished with all her heart.
For Adam, the days rushed by too quickly. He feared these were his last hours of contentment: the bliss he found in seeing Miss Relaford’s smiles, the joy in feeling her touch as he helped her up stairs, the warmth of her thigh next to his on the carriage seat, the elation of knowing—hoping—that she was coming to care for him as much as he cared for her. What if there was not time enough to win her affections, to convince her that his love could provide what was important, what his income could not? He would have to return to Standings to a cold, empty, barren life, for Adam doubted he could ever love another woman.
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 d
ebt 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.
Lord Iverson, as guest of honor, sat to Miss Relaford’s right. Mr. Frye, as Mr. Beasdale’s choice for nephew-in-law, sat at her left. Jenna scowled down the entire length of the flower-decked table at her uncle.
Adam was seated between the new Lady Iverson’s hard-of-hearing aunt and her younger sister, who was barely out of the schoolroom. The chit not only had Ivy’s wife’s red hair and freckles, but she also possessed spots and a stammer. Adam scowled sideways at Frye, causing Miss Applegate to stutter into speechlessness.
Neither the baronet nor the banker’s niece enjoyed the meal. Everyone else seemed to, savoring course after course and glass after glass. The younger sister grew giddy and the elderly aunt dropped her hearing trumpet in the syllabub. At Miss Relaford’s end, Lord Iverson was everything polite, speaking of his honeymoon trip and his horses. For the first time Jenna found his lordship’s polished manners tedious, except when he spoke of his schooldays with Sir Adam. Mr. Frye was simply tedious.
At last it was time for her to lead the ladies from the room, with a last frown in her uncle’s direction and a whisper to Hobart to see that the gentlemen did not tarry long over their port and cigars. She wanted to dance. Soon. With the partner of her own choice.
Adam took Jenna’s chair at the end of the table near Ivy, and Lieutenant Cresswell took Frye’s seat when the young financier left to visit the necessary. Ivy’s new father-in-law joined them and, to Adam’s regret, so did Mr. Beasdale.
Five gentlemen of such disparate ages, backgrounds, and interests could have little common ground for conversation except the weather, which topic was quickly exhausted. It was December. It was cold. It was going to grow colder.
Regency Christmas Wishes (9781101220030) Page 5
