He watched until Ned had disappeared from sight, then walked up the steps and let himself into the house with his latch key.
For a moment he stood in the entrance hall. There was a sour taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the brandy he’d drunk. The hush of the sleeping house settled over him, the scent of beeswax polish and flowers. Giltwood gleamed in the light of the lamp left out for him.
He knew the answer to Arabella Knightley’s question: Not better, merely luckier.
THE DAY DAWNED gray. Adam, feeling equally gray, decided to visit Jackson’s Saloon. A bout with the Champion usually improved his mood; today it didn’t. Thought of the four hundred guineas he’d lost at play—and the one he’d given Ned—kept intruding. He wanted to hit something, and yet it was frustratingly hard to land a blow.
Gentleman Jack threw him a cross-buttock. Adam hit the floor so hard it jarred his teeth. For a moment he lay where he’d fallen, winded.
“Your mind’s not on it today, sir, if I may be so bold as to say so.”
“No, it’s not,” Adam said, when he’d caught his breath. He pushed up onto one elbow. “Maybe I’ll try a round with the staves.”
“Might be better, sir.”
Adam accepted Gentleman Jack’s hand and climbed to his feet.
He was right: singlestick fighting suited his mood better. The clash of wood, the bone-rattling blows, were a more effective outlet for his frustration. By the end of the bout he was panting and sweating—but his frame of mind was much improved.
He strolled around to White’s. “Afternoon, guv’nor,” a crossing-sweeper cried, hurrying out into the road to clear horse manure from the crossing.
Adam had walked past the crossing-sweeper a hundred times; this was the first time he actually saw him: the spikes of sandy hair, the gap-toothed grin, the blue eyes. The boy was older than Ned by a number of years, but his clothes were just as ragged, his feet just as bare and filthy, his face just as thin.
Arabella Knightley’s words of last night came forcibly to mind.
Adam dug in his pocket. “What’s your name?”
The boy gaped at him in surprise. “Sir?”
“Your name,” Adam repeated. He sorted through his coins and selected a guinea.
The boy swallowed audibly. “Billy Crabtree,” he said, his eyes fixed on the guinea.
Adam held it out to him. “Buy yourself some shoes,” he said.
Billy Crabtree snatched the guinea. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Thank you, sir!” He tugged his forelock and scurried back across the street.
Adam stood for a moment on the pavement. He’d given away two guineas. That left three hundred and ninety-eight to go.
ALVANLEY AND REVELSTOKE were at the table in the bow window, sharing the day’s newspapers and a bottle of claret. Both men looked up as Adam lowered himself into a chair. “Where’ve you been?” Alvanley asked, with a wide yawn.
“Gentleman Jack’s,” Adam said, tenderly feeling his ribs.
Jeremy folded his newspaper and put it aside. “Throw you, did he?”
Adam nodded.
“Claret?”
“Please,” he said, stretching out his legs. He was feeling almost cheerful. It wasn’t the bout of singlestick or the glass of wine Jeremy was holding out to him; it was the guinea he’d given Billy Crabtree.
No, it wasn’t that. It was the decision he’d made. Three hundred and ninety-eight guineas to go.
Adam sipped the claret. “What’s new?”
“We hear you gave Gorrie a direct cut last night,” Jeremy said, leaning forward in his chair. “Why?”
Adam paused, the wine glass halfway to his mouth. “Er . . . what?”
“What did Gorrie do? We’re agog with curiosity.”
That was an exaggeration; Alvanley looked half asleep. Only Jeremy was agog, his eyes bright with interest.
Adam sipped the claret meditatively. If he told Jeremy, within a day the whole ton would know. And if the ton knew, then Tom would hear of it—and perhaps pay Sir Arnold Gorrie a visit.
Which is precisely what the man deserves.
“Very well,” Adam said, straightening in his chair. “What happened was this.”
CHAPTER NINE
SIR ARNOLD GORRIE had a house in Russell Square in Bloomsbury, an address on the fringe of what was respectable. It was decorated with the same garish ostentation that characterized his appearance. Arabella tiptoed along the second floor corridor. Crimson and gold predominated, and every nook and cranny bristled with statuary. He was clearly aping the Prince Regent.
Sir Arnold’s bedchamber was the second door she tried. It was illuminated only by a fire dying in the grate. A four-poster bed dominated the room, looming huge in the shadows.
Quietly, quickly, she locked the door and unlatched a window in case she needed to leave in a hurry. Only then did she take a candle from the bedside table and light it from the fire.
The four-poster bed was even more monstrous in candlelight than it was in darkness. The crimson canopy was heavy with golden tassels. Arabella bit her lip. How truly vulgar.
Gorrie’s jewelry wasn’t obvious in the bedchamber, but the shelves in the dressing room held a number of lacquered boxes of promising size.
The first box Arabella opened contained buckles in a variety of shapes and sizes, all set with diamonds. The second box contained tiepins, the third held fobs. That, she shut and put back in its place on the shelf.
Arabella looked at the two open boxes. Tiepins, or buckles?
The tiepins were as vulgar as everything else she’d seen in this house. She examined them closely. The stones were large and gaudy. Sapphires and emeralds, rubies, diamonds, garnets and amethysts. And one elegant tiepin set with a single perfect pearl.
It was the pearl that decided her.
Swiftly she scooped up the other tiepins. They made a large handful, almost too many to hold. The pouch tied around her waist could barely take them all.
Arabella looked with satisfaction at the lone tiepin, lying on its bed of red satin. The pearl gleamed softly. The tiepin was the one elegant thing she’d seen in Sir Arnold’s house. Let him be forced to wear it.
She’d drawn
