speed and purpose.
Finding himself near his own doorstep, he ducked inside long enough to scribble a note to their housekeeper saying he and Ivy had been called out of town and might not return for several days. When he emerged once again onto the dark stillness of the street, he turned south toward Sydney Gardens. St. Just kept elegant premises nearby.
Thorn had no worry of waking his old schoolmate at such a time. On the contrary, his concern was whether such a notorious night owl as Weston St. Just might not return home for several more hours. Fortunately, a light burned in the sitting room window and a young footman wasted no time answering Thorn’s knock.
When the boy ushered Thorn into his friend’s presence, St. Just looked mildly surprised to see him. Perhaps mildly amused, as well. “What ho, Greenwood? Has the beauteous Lady Lyte put the boots to you so soon?”
“I’m surprised she hasn’t told you.” Thorn knew all too well of St. Just’s insatiable appetite for gossip. “I received my marching orders from her two days ago.”
“The little minx!” His host gestured for Thorn to take a seat. “I must say, though, I envy you even a few weeks of her company.”
St. Just lifted his snifter of tawny liquid and nodded toward a side table arrayed with a decanter and more glasses. “Care to drown your sorrows?”
After his unsettling confrontation with Felicity, the offer tempted Thorn sorely. Perching himself on the settee opposite his host, Thorn shook his head. “I daren’t.”
St. Just cast him an indulgent look. “Of course, you never drown your troubles, or run away from them, or any other such cowardice, do you? Always look ’em squarely in the face and soldier on.”
“Tiresome, isn’t it?” Thorn wondered how the pair of them had remained civil, let alone friendly, all these years with such contrary temperaments.
Felicity might have done better to take St. Just as her lover, instead of merely using him as a go-between to approach his less suitable chum. Besides the classical masculine beauty of a Greek statue come to life, Weston St. Just had an easy agreeable way with women that made them flock to him like bees to a tall fragrant flower.
“Tiresome? On the contrary, dear fellow.” St. Just lounged back in his upholstered armchair and sipped his drink. “I tire of most people in no time, for the majority of them are like me—duplicitous, idle, selfish. Salt of the earth folk like you baffle me at every turn. I live in constant anticipation that you may slip from the straight and narrow into some diverting orgy of wickedness.”
“I thought I had.”
“With Lady Lyte, you mean?” St. Just shrugged. “A tantalizing little stumble to keep me on my toes, but far too discreet to tarnish your honor. Now, do tell me what brings you here at this hour? In the case of ninety-nine men out of a hundred, I could guess at once, but you persist in confounding me.”
“It’s my sister, Ivy. She’s taken it into her head to elope with young Armitage—Lady Lyte’s nephew.”
“Has she, by George?” St. Just sat up a little straighter, his dark languid eyes glittering with something like interest. “I wish I had a scapegrace little sister to get up to all kinds of mischief and keep me productively occupied rescuing her bacon from the fire.”
“I’d offer to lend you mine,” growled Thorn, “but I wouldn’t trust you within a mile of Ivy.”
He related the rest of his predicament. How Felicity had insisted on pursuing the young lovers without him. His desperate need to get ahold of a good horse and some money to finance his journey.
Whenever he was tempted to resent St. Just’s ironic amusement over the whole situation, Thorn did his best to conceal it. If he wanted to be on his way tonight, this man was his most promising source of assistance.
“I suppose you’ll expect me to keep all this lovely gossip to myself, now that you’ve confided in me.” St. Just drained his glass and rose from his chair none too steadily.
Thorn leaped to his feet. “It wouldn’t do me much good to fetch Ivy back from Gretna only to have her reputation ruined by word of all this leaking out. Then I’d be obliged to wed her off to Armitage in order to satisfy honor. For all you prattle on, Wes, you’ve always been a good friend in the pinch. What do you say? Can I count on your discretion and your assistance?”
“As to the first,” St. Just raised his hand, “I swear on my rather dubious honor.”
“As to the second,” he turned out his pockets, “I’ve just come from a monstrous night at the tables. I won’t tell you how much I lost or you’d be scandalized. Enough, I fear, that I couldn’t lend you a brass farthing until I have an opportunity to meet with my banker upon the morrow.”
“Damn!” The word was hardly out of his mouth before Thorn started to cudgel his brains for someone else who could help him.
Weston St. Just pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Unless…”
“Unless?” prompted Thorn. The word had a hopeful sound, but the tone in which his friend had said it made him uneasy somehow.
“Got anything on you of value?” St. Just cast a glance at Thorn’s signet ring as if appraising how much it might fetch.
“This.” Thorn twisted the ring back and forth on his finger, a sensation he’d always found curiously comforting. “And my grandfather’s gold watch and fob. It’s no good, though. I thought of that already. The pawnshops are all locked up tight as drums until morning.”
“I don’t mean you to hock them, old fellow.” St. Just stretched his long graceful limbs as though he’d recently woken from a refreshing night’s sleep. “But how would you feel about wagering them?”
Thorn opened his mouth to protest, but his host cut him off. “One good hand at the game I left behind and you’d have blunt aplenty to see you to Gretna and back. Three good hands and you could probably finance a Grand Tour.” He ushered Thorn toward the sitting room door.
“I’ve never been a gambler.” Thorn protested. “You know that as well as anybody.”
In a sense, he’d taken a flutter on his liaison with Felicity Lyte—hoping to win a jackpot of pleasure. He’d dealt himself a hand believing he had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Too late he had come to realize that he’d bet on his ability to bed a woman without falling in love with her.
The stakes had been nothing less than his heart. And he had lost it.
Weston St. John paused at the doorway and regarded his friend. “You may try as hard as you like to play it safe, old fellow, but life is a gamble any way you look at it. You’re welcome to stay here the night, then roust me out at some uncivilized hour of the morning to see my banker. Or, if you’re determined to be on your way before sunrise, you can come along with me and risk your invaluables on the turn of a few cards. Which will it be?”
Rubbing the face of his signet ring, Thorn struggled with his decision. The watch was so old it showed only the hour, which limited its use in all but the most leisurely time keeping. The signet ring was older still. Both had passed down, father to son, through the Greenwood line to him.
He had slight reservations about leaving
