Alan Lewrie #17 - The Invasion Year by Dewey Lambdin

Author:Dewey Lambdin [Lambdin, Dewey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780312551858
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lewrie wished he had begun to play-act yawns and beg off after Almack’s, but there he was in the Cocoa Tree, one of the fastest gaming clubs in London, nodding, bowing, and smiling (a tad forced by then, his smiles) to yet another parcel of simpering “hoo-raws.” Percy was dead-set on entering the Long Rooms to find a game, and Lewrie had to follow along.

“Do you care for a flutter of the cards tonight, Sir Alan?” he asked, craning his neck to find an empty chair and a game he liked.

“I’ve really no head for gambling, mil … Percy,” Lewrie said with a grin and shake of his head. “Got my fingers burned and learned my lesson before I went into the Navy.”

“Are you sure you’re English, sir?” Lydia teased, tossing back her head to laugh, her arm under his once more. “Why, wagering is the national disease!”

“Got cured of it,” Lewrie told her, chuckling.

“I wager the wagers Alan makes against the French are deeper than any I’ve ever made!” Lord Percy hooted. “Wager wagers, hey? Well, you two can support me whilst I take a risk or two. I say, there’s an opening for vingt-et-un. Smashing!”

“Keep your head, Percy,” Lydia cautioned her brother. “You’ve taken on nigh your daily half-dozen.”

“A gentleman who can’t manage half a dozen bottles of wine per day is no proper gentleman, Lydia,” Lord Percy scoffed. “She’s of a piece with you, Alan … do the stakes near an hundred pounds, Lydia’ll go all squeamish and quaking. There must’ve been a miser in the family tree long ago, and she inherited, ha ha!”

“Let us know whether you’re winning or losing large, Percy,” she told him with a wry tone. “Scream or groan, and we’ll come running to your rescue. Captain Lewrie will surely join me for more champagne?”

“By this time o’ night, I’m about ready for a pot o’ tea,” he had to admit to her, feeling well and truly “foxed.”

“Now I know you’re not English, Captain Lewrie!” Lydia teased again. “There must be a West Country Methodist, or a Scottish Calvinist, in your family tree.”

“Well, my mother’s family is from Devonshire,” Lewrie quipped.

“A pot of tea, then … with Devonshire cream,” Lydia decided, smiling most fetchingly, and with lowered lashes.

They found a comparatively quiet corner table in the outer public halls, and ordered tea with scones and jam, which didn’t even seem to faze the waiter; odder things had been called for at the Cocoa Tree.

Over several restoring cups, which cleared some of the fumes in Lewrie’s head, Lydia led him through his background; how his mother had died in childbirth, and Sir Hugo had come back to take him in.…

“That Willoughby?” Lydia almost gasped. “The ‘Hell-Fire Club’ Willoughby? Good God, Sir Alan, he’s almost as scandalous as I!” She laughed in delight, then lowered her head to peer hard at him, cocking her head over to one side. “Do you take after your mother, now, or do you take after him? Do

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