“What in the world?” Poppy asked.
“Hot as a poker straight from a fire,” her sister said, though her brown eyes were alit with…something. “How are you holding that? Doesn’t it hurt you?”
Poppy looked down at the sealed letter in her hand. The thing wasn’t even mildly warm to the touch.
“And you didn’t get a vision from it?” Laurel pressed.
“Youhad a vision?” Poppy speared her sister with a disbelieving look.
Laurel nodded slowly. “I’ve never seen anything. Not like you have. Not until I touchedthat.”
Goodness! “What did you see?” And why hadn’t Poppy seen it?
“A ball,” Laurel said in awe. “A crush, really. Well-lit and full of cheer. And Captain Galbraith was there.”
Alec? “At a ball?” Poppy stared at her sister, her heart pounding in her chest.
“Thewitches’ball!” Laurel pronounced.
Poppy’s pulse began to ring in her ears.
A smile spread across her sister’s face. “And he was looking for you.”
Was he really?
CHAPTER9
The Crimson Cloak
St. James Street - London
October 1814
“Areyou ever going to open that?”
Daniel’s words snapped Alec from his woolgathering. He glanced down to realize that he’d been tapping the edge of that infernal note from his brother against the table. Alec discarded the note in the middle of the table and looked over his shoulder at the previously abandoned gaming tables. “I’ve never been cursed with such a spate of bad luck before.”
And he hadn’t. After surviving the Battle of Salamanca with only one good leg, Alec had returned to England from the Continent and began acquiring a small fortune with the help of verygoodluck. But over the last fortnight, his ability to win at the gaming tables had seemingly dried up. In fact, if he was honest, nothing had gone his way since leaving Halwell Chase in the dead of night. That was the damned truth of the matter. The memory of Poppy Elstone in her nightrail and wrap in that parlor, her hand in his, warming him with her magical touch flashed in Alec’s mind like it had so many times since his departure.
“PerhapsRhys offers good luck of some sort.” Daniel gestured to the abandoned note on the table.
Alec managed not to snort. If so, it would be the first time in his brother’s miserable existence. He sneered at the note in question. He couldn’t seem to get rid of thing. Even after leaving it behind in Devon, it still managed to get returned to him. Upon receiving it, he’d tried to burn the damned note in his grate, but the thing wouldn’t take a flame. Probably some enchantment Rhys had used to protect it from destruction. Alec would likely be cursed with the thing for the rest of his days, like Sisyphus and his blasted boulder. In the back of his mind, a voice whispered that he could just open the note and be done with it, but Alec refused to make such a concession to his brother. Rhys could choke on the note for all he cared.
“You want to return to the tables?” Daniel asked.
But Alec didn’t want that either. Not really. After all, he’d seen more than one aristocratic fool or overzealous gentry lose everything due to their own bravado and short-sightedness. Alec would be damned if he lost his amassed fortune with the roll of the dice or the turn of a card. When good luck wasn’t to be found, one had to avoid games of chance all together.
“I’m thinking of heading to Somerset,” he told his friend. “I should have looked in on that estate in Bleadon before now.”
“Leaving Town?” Daniel sat back in his seat in surprise.
“Until my luck changes, I’m afraid.” Then he smiled at his old friend. “You are welcome, of course, to join me.”
Daniel raked a hand through his dark hair. “I’ve got inroads I need to make here.”
Inroads with wealthy merchants who had marriageable daughters. “Have you narrowed down the list?”
His friend shrugged slightly. “John Crump from Cheshire.”
