Rendezvous

Instead he had found himself a reckless, headstrong, extremely volatile creature named Augusta who had the potential to make his life a living hell.

  Unfortunately, Harry realized, he seemed to have lost interest in all the other females on his list.

  Augusta arrived at the door of Lady Arbuthnott’s imposing town house shortly after three on the day following her return to London. She had Rosalind Morrissey’s journal safely tucked into her reticule and she could hardly wait to tell her father that all was well.

  “I shall not be staying long today, Betsy,” she said to her young maid as they went up the steps. “We must hurry home to help Claudia prepare for the Burnett soiree. This is a very important evening for her. The most eligible males in Town will no doubt be there and we want her to look her best.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Miss Claudia always looks like an angel when she goes out, though. I don’t expect tonight will be any different.”

  Augusta grinned. “How very true.”

  The door was opened just as Betsy was preparing to knock. Scruggs, Lady Arbuthnott’s elderly, stoop-shouldered butler, glared at the newcomers as he saw two other young women out the door.

  Augusta recognized Belinda Renfrew and Felicity Oatley as they came down the steps. They were both regular visitors to Lady Arbuthnott’s home, as were several other well-bred ladies, all of whom came and went on a regular basis. The ailing Lady Arbuthnott, the neighbors frequently noted, was never short of visitors.

  “Good afternoon, Augusta,” Felicity said cheerfully.

  “You are looking well this afternoon.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Belinda murmured, her eyes speculative as she took in the sight of Augusta dressed in a fashionable dark blue pelisse over a sky blue gown. “I am delighted you are here. Lady Arbuthnott has been most anxiously awaiting your arrival.”

  “I would not dream of disappointing her,” Augusta said as she went past with a laughing smile. “Or Miss Norgrove, either.” Belinda Renfrew, Augusta knew, had wagered Daphne Norgrove ten pounds that the journal would not be returned to its owner.

  Belinda gave her another sharp glance. “All went well at the Enfield house party?”

  “Of course. I do hope I shall see you later this evening, Belinda.”

  Belinda’s answering smile was wry. “You most certainly shall, Augusta. And so will Miss Norgrove. Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon. Oh, hello, Scruggs.” Augusta turned her smile on the glowering, bewhiskered butler as the door was closed behind her.

  “Miss Ballinger. Lady Arbuthnott is expecting you, of course.”

  “Of course.” Augusta refused to be intimidated by the irascible old man who guarded the Arbuthnott front door.

  Scruggs was the only male member of the Arbuthnott household and held the high honor of being the only man Lady Arbuthnott had hired in ten years. He was new to her staff this season and in the beginning no one had understood quite why Sally had taken him on. It was obviously a gesture of kindness on her part because the aging butler was clearly unable to cope physically with many of his duties. There were entire days and evenings when he did not appear at the door at all due to his rheumatism and other assorted complaints.

  Complaining was one of the few things Scruggs apparently enjoyed. He complained of everything: his painful joints, the weather, his duties in the household, the lack of assistance he received in carrying out those duties, and the low wages he claimed Lady Arbuthnott paid.

  But somewhere along the line the ladies who visited here so regularly had concluded that Scruggs was the finishing touch they had been needing all along. He was eccentric, original, and vastly entertaining. They had adopted him wholeheartedly and now counted him as a valuable addition to the premises.

  “How is your rheumatism today, Scruggs?” Augusta asked as she untied her new feather-trimmed bonnet.

  “What was that?” Scruggs glared at her. “Speak up if you want to ask a question. Don’t understand why ladies are always mumbling. Think they could learn to speak up.”

  “I said, how is your rheumatism today, Scruggs?”

  “Extremely painful, thank you, Miss Ballinger. Rarely been worse.” Scruggs always spoke in a deep, raspy voice that sounded like gravel being ground under a carriage wheel. “And it don’t help none having to answer the door fifteen times in one hour, I’ll tell you that much. All the comings and goings around here are enough to drive a sane man straight into Bedlam, if you ask me. Don’t understand why you females can’t stay put for more than five minutes.”

  Augusta clucked sympathetically as she reached into her reticule and drew out a small bottle. “I have brought along a remedy you might wish to try. It was my mother’s recipe. She used to make it up for my grandfather, who found it very effective.”

  “Is that right? What happened to your grandfather, Miss Ballinger?” Scruggs took the bottle with a wary expression and examined it closely.

  “He died some years ago.”

  “From the effects of this medicine, I daresay.”

  “He was eighty-five, Scruggs. Legend has it that he was found dead in bed with one of the housemaids.”

  “Is that a fact?” Scruggs eyed the bottle with renewed interest. “I shall try it straightaway, in that case.”

  “Do that. I only wish I had something equally useful to give to Lady Arbuthnott. How is she today, Scruggs?”

  Scruggs’s bushy white brows rose and fell. There was a gleam of sadness in his blue eyes. Augusta was always fascinated by those beautiful aqua-colored eyes. They struck her as surprisingly sharp and disconcertingly youthful in his heavily lined and whiskered face.

  “This is turning out to be one of her good days, Miss. I believe you will find she is anticipating your arrival with great enthusiasm.”

  “Then I shall not keep her waiting.” Augusta glanced at her maid. “Go and have a cup of tea with your friends in the kitchen, Betsy. I shall have Scruggs summon you when I am ready to leave.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Betsy bobbed a curtsy and hurried off to join the other maids and footmen who had accompanied their mistresses on the afternoon visits. There was never a lack of companionship in the Arbuthnott kitchens.

  Scruggs moved toward the entrance of the drawing room with a painfully slow, crablike gait. He opened the door, wincing broadly at the discomfort the action gave him. Augusta went through the doorway and stepped into another world.

  It was a world where she could experience, at least for a few hours each day, a sense of belonging. She had longed for that feeling since her brother had been killed.

  Augusta knew Sir Thomas and Claudia had tried very hard to make her feel at home and she, in turn, had tried equally hard to make them believe she did feel a part of their family. But the truth was she felt like an outsider. With their serious, intellectual ways and their sober, thoughtful airs, so typical of the Hampshire branch of the family, Sir Thomas and Claudia would never be able to fully understand Augusta.

  But here on the other side of Lady Arbuthnott’s drawing room door, Augusta felt that, if she had not quite found a true home, she was at least among her own kind.

  She was inside Pompeia’s, one of the newest, most unusual, most exclusive clubs in all of London. Membership was, of course, by invitation only and nonmembers had no real notion of just what went on in Lady Arbuthnott’s drawing room.

  Outsiders assumed Lady Arbuthnott amused herself by conducting one of the many fashionable salons that appealed to the ladies of London society. But Pompeia’s was much more than that. It was a club, patterned along the lines of a gentlemen’s club, that catered to modernthinking females of the ton who shared a certain unconventional outlook.

  At Augusta’s suggestion the club had been named Pompeia’s after Caesar’s wife, the one he had divorced because she had not been completely above suspicion. The name suited its membership. The ladies of Pompeia’s were all well bred and quite socially acceptable, but they were generally considered to be Originals, to say
the least.

  Pompeia’s had been carefully designed to emulate the fashionable gentlemen’s clubs in several respects. But the furnishings and decor had been given a decidedly feminine twist.

  The warm yellow walls were covered with paintings of famous classical women. There was a nicely done portrait of Panthia, the healer, at one end of the room. Beside it was a beautifully rendered picture of Eurydice, mother of Philip II of Macedon. She was portrayed in the act of dedicating a monument to education.

  A depiction of Sappho composing her poems with a lyre hung over the fireplace. Cleopatra on the throne of Egypt graced the opposite end of the long room. Other paintings and statues illustrated the goddesses Artemis, Demeter, and Iris in a variety of graceful poses.

  The furniture was all in the classical style and an assortment of judiciously placed pedestals, urns, and columns had been artfully scattered about to give the drawing room the look of an ancient Greek temple.

  The club offered its patrons many of the amenities offered in White’s, Brooks’s, and Watier’s. There was a coffee room in one alcove and a card room in another. Late in the evenings club members with a taste for whist or macao could frequently be found at the green baize tables, still elegantly garbed in the gowns they had worn earlier to a ball.

  High-stakes playing was strongly discouraged by the management, however. Lady Arbuthnott made it clear she did not want any enraged husbands knocking on her door to make inquiries about their ladies’ recent heavy losses in her drawing room.

  A variety of daily newspapers and journals including the Times and the Morning Post were always available in the club, as were a cold buffet, tea, sherry, and ratafia.

  Augusta swept into the room and was immediately enveloped in the pleasant, relaxed atmosphere. A plump, fair-haired woman seated at the writing desk glanced up and Augusta nodded to her as she went past.

  “How is your poetry going, Lucinda?” Augusta inquired. Lately it seemed that every club member’s burning ambition was to write. Augusta alone had escaped the call of the muse. She was quite content to read the latest novels.

  “Very well, thank you. You are looking in fine form this morning. Can we assume good news?” Lucinda gave her a knowing smile.

  “Thank you, Lucinda. Yes, you may assume the best. “Tis positively amazing what a weekend in the country can do for one’s spirits.”

  “Or one’s reputation.”

  “Precisely.”

  Augusta sailed on down the length of the room to where two women were enjoying tea in front of the fire.

  Lady Arbuthnott, patronness of Pompeia’s and known to every member of the club as Sally, was wearing a warm India shawl over her elegant, long-sleeved, rust-colored gown. She was ensconced in the chair closest to the flames. From that vantage point she commanded a view of the entire room. Her posture was, as always, elegantly graceful and her hair was piled high in a fashionable coiffure. Lady Arbuthnott’s charms had once been the toast of Society.

  A wealthy woman who had been widowed shortly after her marriage to a notorious viscount thirty years earlier, Sally could afford to spend a fortune on her clothes and did so. But all the fine silks and muslins in the world could not disguise the underlying weariness and the painful thinness caused by the wasting disease that was slowly destroying her.

  Augusta was finding Sally’s illness almost as hard to endure as Sally herself was finding it. Augusta knew that losing Sally was going to be like losing her mother all over again.

  The two women had first met at a bookshop where they had both been perusing volumes on historical subjects. They had struck up an immediate friendship which had deepened quickly over the months. Although separated by years, their shared interests, eccentricities, and sense of adventure had drawn them close. For Augusta, Sally became a replacement for the mother she had lost. And for Sally, Augusta was the daughter she had never had.

  Sally had assumed the role of mentor in many ways, not the least of which was in opening the doors of the ton’s most exclusive drawing rooms. Sally’s contacts in the social world were legion. She had enthusiastically whisked Augusta into the whirl of Society. Augusta’s natural social abilities had secured her position in that Society.

  For months the two women had enjoyed themselves immensely dashing about London. And then Sally had begun to tire easily. In a short while it became evident that she was seriously ill. She had retreated to her own home and Augusta had created Pompeia’s to entertain her.

  In spite of the ravages of her illness, Sally’s sense of humor and acute intelligence were still very much intact. Her eyes sharpened with pleased amusement as she turned her head and saw Augusta.

  The young woman seated next to Lady Arbuthnott glanced up also, her pretty dark eyes filled with anxiety. Rosalind Morrissey was not only the heiress to a considerable fortune, she was also enchantingly attractive with her tawny brown hair and full-bosomed figure.

  “Ah, my dear Augusta,” Sally said with deep satisfaction as Augusta bent down and kissed her affectionately on the cheek. “Something tells me you have met with success, hmmm? Poor Rosalind here has been quite overset for the past few days. You must put her out of her misery.”

  “With pleasure. Here is your journal, Rosalind. Not exactly with Lord Enfield’s compliments, but what does that signify?” Augusta held out the small leather-bound volume.

  “You found it.” Rosalind leaped to her feet and grabbed the journal. “I can hardly believe it.” She threw her arms around Augusta and gave her a quick hug. “What an enormous relief. How can I possibly thank you? Was there any problem? Any danger? Does Enfield know you took it?”

  “Well, matters did not go precisely according to plan,” Augusta admitted as she sat down across from Sally. “And we should probably discuss the business immediately.”

  “What went wrong?” Sally asked with interest. “Were you discovered?”

  Augusta wrinkled her nose. “I was interrupted in the very act of retrieving the journal by Lord Graystone, of all people. Who would have imagined that he would have been wandering around at that hour? One would think he would have been busy writing another treatise on some moldering old Greek if he was even awake. But no, there he was, sauntering into the library, cool as you please while I was on my knees behind Enfield’s desk.”

  “Graystone.” Rosalind sank back down into her chair with a horrified expression. “That high stickler? He saw you? He saw my journal?”

  Augusta shook her head reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Rosalind. He did not know it was yours, but yes, he did discover me in the library.” She turned to frown seriously at Sally. “I must say, it was all very mysterious. He apparently knew that I would be there and he even knew I wanted something out of the desk. In fact, he even produced a length of wire and picked the lock. But he refused to tell me his source of information.”

  Rosalind put a hand to her mouth and her dark eyes widened in alarm. “Dear heaven, we must have a spy in our midst.”

  Sally made soothing noises. “I am quite certain there is nothing to worry about. I have known the man for years. Graystone’s town house is just at the other end of the street, you see. I can tell you from experience that he is almost always possessed of the most unusual information.”

  “He gave me his word he would not tell a soul about the incident and I am inclined to believe him,” Augusta said slowly. “He has become a close friend of my uncle’s in recent months, you know, and I believe he thought he was doing Sir Thomas a favor by keeping an eye on me at Enfield’s.”

  “That’s another thing about Graystone,” Sally said smoothly. “He can be trusted to keep a secret.”

  “Are you certain?” Rosalind looked at her anxiously.

  “Absolutely positive.” Sally raised her teacup to her pale lips, took a sip, and set the cup and saucer firmly on the end table. “Now, then, my bold young friends. We have managed to brush through this unfortunate affair safely enough, thanks to Augusta’s daring and my own ability to s
ecure invitations for acquaintances on short notice. Lady Enfield did owe me a few favors, after all. However, I feel I should take this opportunity to make a point.”

  “I believe I know what you are going to say,” Augusta murmured, pouring herself a cup of tea. “But it is entirely unnecessary. Not only did Lord Graystone see fit to read me a boring lecture, I can assure you, I have learned a lesson from poor Rosalind’s sad plight. I, for one, will never, ever, put anything down in writing that can possibly come back to haunt me.”

  “Nor will I, ever again.” Rosalind Morrissey clutched the journal very close to her breast. “What a beast that man is.”

  “Who? Enfield?” Sally smiled grimly. “Yes, he is most definitely a bastard when it comes to his dealings with women. Always has been. But there is no denying he fought bravely enough during the war.”

  “I do not know what I ever saw in him,” Rosalind stated. “I much prefer the company of someone like Lord Lovejoy. What do you know of him, Sally? Your information is always the most current, even though you rarely leave the comforts of your own home.”

  “I have no need to go abroad for the latest on dit.” Sally smiled. “Sooner or later it all flows through the front door of Pompeia’s. As for Lovejoy, I have only recently begun hearing of his charms. They are many and varied, I am told.” She glanced at Augusta. “You can testify to that, can you not, Augusta?”

  “I danced with him at the Lofenburys’ ball last week,” Augusta said, remembering the laughing, red-haired baron with the brilliant green eyes. “I must admit it is quite exciting to dance the waltz with him. And he is rather mysterious, I understand. No one seems to know much about him.”

  “He is the last of his line, I believe. There was something said about estates in Norfolk.” Sally pursed her lips. “But I have no notion of how prosperous his lands are. Best take care that you are not becoming enamored of another fortune hunter, Rosalind.”

  Rosalind groaned. “Why is it that all the most interesting men have a serious character flaw of one sort or another?”