Rendezvous (28 page)

Half an hour later Harry was still waiting for an answer to his silent questions. Meredith’s mood, at least, had lightened into one of childish enthusiasm. She looked adorable in her small hunter-green riding habit, which was identical to the one Augusta was wearing, right down to the jaunty little plumed hat perched atop her gleaming curls.

Harry watched his daughter urge her dappled gray pony ahead down the lane and then he gave Augusta a considering glance.

“I am pleased you were able to accompany us this afternoon, madam,” he said, determined to break the silence.

Augusta sat gracefully in the sidesaddle, her gloved hands elegant on the reins. “I thought it would be good for your daughter to get some fresh air. The house has become rather stifling of late, has it not?”

Harry cocked a brow. “Yes, it has.”

Augusta bit her lip and flicked him a quick, questioning glance. “Oh, devil take it, my lord, you must know why I agreed to come along today.”

“No, madam, I do not. Do not mistake me, I am pleased you chose to accompany us, but I certainly do not pretend to understand why you did so.”

She sighed. “I have decided to turn Richard’s poem over to you.”

A surging sense of relief swept over Harry. He very nearly reached out and pulled Augusta off her horse and onto his lap. But he managed to resist the urge. He really was becoming far too prone to act on impulse lately. He must watch the tendency.

“Thank you, Augusta. May I ask what changed your mind?” He waited tensely for the response.

“I have done a great deal of thinking about the matter and I realize I have very little choice. As you have pointed out on numerous occasions, it is my duty as your wife to obey you.”

“I see.” Harry was silent for a long moment, much of his relief turning sour. “I am sorry you are guided only by duty, madam.”

She frowned. “What else would you have me guided by, if not duty?”

“A sense of trust, perhaps?”

She inclined her head politely. “There is that. I have concluded that you will keep your word. You said you would not expose my brother’s secrets to the world and I believe you.”

Harry, who was not accustomed to having his word questioned in the first place, not even for a moment, could not quite squelch his irritation. “It took you nearly three full days to conclude you could trust my oath, madam?”

She sighed. “No, Harry. I trusted your word from the start. If you must have the truth, that was never really the problem. You are a very honorable man. Everyone knows that.”

“Then what was the problem?” he demanded roughly.

Augusta kept her eyes focused between her mare’s ears. “I was afraid, my lord.”

“Afraid of what, for God’s sake? Of what you might learn about your brother?” It took all his willpower to keep his voice low so that Meredith would not overhear.

“Not precisely. I do not doubt my brother’s innocence for a moment. But I was anxious about what you would think of me if, after reading that poem, you somehow conclude that Richard was guilty of treason.”

Harry stared at her. “Damnation, Augusta. You believed I would think less of you because of something I concluded your brother might have done?”

“I am a Northumberland Ballinger, too, my lord,” she pointed out in a strained voice. “If you believed one of us was capable of treason, you might very well question the integrity of others in my family.”

“You thought I might question
your
integrity?” He was appalled at the workings of her mind.

She sat very straight in the saddle. “I am aware that you already believe me to be sadly frivolous and inclined toward mischief as it is. I did not want you to question my honor, as well. We are bound together for life, my lord. It will be a very long and difficult road ahead for both of us if you think all Northumberland Ballingers lacking in honor.”

“Devil take it, madam, ’tis not honor you lack, but intellect.” Harry halted his horse and reached out to sweep Augusta off the sidesaddle.

“
Harry
.”

“Were all the members of the Northumberland side of the family so singularly obtuse? I can only hope it does not run in the blood.”

He pulled her across his thighs and kissed her soundly. The heavy skirts of her riding habit swung against his stallion’s sides, causing the animal to prance. Harry tightened his hand on the reins without lifting his mouth from Augusta’s.

“Harry, my horse,” Augusta gasped when she could. She clutched at her outrageous little green hat. “She will wander off.”

“Papa? Papa, what are you doing to Augusta?” Meredith’s voice was thin with anxiety as she jogged back toward her father.

“I am kissing your mother, Meredith. See to her mare, will you? We do not want her to run off.”

“Kissing her?” Meredith’s eyes widened. “Oh, I see. Do not worry about Augusta’s mare, Papa. I will catch her.”

Harry was not in the least concerned about the mare, which had only wandered as far as the nearest clump of grass. All he really cared about at the moment was getting Augusta into bed. The battle had only lasted two nights and three days, but that was definitely two nights and three days too long.

“Harry, really. You must put me down at once. Whatever will Meredith think?” Augusta glowered up at him as she lay cradled in his arms.

“Since when did you become so concerned with the proprieties, madam wife?”

“They have been increasingly on my mind since I became the mother of a daughter,” Augusta grumbled.

Harry roared with laughter.

Harry opened the door to Augusta’s bedchamber later that night and found her sitting at her dressing table. Her maid had just finished preparing her mistress for bed.

“That will be all, Betsy,” Augusta said, her eyes riveted to Harry’s in the mirror.

“Yes, ma’am. Good night, sir.” Betsy’s eyes held a pleased, knowing expression as she made her curtsy and let herself out the door.

Augusta got to her feet with a tentative smile. Her wrapper fell open and Harry saw that her nightdress was made of sheerest muslin. He could see her soft breasts swelling against the gossamer fabric. When he allowed his gaze to wander lower, he saw the dark, triangular shadow
that crowned her thighs. Suddenly he was achingly aware of his arousal.

“I suppose you have come for the poem?” Augusta said. Harry shook his head and smiled slowly. “The poem can wait, madam. I have come for you.”

A
ugusta
rose from the bed a long time later, her body still warm from Harry’s lovemaking. She relit a taper and carried it across the bedchamber to her dressing table. Harry stirred in the bed behind her.

“Augusta? What are you doing?”

“I am getting Richard’s poem.” She opened the small chest which contained her mother’s necklace and the folded sheet of paper she had saved for two years.

“It can wait until morning.” Harry propped himself on his elbow and watched her with narrowed eyes.

“No. I want to finish this now.” She carried the folded sheet back to him. “Here. Read it.”

Harry took the paper from her hand. His dark brows drew together in a frown. “’Tis doubtful I can tell anything about it with only a quick glance. It will need study.”

“It is nonsense, Harry. Not an affair of state at all. Just nonsense. He was dying when he bid me take it and keep it. In his agony he may have been suffering from some strange inner visions.”

Harry looked up at her and Augusta abruptly ceased talking. She sighed, sank down on the edge of the bed, and looked at the terrible brown stains on the paper. She had memorized the words by heart.

T
HE
S
PIDER’S
W
EB

Augusta waited tensely as Harry reread the poem in silence. When he was finished he looked at her again, this time with a cool, searching intensity.

“Did you show this to anyone after your brother’s death, Augusta?”

Augusta nodded. “A man came to talk to Uncle Thomas a few days after my brother was killed. He asked to see my brother’s effects and Uncle Thomas said I should show him everything. He read the poem.”

“What did he say?”

“That it was nonsense. He was not interested in it. Only in the documents that had been found on Richard’s body. And then he started hinting that Richard had been selling information to the French. He and Uncle Thomas agreed the matter should be kept quiet.”

“Do you remember the man’s name?”

“Crawley, I believe.”

Harry closed his eyes briefly in disgust. “Crawley. Yes, of course. That stupid, blundering buffoon. No wonder there were no further inquiries made.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Crawley was a fool.”

“Was?” Augusta frowned.

“He died over a year ago. He was not only an idiot, he had some rather antiquated notions about the propriety of gathering military intelligence. He found that sort of task highly improper and far beneath the touch of a true gentleman. As a result, he knew very little about the process and would not have recognized a coded message if it had bitten him on the ass. Damn the man.”

Augusta set down her taper and rested her chin on her updrawn knees. “You think that poem is in code?”

“I think it very likely. I shall have to study it more in the morning.” Harry carefully refolded the paper.

“Even if it is a coded message, it might have been one Richard was carrying to an English agent, rather than a French agent.”

Harry put the poem on the nightstand. “The important thing is that it does not matter, Augusta. Not to us. I do not care what your brother was doing two years ago. I would never judge you by his actions. Do you believe me?”

She nodded slowly, her eyes locked with his. “I believe you.” She realized with a sense of relief that Harry would be scrupulously fair in that regard. His wife would not be held accountable for the actions of other members of her family.

“You are cold, Augusta. Come here and get back beneath the quilt.” Harry put out the candle flame and pulled Augusta into his arms.

She knew he lay awake for a long while as he held her in the darkness. She knew it because she was unable to sleep for a long time herself. The question of whether or not she had done the right thing by giving Harry the poem spun endlessly in her mind.

Shortly before dawn, Augusta stirred from an uneasy state that was midway between sleep and wakefulness. She did not turn her head on the pillow or open her eyes as she felt Harry steal softly out of bed.

She heard the faint crackle of paper as Harry picked up the bloodstained poem that lay on the nightstand. And then she heard the door to his bedchamber open and close quietly.

Augusta forced herself to stay in bed until there was a hint of light in the sky and then she, too, got out of bed and prepared for the long day ahead.

A glance out the window told Augusta that the new dawn had arrived beneath a dark, leaden canopy that promised rain.

Harry appeared briefly at the breakfast table, stayed just long enough to help himself to servings from the various egg and meat dishes on the sideboard, and then vanished into his library. He barely spoke a word to either Augusta or Meredith. His mood was one of intense preoccupation which the entire household appeared to take in its stride. It was obviously a mood everyone had witnessed on previous occasions.

“Papa gets like this when he is working on one of his manuscripts,” Meredith explained to Augusta. Her clear gray eyes were earnest as she gazed anxiously at her stepmother. “You must not think he is still angry with you.”

“I see.” Augusta smiled in spite of herself. “I shall bear that in mind.”

“Our guests will be arriving in three days’ time, will they not?” Meredith asked, her grave gaze betraying a hint of genuine excitement.

“They certainly will. And Miss Appley will no doubt be by this afternoon to finish fitting the last of your new
dresses. Remind your aunt that lessons much be cut short today. We will all three be busy with the seamstress.”

“I will, Augusta.” Meredith got up from the table and hurried off to the schoolroom.

Alone in the breakfast room, Augusta sipped her coffee in silence. She went through the letters that had arrived earlier and then she read one of the London newspapers that had been delivered along with the post.

When she was finished she consulted with the butler and the housekeeper concerning the necessity of hiring extra staff for the house party.

The door to the library remained solidly shut all morning. Augusta’s eyes were drawn to it every time she went through the downstairs hall. The continued silence from within Harry’s sanctum grew intolerable. She could not stop herself from speculating on what he was concluding about Richard from the terrible poem.