Rendezvous Read Free Page B

eyes. Shedeserved the title of the Angel which had been bestowed upon her by the admiring gentlemen of the
haute ton
.
    Augusta took personal pride in her cousin’s recent social success. It was Augusta, after all, who, at four-and-twenty, had undertaken to launch the younger Claudia into the world of the
ton
. Augusta had decided it was the least she could do to repay her uncle and her cousin for taking her into their home after her brother’s death two years ago.
    Sir Thomas, being a Hampshire Ballinger and therefore quite wealthy, had the blunt to pay for his daughter’s launch and he was generous enough to underwrite Augusta’s expenses as well. Being a widower, however, he lacked the female contacts to manage a successful Season. He also lacked any knowledge of style and dash. That was, of course, where Augusta could contribute mightily to the project.
    The Hampshire Ballingers might have the money in the family, but the Northumberland Ballingers had gotten all the style and dash.
    Augusta was very fond of her cousin, but the two of them were as different as night and day in many ways. Claudia would never have dreamed of sneaking downstairs after midnight to break into her host’s library desk. Claudia had no interest in joining Pompeia’s. Claudia would have been appalled at the notion of standing around in one’s wrapper at midnight chatting with a distinguished scholar such as the Earl of Graystone. Claudia had a very nice sense of the proprieties.
    It occurred to Augusta that Claudia was probably on Graystone’s list of prospective wives.
    Downstairs in the library Harry stood for a long while in the darkness and stared out the window at his host’s moonlit gardens. He had not wanted to accept the invitation to Enfield’s weekend house party. Normally he avoided such events whenever possible. They tended to be boring inthe extreme and an utter waste of his time, as were most of Society’s frivolous affairs. But he was hunting a wife this Season and his quarry had a disconcerting habit of appearing in unpredictable locations.
    Not that he had been bored this evening, Harry reminded himself wryly. The task of keeping his future bride out of trouble had certainly enlivened this little jaunt into the countryside. He wondered how many more such midnight rendezvous he would be obliged to endure before he had her securely wed.
    She was such a maddening little baggage
. She ought to have been married off to a strong-willed husband years ago. She needed a man who could keep her firmly in hand. One could only hope it was not too late to control her rash ways.
    Augusta Ballinger was twenty-four years old and still unwed due to a variety of reasons. Among them had been a series of deaths in the family. Sir Thomas, her uncle, had explained that Augusta had lost her parents the year she turned eighteen. The pair had been killed in a carriage accident. Augusta’s father had been driving in a wild, neck-or-nothing race at the time. His wife had insisted on accompanying him. Such recklessness was, Sir Thomas admitted, unfortunately typical of the Northumberland side of the family.
    There had been very little money left for Augusta and her older brother, Richard. Apparently a certain devil-may-care attitude toward economy and financial matters also characterized the Northumberland Ballingers.
    Richard had sold off all his small inheritance except for a cottage in which he and Augusta lived. He used the money to buy himself a commission. And then he had been killed, not in battle on the continent, but by a highwayman on a country lane not far from the cottage. He had been on leave at the time and had been riding home from London to see his sister.
    Augusta, according to Sir Thomas, had been devastated by Richard Ballinger’s death. She was alone in the world.Sir Thomas had insisted she had come to live with himself and his daughter. Augusta had eventually agreed. For months she had appeared sunk in a deep melancholy that