Rendezvous Read Online Free PDF

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 intothe 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 allpeople. 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