"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."

13

Augusta 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.

The Spider's Web

Behold the brave young men who play upon the glistening web, See how their silver sabers shimmer.

They meet for tea at number three and return again to serve their master's dinner.

He dines amid the silken strands and drinks the careless young men's blood.

He bides his time at three and nine until the light grows dimmer. Now many are few and few are none.

The spider plays a hand of cards and finds be is the winner.

Count twenty as three and three as one until you see the glimmer.

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.

When Augusta could stand it no longer she ordered her mare to be saddled and brought around. Then she went upstairs to change into her riding habit. When she returned to the front hall, the butler gave her a worried glance.

"It appears as though we might have rain later this afternoon, madam."

"Perhaps." Augusta smiled wanly. "Do not concern yourself, Steeples. A little rain will not hurt me."

"Are you certain you do not wish a groom to accompany you, madam?" Every dour line in Steeples's long face was turned down in an expression of deep concern. "I know his lordship would no doubt prefer you to ride with one."

"No, I do not want a groom. This is the country, Steeples. We need not worry about the sort of problems a woman alone might encounter in Town. If anyone inquires, you may say I shall be back late this afternoon."

Steeples inclined his head in a stiff, disapproving manner. "As you wish, madam."

Augusta sighed as she went down the steps and mounted her horse. Even the butler was difficult to please here at Graystone.

She rode for nearly an hour beneath the ominous sky and felt her spirits begin to lift slightly. It was impossible to stay melancholy in the face of a gathering storm, Augusta decided. She raised her face to the brisk, snapping breeze and felt the first hints of rain. It refreshed and revitalized her as nothing else could have done on that dreary day.

Although she'd had plenty of warning, the first roll of thunder caught Augusta by surprise. She knew it was too late to get back to Graystone before the storm broke. When she spotted a tumbledown cottage in the distance, she headed for it at once. It was vacant.

Augusta found shelter for her mare in the small shed behind the cottage. Then she let herself into the single empty room and stood in the open doorway to watch the rain sweep over the landscape.

She was still standing there twenty minutes later when a horse and rider appeared from the heart of the storm. The stallion's hoofbeats blended with a clap of thunder and lightning arced across the sky just as the beast was brought to a shuddering halt in front of the door.

Harry scowled down at her from atop the horse. His many-tiered greatcoat swirled around him like a black cloak. Rain dripped from his black beaver hat.

"What the devil do you think you're doing out here in the middle of a storm, Augusta?" The stallion danced as more lightning crackled in the distance. Harry soothed the nervous animal with a gloved hand. "Good God, woman, you lack the common sense of a schoolgirl. Where is your horse?"