She extricated herself from his embrace. “I will try. I must go now. I have already stayed here too long.”
“Until two nights hence, then. I will be waiting.”
She turned away.
“Wait. What is your name?” he asked.
She looked back over her shoulder. Then she ran up the garden path.
Chapter Four
Amanda folded her hands on her lap and kept a friendly smile on her face. She sat on a divan in the house on Bedford Square. Six women sat in chairs forming an arc in front of her. They kept looking at her.
Small talk flowed, but social chatting was not the reason for this meeting. Amanda Waverly was. She could not imagine why.
The housekeeper brought little cakes to eat along with the tea, coffee, sherry, wine, and, unless Amanda’s eyes deceived her, whisky. Thus far, only Lady Farnsworth had indulged in those spirits. Twice.
A woman whom Amanda had not seen before, Lady Grace, reached for one of the cakes. An ideal beauty with dark hair, blue eyes, and ivory skin, the lady had been blessed with a thin, lithe figure that allowed her to indulge in as many sweets as she wanted.
Lady Grace remained silent, as did two of the other women who were new to her. Mrs. Dalton, a stout woman with a cloud of pale hair and respectable but unimpressive garments, listened attentively. Another woman, Mrs. Clark, clearly of lower station to all the others, looked wide-eyed and attentive, but subdued.
Right across from Amanda, watching her very hard indeed, sat the Duchess of Stratton. This was the journal’s patroness of whom Lady Farnsworth had spoken.
Amanda judged her to be in her middle twenties. She also was so heavy with child that Amanda wondered the woman had left her home. Copper streaks lit the duchess’s brown hair. Her clear blue eyes assessed Amanda while Lady Farnsworth held forth on a recent bill submitted to Parliament. Beside the duchess sat Mrs. Galbreath, the editor of the journal.
The duchess smiled at Mrs. Galbreath when Lady Farnsworth finally took a breath. “I think this will be a perfect solution. Don’t you agree?”
“If I did not, I would have never asked you to come. In your condition—”
“Don’t you start on that. Adam is bad enough. The coach is so filled with pillows that I did not experience one jostle, although getting in and out was comical.” She turned her sights on Amanda again. “Lady Farnsworth has extolled your talents to all of us. We have a proposal for you and hope that you will hear us out.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“The journal has seen unanticipated growth this last year. We are thinking of moving from quarterly publication to bi-monthly. That is not realistic if Mrs. Galbreath continues doing everything, as she does now. Ordinarily I would help her, but under the circumstances . . .” She rested her hand upon the bulge in her pale lemon muslin dress. “We are looking to find some help for Mrs. Galbreath. Lady Farnsworth suggested herself. Or rather, you.”
“It is the accounts, you see,” Mrs. Galbreath said. “I loathe doing them, so I put them off until last, but sometimes last never arrives. I admit that I have not seen to them properly as result. Lady Farnsworth described how you have taken over her household accounts and managed them so well, and we thought we might impose on you to do the same for the journal.”
Amanda did not know what to say. She had been similarly speechless when Lady Farnsworth had brought her the household accounts. If any of these women knew about her past, they would never trust her with finances. Actually, they would never sit in the same chamber as she did.
She had told herself that the past was just that—the past. It had allowed her to accept the duty from Lady Farnsworth. Only now the past was not the past so much.
“You are concerned that it will interfere with your responsibilities to me, I expect,” Lady Farnsworth said. “You are not to worry. This will not take much time, and you can do most of it in my house. We will set aside a few hours a week for that purpose. No one intends to add to your labor.”
“Indeed not. I will not have that,” the duchess said. “If you cannot fit it into the time you give Lady Farnsworth, either we will find another solution or we will compensate you for the additional hours. The decision would be yours.”
“It sounds as though it would be interesting,” Amanda said. Numbers were numbers, but seeing how one financed a journal would be fascinating, and more informative than scrutinizing the fees owed butchers and stationers.
“Then you will give it a try?” the duchess asked.
“Since Lady Farnsworth is agreeable to sharing me with you, I will gladly try.”
“That is a great relief to me,” Mrs. Galbreath said. “Should we toast to your inclusion in our literary sisterhood?” She leaned forward, lifted the sherry decanter, and poured a round.
Amanda sipped hers, noting how the liquid warmed her inside as it trickled down her throat. She rolled her tongue over the flavor. A little sweet, a little not. She rather liked it.
“Now, dear, there is one more thing,” Lady Farnsworth said. “The duchess insisted on having a look at you, and that is understandable. However, you are not to tell anyone of her patronage. In the autumn, the journal will begin including her name and role, but for now it is a secret.”
“It is not really a secret,” Mrs. Galbreath corrected. “However, there was some business last year and we thought it best to wait a while before being forthcoming.”
