A Season for the Heart (25 page)

Lady Masterson was radiant. Her gallant hussar had arrived promptly, looking larger than life in his splendid dress uniform. As he bent over her white hand, he murmured a special greeting which brought a rosy glow to Her Ladyship’s cheeks. Gareth, on the other hand, seemed ill at ease, turning his glance constantly toward the front door, and when, by ten-thirty, Miss Isabelle Boggs had not yet put in an appearance, he sought out his uncle who was acting as host in the ballroom until Lady Masterson left her post.

“Miss Boggs has not yet come,” Gareth said anxiously. “Can something have happened to her? Can her father have prevented her—?”

“My poor boy.” The earl commiserated with him. “If you intend to wed your Isabelle, you will be compelled to learn patience. It is my understanding that the lady is congenitally incapable of arriving anywhere on time. Shall you find that too annoying?”

“Not if I can be assured that she is safe,” averred the love-smitten youth stoutly. Then his face brightened. “We shall most likely spend the greatest part of our time at Tory Hall, and I shall be able to supervise her activities. I am confident I can soon teach her to be punctual!”

“My
poor
boy!” the Earl reiterated, moved by the sight of such cocksure innocence. However, being a kindly man as well as a very worldly one, he made no attempt to disillusion the deluded youth.

At this moment the orchestra struck up a stately tune, and the Earl prepared to lead his sister-in-law into the first figure. Gareth returned to the head of the stairway, ostensibly to welcome late-arriving guests, although Mikkle was quite capable of ushering any such to the ballroom. His devotion was awarded; the door opened one more time to reveal the beautiful Miss Bogs, awesomely lovely in white and gold, and accompanied correctly by her abigail. Gareth ran lightly down the stairs to welcome her.

He took her hand in his, and each stared into the other’s face with a sort of innocent satisfaction.

“Does your father know you are here?” asked Gareth presently, beginning to lead his love up the staircase to the ballroom.

“Oh, yes,” said Isabelle. “I had to tell him where I was going, at this hour in this dress. It is new. Do you like it?”

“It is the most beautiful dress I have ever seen,” Gareth said simply. “Or perhaps you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.” He stopped on the stairs and scrutinized girl and dress carefully. “It is very pretty,” he decided, “but then I am sure I should think anything
you
wore was pretty.” He led her upward again. “You say your father found out you were coming here? He was not angry?”

“Far from it,” said Isabelle. “I should rather say, highly pleased. He thinks I am here to meet the Earl of Austell.”

Gareth halted her again, this time on the wide landing outside the ballroom. The first dance was coming to an end. Gareth said quickly, “You are to save all your dances for me, remember! And my uncle had better announce our engagement at supper—that is, after he announces my mother’s. Will that be agreeable to you, my dear Isabelle?”

“Your mother’s—? I am sure it will be agreeable to me, if you and she are happy about it. Whom is she to marry?”

“Pommy’s uncle, I believe, from what she says—although I was so late getting back here after rescuing Pommy that I got the merest outline. No, really, Isabelle,” when she evidenced a tendency to be curious about his afternoon’s adventure, “you have not answered
my
question, and it is more important than anything which occurred in Surrey—a very dull business indeed, for Pommy was apparently in no danger, and Chelm knocked Corcran down before I had a chance to call him out. No,” he resisted further inquiry on her part, “You must answer
my
question before everyone comes prying and gabbling and trying to get you away from me. What is your answer, Isabelle?”

“I forgot the question,” Miss Boggs confessed, with an enchantingly pretty smile.

Gareth beamed at her. “You are teasing me, little rogue! Or do you just wish for me to ask you again?”

“Yes,” said Miss Boggs, sensibly choosing the path of least resistance.

“Is Uncle Derek to announce
our
engagement during supper?
Do
say he may, Isabelle!”

“I should like that very well. Then Papa cannot force Lord Austell to marry me.”

“No one shall force you to marry anyone but me,” promised Gareth. “Ah! The dance is ended! Let us find my uncle and tell him what we have decided.”

While the two innocents were moving through the crowded room seeking Lord Austell, that nobleman was considering launching a search of his own. All the time he had been dancing with Lady Masterson, he had looked in vain for one slight, girlish figure. As the dance ended, he said to his sister-in-law in a voice charged with exasperation, “My dear Aurora, one can hardly see one’s hand before one’s face in this Arcadian gloom! Whose bird-brained idea was it to turn the ballroom into a bosky dell?”

“Mine,” said Her Ladyship crisply. “You’d like it too, if you had Melpomene on your arm instead of me.”

Recalled to his duty, the Earl grinned ruefully and said all that was proper to his hostess, and then, with a coaxing smile, added, “
Dear
Aurora, where is my Pommy?”

“In her room,” answered Lady Masterson.

The Earl’s smile vanished. “Why have you kept her there?”

“I?” asked Her Ladyship. “Both Gordon and I tried without avail to get the chit down here! She refuses to come!”

“Have you any idea why?”

“I think she is afraid I am going to embarrass you by announcing your engagement.”

“To whom?” thundered the Earl.

“For Heaven’s sake, Austell, moderate your voice!” commanded Her Ladyship. “You are attracting attention!”

“To whom?” gritted the Earl,
sotto voce
.

“Why, to Melpomene, of course,” replied Her Ladyship with a naughty smile. “It has given her such exquisite agony to plan to refuse you for your own good! She should be allowed one chance to be the Blighted Heroine!”

The Earl glared down at her. “Aurora, if you have put her off me with your tricks—!”

“If the chit is so easily put off, she could hardly have been said to be
on
, Derek,” advised his old friend. “Her room is the second door down the corridor after my sitting room.” Lady Masterson smiled and bowed to two middle-aged gallants who were bearing down on her purposefully. Behind them, to the rescue, loomed the colorful figure of Colonel Rand. “Get back her before supper,” she called softly after His Lordship’s departing figure. “You have two announcements to make!”

The Earl sent a piratical glance over his shoulder as he made ruthlessly for the door through the press. “Three!” he said.

When the Earl came to the door of Aurora’s sitting room, he counted two more doors carefully. Standing in the luxurious, well-lighted hallway, he made a Romantic figure indeed in his black velvet and white satin. He was a big, well-built man, with a handsome imperturbable face, and he well knew his world and his own position in it, yet he suddenly felt himself trembling with all the ardor and uncertainty of a callow youth. He raised his hand to knock, then hesitated. Sounds of music came faintly from the ballroom below. Squaring his shoulders, he rapped sharply.

“Who—who is it?” came Pommy’s voice from within.

“Whom would you wish it to be?” asked the Earl, pretending to insouciance he did not feel.

“Milord!” There was a sound of rapid footsteps, and the door was flung wide. Framed in the opening was a slender figure in softly shimmering white and silver. Upon her sweetly rounded breast, and moving with her breath, the Earl’s emerald matched the green fire in Pommy’s eyes.

“It is you! I was afraid—! That is—is anything wrong?”

The Earl was forced to take himself sternly in hand. He was finding the lovely little figure as dazzling as though he had been no more than the veriest youth.

“Yes, there is a great deal wrong,” he replied, unable to take his eyes from the piquant little face under the pile of night-black hair.” Are you going to ask me in, or must I announce the sad story to anyone passing in the hall?”

“Oh, come in, Milord!” urged Pommy, her face quick with alarm. “What has happened?”

Inside, with the door safely closed behind him, the Earl began to enjoy his game. “I am in deepest despair,” he announced quietly.

Pommy’s beautiful eyes opened even wider. “What is it, dear sir? Can you tell me?”

“I am about to be publicly humiliated,” intoned the Earl.

Pommy wrung her hands, her eyes on his. “How?”

“There is to be an announcement at supper—”

Pommy groaned. “Oh, yes! I
knew
it would be so! Can you not exercise enough control over Lady Masterson to prevent it?”

“I am to announce Lady Masterson’s engagement to—”

“Lady Masterson? But I thought she—my uncle—that is—”

“Yes, Her Ladyship is to marry your uncle,” said the Earl, with what he hoped was a heartbroken sigh.

“Does—does it distress you very greatly?” asked the girl, white faced.

Observing her anxious expression, the Earl took shame to himself and began to smile. “No, I’m delighted to get her off my hands,” he admitted coolly. “And I think Rand’s the very man who can manage her, and prevent any more of these naughty ploys of hers.”

Pommy looked puzzled. “But if you do not mind?” she began.

“That is not the whole of it,” said the Earl relentlessly. “I have also to announce Gareth’s engagement—”

“Oh, not to me, surely? He is so happy with his Isabelle!”

“To his Isabelle,” concluded Lord Austell. “And you do see where that leaves me, do you not?”

Pommy stared up into his dark, smiling face, her heart in her eyes. “No . . . that is, I do not quite see the problem as yet—”

“I shall be publicly humiliated! The only member of my immediate family not yet spoken for! Left to wither on the vine, unwanted, unregarded—! With the cream of Society present to witness my plight!”

Gradually, the expression on Pommy’s face changed. The Earl caught his breath, of a sudden most fearful that his dramatic scene had miscued. He watched her eyelids fall over the lustrous eyes. Long lashes shadowed her cheeks. She seemed in a daze.

“Pommy—my dearest girl—are you feeling all right?”

Waving this belated concern away with one hand, Pommy once again looked into his face. “And how had you hoped I might help you in this—imbroglio?”

The Earl took her hand in his. “I had hoped very much indeed that you might consent to allow me to make three announcements instead of two,” he said quietly, all laughter gone from his face.

“You consider me a suitable match?” asked the girl, directly.

“I am desperately hoping that
you
will consider a man who is no longer young, who lacks the fresh enthusiasm you deserve—”

“That is silly,” said Pommy forthrightly. “You must know you are wonderful.”

The Earl caught a joyful breath. “Would you care to enlarge upon that?”

His gaze was held by Pommy’s lovely eyes as closely as if he were mesmerized.

“You are more beautiful than Gareth and braver than the Colonel and much more fun to be with than Alan Corcran,” said Pommy succinctly. “In fact, you are the most wonderful man in the world.”

“I shall settle for that,” said the Earl, humbly, “as long as you continue to believe it. Oh, my dearest Pommy, please say you will marry me!”

“I love you,” Pommy continued clearly. “If you do not love me, I shall be unhappy as long as I live.”

The Earl’s head came up quickly from where he had bent it to kiss her hand. “Pommy, you are not going to decide to be Blighted and ruin my life, are you?”

“No,” said Pommy gently. “I have found that it is too painful to be Blighted when it is really so, and not a Romantic game.”

The Earl’s shoulders sagged with relief. “I have discovered that I am an even greater Romantic than you. For me, no ending will do but the classic one.”

“What?” asked Pommy, still dazed by the wonder of this whole conversation.

“Of course you know it! We must Live Happily Ever After,” the Earl instructed her, and took his Pommy into his arms.

About the author

Elizabeth Chater was the author of more than 24 novels and countless short stories. She received a B.A. from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. from San Diego State University, and joined the faculty of the latter in 1963 where she began a lifelong friendship with science fiction author Greg Bear. She was honored with The Distinguished Teacher award in 1969, and was awarded Outstanding Professor of the Year in 1977. After receiving her Professor Emeritus, she embarked on a new career as a novelist with Richard Curtis as her agent. In the 1950s and 60s she published short stories in
Fantastic Universe Magazine
and
The Saint Mystery Magazine
, and she won the
Publisher’s Weekly
short story contest in 1975. She went on to publish 22 romance novels over an 8 year period. She also wrote under the pen names Lee Chater, Lee Chaytor, and Lisa Moore. For more information, please visit
http://www.elizabethchater.com
.