A Season for the Heart (20 page)

Realizing with some emotion that it was past time he went back to his family’s home in the country, he so informed Todd. “I have just one more piece of business to deal with here in London,” he said. “You might as well pack everything. I do not fancy I shall wish to return to these lodgings.”

“Oh, you’ll be back, right enough,” grumbled his valet, “If your father takes a house for the Season. What I want to know is, just when do you intend to leave?”

“I’ll tell you after I’ve seen someone today,” Alan promised, his mind more on the problem of rescuing Pommy from the results of her own ignorance than upon the unforgivably crusty behavior of his servant. Still cogitating deeply, he ordered Todd to bring round his new curricle. This natty vehicle was a gift from his loving parent, and had been the source of considerable pride to Alan. It quite outshone the very old-fashioned coach on which Todd had conveyed him and his luggage to London five months earlier. As he tooled the curricle neatly through the streets toward Portman Square, he kept working at the problem of Pommy. He did not have quite enough self-possession to call at Lady Masterson’s mansion and demand to see the girl—Derek had done his work too well. But it suddenly occurred to the young man that he might knock at the door and ask that Miss Rand come out to the garden which was the central feature in the Square—to receive an urgent verbal message from home.

The ploy had a possibility of working, Alan decided, and proceeded to put it into action. Tethering his horses to a hitching post near the entrance gate to the garden, Alan walked across the road and delivered his message to a footman at Number Three. Then he made his way into the garden and sat upon a bench under a tree to await Pommy.

Within five minutes she came hurrying through the gate and down the path. Alan rose to greet her.

“What has happened?” she asked anxiously.

“I have been most worried about you, Pommy. I am about to return to my home in Sussex, and wished to assure myself that you were safe before I left.”

Pommy smiled abstractedly. “What should cause you to worry, Mr. Corcran? I am happy and well occupied with my duties as Lady Masterson’s companion, as you can see—”

“But that is not the word about Town,” Alan contradicted her. “Rumor has it that you are to marry either Gareth or the Earl—”

“But that is nonsense,” protested the girl, her color heightening.

“I should not have said so, seeing Austell’s dog-in-the-manger attitude when last I called upon you!”

Alan stared at her rosy cheeks suspiciously. “But if it
is
so, should you not consider the effects of such a baseless rumor upon your own reputation? There are only two courses of action which could prevent you from becoming one of the spiciest
on dits
of the Season!”

“What two courses?” Pommy was forced to ask.

“Either that the Earl should actually announce his engagement to you—and we both know how unlikely
that
is!—or that you should return at once to your own home and forget all this paltry, meretricious posturing which a group of idle fools with nothing really important to do call the Season,” snapped Alan. His own failure to cut a swath as a dashing member of the
Ton
may have made him unnecessarily severe upon the glittering world he had not succeeded in conquering, but his words came to the girl with all the authority of a member of the Inner Circle. She caught her breath. It was worse than she had feared, then! The story was all over town! But there was no way she could go home now. After the incident with Colonel Rand, it was more than likely that there would never be a welcome for her again at Highcliff Manor. Aunt Henga had made her return there impossible, with her cruel allegations. If not Highcliff, then where could she go? Pommy turned a face of dawning despair toward the young man.

“I cannot return home—it never was a real home to me, and now my aunt and uncle believe—believe—” she caught her breath in a sob. “Lady Masterson has been so good to me! I am sure the clothes she has bought me have cost far more than the salary I was to receive, so I cannot ask for any money—especially if I wished to use it to leave her!—and I have no means of providing for myself.”

Alan nodded grimly. “They have tossed you into a rare bumble-bath, my poor girl! I had not realized you had no other refuge. Yet I cannot see that you will do aught but worsen your situation if you remain and permit them to play off their tricks.” He frowned heavily, holding his chin with one hand in such a boyish gesture that Pommy smiled through her misery.

Then Alan clapped his hands together with a grin of relief. “I am a prize gudgeon!” he said cheerfully. “I am returning to my own home, Corcran Place, very soon—possibly tomorrow—and would like nothing better than to invite you to accompany me.”

Pommy shook her head with the smile one reserves for charming children. “And I suppose your mama would be delighted to welcome a penniless, unknown female with no pretensions to fortune or family? You must be all about in your head, Mr. Corcran . . . but thank you for the kindly offer.”

“Do you mean to stay on with Lady Masterson?” challenged Alan. “The word is about that startling announcements may be made on Friday night at the Ball.”

“Oh, if only I knew more—if there was anyone I could ask?” muttered Pommy.

“What does Lady Masterson say to you about it all?” queried Alan.

“She tells me to wait and see . . . that I shall be surprised, ‘pleasantly surprised’; that I must trust her,” admitted the girl.

Alan shook his head. “I do not know Her Ladyship well—in fact she has been out of Society, I am told, for five years—but from all anyone says, she is a woman of good reputation, excessively devoted to her former husband.”

“She has been kindness itself to me,” cried Pommy. “I cannot believe she would be planting mischief!”

“Then you must just wait and see, must you not?” was all the comfort Alan could offer. Soon after this inconclusive dialogue, Pommy hurried back into Number Three, and Alan mounted his curricle, not at all satisfied with the turn of events. So dissatisfied was he that, before he reached his lodgings, he had hit upon a plan which he firmly believed would prevent any Deceivers, no matter how highly placed in Society, from playing off their tricks upon the guileless Miss Rand.

When Todd was informed of the plan, he behaved very much like a mule, stubborn, bad tempered and recalcitrant. “If you are asking me to help you with that totty-headed hocus-pocus, Mr. Alan, your wits have gone begging,” he growled.

“I am not
asking
you,” gritted Alan, regretting yet again that his father had insisted upon sending this old jobbernoll to London as his son’s keeper. “I am
telling
you that this is what we are going to do! If you wish to go home, that is! For I shall not return to Corcran Place until I have seen Miss Rand safe out of London!”

Muttering direful prophecies of doom and disaster, Todd reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded to aid in no less a connivery than the abduction of a maiden lady from one of the most elegant mansions in London, in broad daylight, on the afternoon of a Ball given in her honor.

Sixteen

The Earl of Austell was also thinking deep thoughts about Miss Melpomene Rand and the Ball to be given in her honor. What the devil was Aurora playing at? It was not like his sister-in-law to run a rig on Society. He recalled, however, that when his brother had been alive, the pair of them had cut a wheedle or two which might well have set the
Ton
by the ears if he himself had not stepped in to make all right. But this latest start, giving a Ball for her young companion, was the outside of enough. The Earl did not begrudge Pommy her party; he was only afraid lest Aurora might place the girl in a position where she would receive the cut direct from certain high sticklers among London’s
Haut Ton.
Smothering a curse, Lord Austell had himself driven round to Number Three Portman Square in full state: his coach with the crested panels, a liveried coachman and groom on the box, two up behind; himself dressed in his most impressive afternoon coat, and with what his brother had been wont to call his “Lord of the Manor, damn-your-eyes” look upon his handsome countenance. In the event, his state was wasted, since Lady Masterson was visiting her modiste, Mlle. Lutetie, and was not available for questioning.

Pommy, quickly notified by Mikkle via Gordon that His Lordship had honored them with his presence, made haste to present herself in the drawing room to accept whatever message Lord Austell wished to convey. She slipped so quietly into the room that the Earl was not immediately aware of her presence. Thus she was able to observe him unawares. She felt her heart swell in her chest at the sight of his stern dark countenance and superbly masculine figure. If only he had not seen her with Alan this morning!

Milord turned suddenly and caught her with her emotions displayed clearly in her lovely eyes. At once his expression softened and his smile of welcome made Pommy’s pulse beat faster.

“My dear child! How charmingly you are looking!” He strode over to her and took her small hand in his large warm one. As he bent over it, the girl’s eyes were drawn to the thick dark hair which curled on his well-shaped head, and she felt an almost overpowering urge to run her fingers through it. In a praiseworthy attempt to conceal the effect His Lordship was having upon her sensibilities, Pommy broke into hurried speech.

“Oh, Milord, Lady Masterson will be quite desolated to have missed you! I vow she was speaking only yesterday of the famous Balls and Ridottos you was used to give, and how everyone who had received an invitation was sure to come, which made all your parties the greatest squeezes—” She encountered his quizzical look, one dark eyebrow raised, and had the grace to blush. “That sounded very silly, did it not?” she asked, in quite a different tone.

“Very,” the Earl agreed. “Not at all like my Pommy. Why are you nervous of me? Is it because I caught you at your romp with Corcran?”

“I think,” explained Pommy with disarming honesty, “it is because I am not sure what Lady Masterson intends to do about me at her Ball on Friday evening. And because I do not feel at all comfortable being singled out for notice as she has done on the invitations, by writing, ‘To meet Miss Melpomene Rand.’ It frightens me, Milord. I am only her companion, with neither the background nor the desire to storm the citadel of London Society! Lord Austell, you must not let Lady Masterson try to force me upon the
Ton!
”

“You are afraid they will treat you with disdain?” queried the Earl with a frown.

Pommy brushed that aside. “I do not fear so much for myself—although I do anticipate personal embarrassment—for you know that I have not been accustomed to receiving excessive civility in my aunt’s home. No, I fear that Lady Masterson will find her gracious effort to launch me into the
Beau Monde
received with mockery or contempt. I have come to know her, Milord; she has the gentlest, merriest nature, and she would be defenseless against malicious cruelty!”

The Earl studied the flushed little face of Lady Masterson’s defender. “Do you think even the most vicious of harpies would openly attack a woman of Lady Masterson’s consequence? Do not forget I shall be here also, and I am neither gentle nor defenseless where the honor of my House is under attack!”

Pommy’s eyes held such adoration that the Earl caught his breath sharply. “No, Milord,” she said, “I believe the harpies would never dare to loose their venom directly upon your sister-in-law. Or any member of your family. But I am a different matter. They could imply, with justification, that I am thrusting myself in where I have no right to be. I think Lady Masterson would be hurt to see me snubbed. Oh, sir, can you not persuade her to let me remain in my room during the Ball? I am convinced no good can come of it! I cannot understand Her Ladyship’s insistence!”

Since this speech echoed all Lord Austell’s own doubts, he was compelled to admit the validity of Pommy’s fears. He had not released her hand, nor had she sought to free herself from his firm clasp. Now, he led her to a comfortable chair and bestowed her in it. Seating himself nearby, he said quietly, “I share your anxiety. You have given my sister-in-law a new interest, and she seeks, I am sure, to thank you for it in this way. It may be, also, that she hopes to promote a match between her son and yourself—no, do not shake your head, Pommy! Allow me to know Lady Masterson’s generous nature and your own worth! You are well bred, of good country family, well educated, in every way but fortune a suitable match for Gareth—”

“We do not love one another,” said Pommy in a small, clear voice.

The Earl smiled fondly at her, as one would at a beloved child or a lost dream. “Could Lady Masterson not hope that, in time, love might come? You are both so very young!”

“I am ages older than Gareth, Milord,” retorted Pommy sternly, “and not beautiful enough to attract him. Nor is he—” she hesitated, unwilling to offend Gareth’s uncle.

“Nor is he bright enough to attract you?” supplied the Earl wryly. “Yes, I take your point.”

“Besides,” Pommy added quickly, lest his feelings were hurt, “Gareth has already lost his heart to a beautiful and wealthy girl who thinks him to be the cleverest and most wonderful of men.”

“He should secure such a treasure without an instant’s loss of time.” The Earl grinned. Then watching her intently, he prodded. “Does his mother know of this paragon? More importantly, does my nephew intend to confide in me? Such an important matter as the marriage of Mr. Gareth Masterson must not be left to Romantic caprice.”