A Season for the Heart (8 page)

In honor of his guests, the Earl had dressed for dinner. When Pommy beheld him in his black and silver grandeur, her breath caught and her green eyes widened. Though appearing perfectly relaxed and at his ease, he succeeded in giving the meal a delightfully festive atmosphere. He did not seem to single Pommy out, being most correct in his attentions to both of his guests, yet several times Pommy caught his bright blue gaze intently fixed upon her, and hoped he was a little pleased at the swan Isabelle had created from the ugly duckling. She found it difficult to keep her own eyes off the austere magnificence of his costume, admiring how faultlessly it fitted him, and how well the somber colors became his strong features and his black hair, which he wore unpowdered after the new fashion. Pommy thought she had never seen so impressive a man in her life, for the obese, casual Squire Rand had scorned fine apparel, often saying he was glad he was no jumped-up popinjay, or Town Beau! Her grandfather had dressed as befitted his position, and the professional men in the district—Dr. Mannering and Lawyer Morris—were always soberly clad. The Earl, therefore, seemed to her like a being from a different sphere, and she looked at him with awe and admiration.

When the ladies rose at the end of the meal, Milord rose with them.

“Shall we not leave you to your wine, My Lord?” asked Isabelle, correctly.

“Since you have nowhere to retire to save your bedroom, will you not favor me by remaining here in the parlor for half an hour? There is nothing I should rather do than converse with you!” invited his Lordship.

Pommy gladly took a chair he indicated before the fire, and Isabelle, a little more hesitant, allowed herself to be persuaded also. As it happened, however, the other two found Miss Boggs to be an inhibitor of sprightly conversation, as she had warned them earlier. After a rather labored half hour, she rose to retire to her room, and Pommy almost thankfully prepared to follow her.

As she reached the doorway through which Isabelle had passed just a moment earlier, the Earl said authoritatively, “I wish you to remain here for ten minutes, Pommy! There is a matter of business I must discuss with you.”

Isabelle turned her head back over one perfect shoulder and nodded at Pommy encouragingly. “You must not be making company of me,” she said with gentle dignity. “I am sure you have family matters to be considered.”

Pommy went back to her chair with almost a feeling of relief. The Earl closed the door and joined her.

“Now!” he said, on a breath, “we can be comfortable.”

Pommy dimpled up at him. “She is so lovely to look at, she doesn’t need to speak,” she excused.

“As her reluctant swain admitted, she is boring,” fumed the Earl. “That air of bland expectance with which she awaits one’s next words quite dries up the springs of conversation! Now we must plan for your meeting with Lady Masterson. For, immediately after reaching London, we shall restore Miss Boggs to her father. Both of us together, I think, so he will not get the idea I have been squiring his daughter unchaperoned through the countryside. Even if pressed, we shall
not
stay for tea. We shall go at once to Lady Masterson’s residence. I sent off a groom before dinner tonight, to ride ahead of us and inform Her Ladyship that I have found the perfect companion, whom I am bringing, together with her friend who is returning to her home in London. That should take care of
les convenances
adequately, don’t you agree?”

“It is Masterly,” smiled Pommy. “It is obvious to me that you have a remarkable degree of skill in dealing with—ah—
les convenances
, Milord!”

“You would imply, circumventing them, madame?” queried her host, settling comfortably into his chair and grinning at her.

“Practice makes perfect, I have no doubt,” suggested Pommy, greatly daring. Though she knew herself to be quite out of his class in every way, she could not resist responding to the challenge in those bright blue eyes.

“Devil!” said His Lordship, lazily, stretching out his arm for the decanter upon the side table near him. “Will you have a sip of sherry with me, Pommy?”

“Whatever you wish,” agreed Pommy, her unsophisticated heart in her eyes.

Without haste, Milord poured two glasses, one full, the other a token. Handing her the latter, he raised his glass to her. “To the metamorphosis of Melpomene,” he toasted.

“Ugly Duckling into Swan?” the girl suggested, laughing happily. “You must give Isabelle credit for accomplished fingers. I am sure I have never looked so well.”

“And what Romantic imagining’s has your newly discovered beauty brought to mind?”

Pommy pondered. “Why, none, sir. I suppose I believe that the new look Isabelle has given me is itself a fantasy—and tomorrow I shall be the same Pommy as ever.”

“There could be worse fates,” said the Earl, tossing off his sherry. He rose and extended his hand. “Off with you, infant! You must get your rest before we attempt another day on the highroad.”

Pommy rose and faced him, her sherry still untouched. “May I not propose a toast to you, Milord?” she asked shyly.

The big man looked down at her somberly. “No, child, I think not. With the addition of our prosaic companion, the magic has gone out of our Odyssey. Drink up and say good night.”

Sherry had never tasted so bitter to the girl as at that moment.

He was closing a door, and she knew he was wise to do so, for there was no place on the other side of it for Pommy Rand.

Six

The rest of the journey was as dull as the Earl had predicted. They rode in great comfort, and stopped frequently for refreshment and rest, but Lord Austell, for all his perfect address, behaved like a man doing his duty, while Isabelle was a boring companion in spite of her sweetness of nature. Pommy was actually pleased when they finally deposited Miss Boggs at her father’s ornate mansion in Thornapple Square. Boggs, initially inclined to be suspicious of his daughter’s unexpected appearance with two strangers, became too obsequious upon learning the name and style of his daughter’s rescuer. The Earl refused the vintner’s hearty invitation to take pot luck and they left with Isabelle’s tearful urgings that Pommy call soon to see her ringing in their ears.

The drive to Portman Square was marked by a silence which Pommy found painful but impossible to break. Of course His Lordship was bored and wishing he had never involved himself in so much Samaritanism! Two hapless females to be rescued from the results of their own folly! No wonder he was wishing
himself
quit of the whole wretched business, and
herself
in Jericho, rather than Portman Square! Setting her small chin firmly, she used the time to consider a plan of action.

You must begin as you intend to go on, she told herself.
No flights of fancy, no romantic imaginings. You will do your best to entertain and console the weeping widow, you will be tireless in her service, sparing no attentions
. And if this program seemed to offer little pleasure, Pommy accepted it solemnly. No matter that she would be, as always, on the outer fringe of the fun, watching others enjoy themselves, while she dwindled into an ape-leader, an old crone—companion!—she hastily corrected herself. Perhaps, if he thought of her at all, the Earl would be grateful for her devoted service to his widowed sister. She sighed involuntarily.

The Earl turned to her with a quizzical smile and spoke at last.

“Courage, Pommy! Aurora’s wail is worse than her behavior. I am hoping that you will bring both laughter and good common sense into my sister-in-law’s
ménage
. The Lady Masterson feeds upon melancholy, but she has a sweet and generous nature. She was quite a different person when my brother was alive. Since his death, however, she appears to have felt it her duty to wither away in a series of imagined illnesses. I shall expect you to restore her to a more wholesome view of life.”

Pommy looked appalled at the task.

The Earl laughed for the first time that day. “Just involve her and her household in some of your romantic adventures. I promise to pull you out of them if the consequences threaten to become disastrous!”

And then they were at Number Three Portman Square.

As Milord led her into the imposing mansion, where the butler was bowing almost to his knees, and the footmen stood rigid in their powdered wigs and livery, Pommy could only be thankful for her new moss-green gown and the charming little bonnet which had materialized with it. At least she need not meet this formidable dowager, with her vapors and megrims, in a dowdy dress!

“You may tell Lady Masterson we are here, Mikkle.”

“She is awaiting you, My Lord,” smiled the butler. “If you will follow me?”

When they were shown into Milady’s drawing room, it was to see a bright fire, masses of fragrant flowers out of season, and furnishings of the most feminine elegance. Pommy peered around apprehensively for the imaginary invalid, only to find herself facing a tiny, delicate beauty with white-gold hair and huge sad gray eyes set like silver in a lovely face.

“Aurora, my dear,” began the Earl briskly, bending over her fragile, bejeweled white hand, “may I present to you Miss Melpomene Rand of whom I wrote you, who has come all the way from Cornwall, through great vicissitudes and hazards, to bear you company? Miss Rand,” he took her hand and led her to his hostess, “this is my sister-in-law, Aurora, Lady Masterson.”

The tiny sparkling hand was extended to her, and Pommy found herself curtseying as though her hostess were Royalty.

This gesture seemed to please Milady. “So good of you to come,” said Her Ladyship in a voice as sweetly plangent as a chime of silver bells. “Did you have a wretched journey, my poor child?”

Pommy, incurably honest, found that she could not mouth the conventional nothings.
You must begin as you intend to go on
, she had told herself in the Earl’s carriage.
If you are true to yourself, you cannot be exposed as a fraud.
She lifted her chin and said what she felt.

“Oh, no, Milady! I have never gone upon a journey I enjoyed as greatly! The Earl is so lighthearted and amusing. He is forever funning! Such very good company!”

The invalid raised her shadowed gray eyes in startled inquiry to scan Lord Austell’s imperturbable face.

“Can we be speaking of the same Earl?” demanded the Lady Masterson in anything but bell-like tones.

The Earl’s shout of laughter reverberated through the room. “I told you she would startle you out of the megrims,” he chuckled. “Now do offer us a cup of tea, Aurora. We have just delivered Melpomene’s traveling companion to her father, and I need a restorative. I charge you,” he added, with the teasing smile Pommy adored, “to make Pommy tell you about the beautiful Miss Boggs. It will give you something to laugh about, I promise you!”

Whether it was because of the Earl’s charm and virility, or the interest caused by Pommy’s arrival, the Lady Masterson brightened perceptibly as the afternoon progressed. Tea was accompanied by salvers of the most delicious pastries Pommy had ever tasted, and she did them full justice. At one point Lord Austell chuckled. Pommy, lifting her eyes, perceived Lady Masterson was watching her in fascination. Pommy smiled wryly.

“I am making a pig of myself, am I not? I must admit that such cakes as these have never come in my way before. I think they must be what are called Angel Food, are they not, My Lady? For surely they are heavenly morsels.”

Lady Masterson found herself smiling back at the child. Really, she wondered, what had Derek brought to her? The girl was plainly a country cousin, yet voice and accent evidenced breeding. Her manners were impeccable; for all her relish of the sweets, she ate daintily. And her family had treated her cruelly, if Derek’s letter could be believed. A new thought struck Lady Masterson. Could Derek be
interested?
It hardly seemed possibly, after all the wasted efforts of the matchmaking mamas and frustrated débutantes, many of them quite acceptable as to Family, and some of them great heiresses as well. Of course Derek had no need to marry money, nor any particular reason to ally his House with another equally noble. Yet he was sponsoring this child with a zest his sister-in-law had no difficulty in discerning. The girl was a nobody. Surely her high-in-the-instep brother would not be considering such an alliance?

Agog with curiosity, Aurora decided to sit up for dinner that evening, instead of taking it in her bedroom as had become her custom.

While Pommy, urged by the Earl, was selecting a final
patisserie
, Her Ladyship bent toward him and said in an undertone, “I insist that you remain to dine with me tonight, to launch your protégée. Perhaps you may even find occasion to display some of the light-hearted good humor the child is so enthusiastic about.”

“My dear Aurora,” the Earl said lazily, “it is my understanding that you rarely stay downstairs for dinner. Can it be that my prescription has already been of benefit? Believe me, she will continue to delight you.”

Aurora stared at him. His face was alight with laughter and his bright blue eyes were showing more warmth than she remembered since his younger brother died. At once she required him to pull the bell rope, and when the butler presented himself, she informed him that His Lordship would be staying for dinner, and that she herself and Miss Rand would have it with him in the dining room. She was just asking Mikkle whether Mr. Gareth was to dine with them, when a tall young exquisite strolled into the drawing room and stared at the persons seated there out of silver-gray, black-lashed eyes exactly like Lady Masterson’s.