A Season for the Heart (19 page)

Gareth looked willing but doubtful.

“Miss Boggs could not be expected to marry both you
and
the Earl.”

Gareth’s face was suffused with color. It was obvious he was both shocked at the idea of his Isabelle marrying two men, and delighted to think that he might be one of them. Pommy gave him a benevolent pat upon the arm, and left him to his cogitations.

Knowing Lady Masterson’s propensity for mischief, it should not have surprised Pommy when, after dinner, Her Ladyship announced quietly, “Be sure to send an invitation to Miss Boggs, dear child,” and then gave her chiming laugh at the astounded faces of the two plotters. Then, forestalling questions, she inquired if Pommy had sent an invitation to Colonel Rand.

“I saw his name upon the list, ma’am,” confessed Pommy, “but I was not sure . . . the unfortunate situation—”

Lady Masterson interrupted breezily, “But my dear girl, surely it would be most improper for your engagement to be announced without a single member of your own family present? And from all I have heard, you would not really wish to see your aunt Henga or her daughters after the way they have treated you!”

Though she dreaded bringing disappointment into that naughty, mischievous glance, Pommy said quietly, “I must insist that the idea of my becoming engaged to Gareth is embarrassing and inexpedient, Milady, and I cannot—”

“But of course it is, child,” Aurora interrupted again, and this time her face was sweetly serious. She went on, “Inexpedient, that is. But I cannot quite see that anyone is being embarrassed. We have only said, ‘To meet Miss Melpomene Rand.’ How should that cause trouble for anyone? You must trust me, my dear. Perhaps it is difficult for you to do so, since you have so recently met me, but I must tell you that I feel you were sent to me at a time when my life was, through self-pity and weakness, drifting into a wasteland from which you have rescued me. You must see that I am now enjoying life with a zest I feared was forever lost to me?”

“If I have helped you in any way, Milady, I am happy,” replied Pommy, torn between reassurance and a sense of guilt.

“Then you must be sure to send your dashing uncle-Colonel a card to your party,” Lady Masterson charged her.

Pommy cast a searching glance upon her employer, and became aware of a becoming flush upon that lady’s cheek and a new sparkle in the fine eyes which the girl did not think was put there by her new companion. She did hope that Uncle George would not turn awkward, but would be willing, for his niece’s sake, to accept an invitation from the lady who had dismissed him so curtly on their first meeting! Pommy sighed deeply and got on with the invitations.

The day before the Ball, a new complication arose which threatened all Pommy’s plans. It started very pleasantly at nine o’clock in the morning. At this very unfashionable hour, Chelm, the youngest footman, was on duty. Opening the door in response to a merry tattoo upon the knocker, Chelm found himself facing the largest bouquet of flowers he had ever beheld. When this was thrust into his arms, Chelm received it gingerly and peered around it to discover who had brought it. The donor was a rakish young Blade dressed to the nines and looking as fine as five-pence.

“Yers? Wotta you want?” he inquired warily, then, recalling Mr. Mikkle’s intuition, added on, “sir?”

“I have come,” said Alan Corcran blithely, for he was convinced he had fallen in love, “to pay my respects to Miss Rand.”

“Miss Rand?” queried the footman suspiciously. Chelm himself had begun to harbor Romantic if admittedly impossible dreams in regard to Miss Pommy, and he disapproved of Corinthians and Rakehells making overtures to that young lady.

“Miss Rand,” repeated the Blade, who was probably a Corinthian and certainly a Rakehell. “Hop to it, my good man!”

Chelm’s initial distrust hardened into acute dislike, and betrayed him into a remark which Mikkle would never have sanctioned.

“D’yer know wot time it is?”

Alan, who considered himself to be a regular Pink of the
Ton
, and up to all the rigs and rows, was naturally incensed by this piece of impertinence. “I should think it too early to expect visitors, if
you
have been put in charge of the door,” he sneered. “Now take my flowers to Miss Rand and tell her I must see her about the matter we were discussing when we last we talked.” Then, adding insult to injury, he recapitulated his message slowly and clearly, as to a knock-in-the-cradle: “Flowers—to Miss Rand—say Mr. Corcran has information she needs.”

Chelm, boiling with as black a sense of outrage as he had ever known, stalked off to the breakfast room where Pommy was lingering over a solitary cup of tea, Lady Masterson having given orders that no one was to disturb her before eleven o’clock. Naturally Pommy was pleased and impressed by the enormous nosegay, and her innocent delight further infuriated Chelm, who was sure the importunate caller had Designs on Miss Rand’s virtue. When he had reluctantly delivered his message, he was forced to watch the girl flying out into the hall to welcome the visitor.

Pommy was so thankful to receive a young, uncritical, admiring caller after the Earl’s cold strictures and quelling behavior, that she may have given Alan some ideas she did not intend. Chelm viewed this enthusiastic greeting with real foreboding. His darkest suspicions were confirmed when, on returning to his post, his ears shamelessly at the stretch, he overheard the girl agreeing to go out for a couple of hours in the Blade’s new curricle, “where we can enjoy a private coze.”

Pommy, not the green girl Alan hoped or Chelm feared, knew it was not
comme il faut
to be jauntering about London with a young reprobate in an open curricle, but her heart was sore from the Earl’s frequently expressed disapproval, and she craved Alan’s warmth and youthful high spirits.

Adjuring him to wait, she ran lightly up to her room and snatched up a saucy chip hat and her reticule. Upon impulse, she unwound her dark braid, which she was wont to wear twisted twice around her head like a coronet, and brushed it out into a glistening mane. Upon this she perched the chip hat. The fact that this made her look about ten years old did not reassure Chelm, who associated loose-flowing female hair with a special kind of confrontation. And now Miss Pommy was asking him to let Gordon know she had gone out for a couple of hours but would be back for lunch. Chelm reluctantly closed the door after them, cursing the young rep who was leading Miss P. astray.

In Alan’s cheerful company it was easy for Pommy to forget her depression of spirit. After having said all that was fitting in admiration of the natty new curricle, she asked, “Where are we going?”

“I have learned there is a Fair outside the City, in a field,” Alan replied, betraying a youthful enthusiasm at odds with his Man-of-the-Town pose. “I felt sure it would amuse you,” he added, condescendingly.

“I am sure I shall enjoy it very much,” said Pommy, “but I must be back in Portman Square by noon, you know. I am Lady Masterson’s companion, you know, not a guest in her house.”

Not much sobered by this caution, Alan, while agreeing to an early return, launched into a boyishly pompous dissertation upon the difference between the ordinary companion to an elderly invalid and a young woman lucky enough to have a Leader of the
Beau Monde
as her patroness. “For it is easily seen,” he said, “that she does not regard you as a servant. What servant accompanies her employer to the Ton parties, dressed as you were at the Musical Evening?”

During the course of the drive, he let fall a good deal about himself and his home in Surrey; his doting parents and his own desire to be considered a Tulip of the
Ton
. By the time the curricle drew up in a field near the tiny Fair, Pommy had made a pretty sound estimate of her cavalier’s true nature, and was prepared to enjoy an innocent romp with him.

They found the Fair as much fun as Alan had promised. They played like two children, shouting with laughter as they rode the swings, ups-and-downs, and roundabout; throwing onions at targets, eating sausage rolls in their fingers, and exclaiming over the feats of the strong man and the ropewalker.

When Pommy reluctantly insisted they should return to Portman Square, Alan even more reluctantly agreed. As they drew closer to the end of their adventure, Pommy said, “We have not had that private coze you promised, you know.”

Alan shrugged. “I would have said anything to get you to come with me. It has been pleasant, has it not?”

“Delightful,” said Pommy warmly. She was trying to tidy the lustrous mane with her fingers, and get it neatly settled under the absurd chip bonnet. Alan grinned at her boyishly.

“You look a proper urchin, Pommy! Better get upstairs and brush your hair before Her Ladyship sees you.”

As he handed her down in front of Number Three, Alan gave the girl’s slight body an extra swing before he returned her to her feet. She ran ahead of him up to the door, her face rosy with laughter, Alan in mock pursuit.

They were brought up short by the sight of a tall, elegant figure glaring at them from the open doorway.

“Lord Austell!” gasped Pommy.

For all his vaunted
nous
Alan could not face this confrontation. Muttering hasty goodbyes, he ran back to his curricle, mounted, and drove hastily away.

The Earl observed this craven retreat with a sardonic eye. “It is to be hoped that Mr. Corcran is more faithful in love than he appears to be dauntless in war,” he said. “Or perhaps he has not read Mr. Scott’s
Marmion
.”

“We were having some fun at a Fair—” began Pommy, miserably conscious of her hoydenish appearance.

“Spare me your excuses,” snapped the Earl. “I would suggest you attend to your appearance before presenting yourself to Lady Masterson! I beg leave to bid you good day!”

The Earl ran down the steps and strode rapidly away. Having spent a restless night afflicted with images of a pair of huge accusing green eyes, he had come to make his peace with Pommy this morning, only to learn from Chelm that Miss had run off with a queer nobs called Corker or some such. This news destroyed the indulgent mood with which he had prepared to inform the girl of the good fortune he intended to bestow upon her. The longer he waited, the less in charity he felt with the little wretch—but he consoled himself with the thought that after a morning spent with the insufferable Corcran, she would greet his own presence with joy. Instead of which, he found her romping childishly with the cowardly youth, her glorious hair disheveled—and having a perfectly wonderful time, if her laughing little face was any warrant! Feeling very staid and old and un-Romantic, the Earl, head high, made his disgruntled way down the street.

Fifteen

The longer Alan Corcran thought about the situation at Number Three Portman Square, the more he became convinced that there was a Plot against Pommy. He was not exactly certain what his own feeling was toward the little companion of Aurora, Lady Masterson, but it seemed to be an incongruous blending of admiration, annoyance, desire, and a chivalrous wish to defend her from the rakehells and roués of London. Since, he supposed, he himself might be classed with the latter group, his protective attitude was all the more puzzling. He was forced to conclude, rather gloomily, that his rakish behavior since he came to London had been merely a wistful emulation of the real thing.

“It would seem I am not truly cut out for it,” he told Todd, his valet, despondently.

“For what?” grumbled that worthy. Being a retainer who had been serving Corcrans before Alan was born, Todd was not best pleased at the young sprig’s aping of the Bucks and Corinthians, and had been heard to express the hope daily that Alan would tire of this damfoolery and let them both go home to Corcran Place where they belonged.

Alan had come to agree with him, but something in him would not permit him to leave young Pommy to her probably calamitous fate. He therefore sent a note to Number Three Portman Square, asking her to appoint a meeting in private. To this she replied that it was impossible for her to find free time, with her employer’s social activities
in crescendo
as they were.

Alan’s immediate response had been to seek information from some of his more sophisticated cronies. It was not hard to find—the
Ton
was agog over the piquant rumors which were circulating, each one wilder than its predecessors: the Lady Masterson had come out of her self-imposed seclusion at last, and was about to marry either a Duke or, if one accepted the word of a highly placed gossip, her own brother-in-law. Mr. Gareth Masterson was to be wed to Lady Masterson’s companion, a mysterious female no one had ever heard of, said another of the intelligencers; and a member of Brooks’s had been overheard to sneer that that impregnable Bastion of Bachelorhood, the Earl of Austell, had finally been caught out, and was to marry a tradesman’s daughter.

His head buzzing with these piquant if contradictory
on dits
, Alan considered his priorities and determined to rescue Pommy from the clutches of the belted Earl. How to act upon this resolve presented another problem, for if he could not get admittance to talk to the girl, how was he to deliver her from the nefarious schemes of the Wicked Peer? It is to be feared that young Mr. Corcran was as great a Romantic in his own way as Pommy was in hers. His too-active imagination pictured the girl in a series of quite implausible situations, ranging all the way from elegant seduction to brutal rape. In a calmer mood, the young man would have greeted such lurid fantasies with a derisory grin, but his aplomb had been shaken by Mr. Boggs’s initially successful if not conclusive attempt to lure him into parson’s mousetrap, and his confidence in his own
savoir faire
had received a shock. For it was the promise of bigger game than a wretched second son of a minor Baron which had moved the vintner to inform Alan that his suit had been refused . . . a suit which he had not been aware he had pressed until so informed by Miss Boggs’s papa, on the very afternoon of the day of the unfortunate party at which Isabelle had overheard his rather desperate jesting with his best friend.