A Season for the Heart (24 page)

“Do you have any idea how one becomes a servingmaid in an inn such as this?”

“It’s a sure thing our host here wouldn’t have you, after the brangle we put on outside in the yard,” Alan said ruefully. “But wait! I think I have it! Isabelle Boggs is a good-hearted female, for all she’s such a—that is,” as he caught Pommy’s minatory glance, “she’s the one to help you find a place. Much better
ton
to have a female your sponsor, Pommy, I assure you.”

“I believe you are right,” said the girl after a minute’s consideration. “Then I must ask you to arrange for the hire of a vehicle which will take me back to London at once.”

“I shall do so as soon as we have finished eating,” promised Alan.

“Now,” corrected Pommy firmly, “for in that way no time will be lost. I must be back in Portman Square before the Ball begins. Lady Masterson will be greatly distressed, otherwise.”

“She’ll be sendin’ out the Runners,” said Todd glumly.

“It’s nearly five, Pommy,” said Alan remorsefully.

“That is not too late, if I get away smartly. Lady Masterson has bidden her guests for ten o’clock. It is the very height of elegance!”

“Damfoolery,” muttered Todd, as he followed his two young charges out of the inn.

Nineteen

Mine host had bustled to good effect, and within half an hour, well fed and in better spirits, Alan prepared to hand Pommy up into the hired chaise. He caught at her shoulder as she prepared to mount.

“Forgive me, Pommy! I truly meant it for the best! And forgive this wretched carriage, also! I can only hope you will not be smothered by the time you reach Portman Square!”

Pommy had turned to pat the hand upon her shoulder as a magnificent equipage swung to a dust-haloed stop behind them. From it decanted two very big men with faces like thunder. Glancing over Alan’s shoulders, Pommy’s mouth opened.

“Trouble, Alan!” she whispered. “On guard!”

Alan whirled to see the Earl and Colonel Rand bearing down upon him, their expressions clear warrant of their bloodthirsty intentions. It appeared to be a race to see which of the angry gentlemen could reach him first. Alan dropped his hand from Pommy’s shoulder and faced his attackers with a rather sickly smile.

The big men had reached him, and towered over him in a blood curdling manner. Both men glanced quickly at Pommy.

“You are unhurt?” snapped the colonel.

“Are you safe, Pommy?” asked the Earl at the same time.

“I am very well,” said Pommy hastily. “
Truly
—”

“My right, I think,” said the colonel harshly, and turned upon the unfortunate Corcran.

“I claim the honor,” insisted the Earl, jostling in ahead of his military companion. “I intend to teach this miserable little cur not to put his filthy paws on Pommy.”

“I say,” protested Alan feebly, and then, reading the icy determination in Lord Austell’s eyes, shrugged and put up his fists as bravely as he could.

Pommy caught her wits together and thrust herself between the two. “If you are going to behave like a pair of gamecocks, perhaps you will have the kindness to permit Alan to see me off to London first, in the coach he has just hired for that purpose. Then you may all batter each other into insensibility for all I care! I am sure Lady Masterson will not miss either of you at her first Ball since her return to Society!”

Lord Austell paused and his eyes went quickly to the girl’s pale, determined face. Slowly the icy glare faded, and he shook his head as though coming out of a frenzy. “I was afraid he had hurt you,” he muttered.

“I
told
you he had not,” retorted Pommy, crossly. “You never listen to what I say.”

Colonel Rand, also less tense, said placatingly, “We have driven hell-for-leather from London in a panic lest your life or—uh—honor might have been endangered, Pommy. You must make allowances for the fears of those who love you.”

The girl shot a quick glance at the Earl’s set face. “Oh! then I am truly grateful, but you see that I should return at once if Lady Masterson’s party is not to be spoiled for her.”

The Earl had himself well in hand. “You will, of course, return in my carriage with your uncle and myself,” he began formally.

“But Alan has already paid to rent this coach for me,” began Pommy.

“
Shut up
, Pommy,” advised Alan desperately, “and just
go
, will you?”

For some obscure masculine reason, probably connected with the sudden releasing of the tension under which they had labored for several hours, both the colonel and the Earl burst into laughter at this very practical advice from one who had no desire to be a battered Hero, much less a battered Villain. The colonel was about to hand Pommy into the Earl’s carriage when a smart curricle, going much too fast, whirled past them and then was expertly brought back to the front of the inn. Gareth descended, accompanied by a white-faced but grimly enduring Chelm. The corners of Lord Austell’s mouth quirked upward, but he said nothing, merely glancing toward Pommy as if to share his amusement with her. More rescuers! he seemed to be saying. Pommy fought to control her own laughter.

As Gareth and Chelm approached the unfortunate Alan, the young peer was shouting, “Name your seconds, Corcran! I will meet you this instant!”

The young footman had regained his breath, and was heard to offer to mill the hellhound down, either before or after the duel, whichever was most convenient.

Alan spread his palms and lifted his shoulders in an expression of defeat. “This does not appear to be my lucky day,” he said wryly to Lord Austell. “Perhaps if I might explain,” he offered to Gareth.

That young man stared around him with bewilderment at his now-smiling uncle and Pommy.

“I say—isn’t everyone angry at Corcran?”

This was greeted with another shout of laughter, in which Alan and Gareth finally joined, rather sheepishly.

Chelm, however, was made of less forgiving stuff. While the gentry were laughing off the insult to Miss Pommy, he got himself into position and swung a heavy fist at the young reprobate. Since Alan was not alert for attack, the blow connected neatly and he went down.

Pommy shrieked with alarm, but the three men stood looking down at the fallen abductor with wide smiles.

“A neat, flush hit.” The colonel commended Chelm. “Had you thought of enlisting, young man?”

“He did deserve something for his cow-handed behavior,” decided Lord Austell.

Gareth merely stared from one to the other in complete bewilderment.

“Is no one going to do anything for poor Alan?” demanded Pommy glaring around the circle.

“Shouldn’t think there’d be much to do,” pronounced the Earl judicially. “He’ll come round shortly.”

A stocky old man thrust his way into the group. “Gave him a settler, did ye?” he inquired. “Well, I’ll not deny he’s been asking for it.” He checked over the limp body with some expertise. “A nice clean blow. He’ll be around again in a minute,” was Todd’s opinion. “Just leave him to me. I’ve watched over him since he was a lad. Powerful self-willed, is Mr. Alan. Maybe, this’ll learn him some sense.”

“Shall we be on our way back to London?” the Earl asked Pommy sweetly. “I believe you were most anxious to set out.”

“I shall never understand men,” said Pommy, with a final worried glance at the still supine youth. She allowed Colonel Rand to take her arm and lead her to the Earl’s luxurious carriage. Lord Austell had a word with Gareth while Pommy’s uncle handed the girl up into the vehicle and followed her into it. Then Lord Austell went around to the off-side and mounted. George Rand silently saluted this strategic tactical maneuver, which placed the Earl on Pommy’s left and the colonel on her right, instead of leaving the colonel sitting bodkin between them. His grin was not obvious in the gloom of the closed carriage, and in any event neither Milord nor Pommy was much interested in anything but one another. Rather distraitly, Lord Austell gave his coachman the office to drive out, and the great carriage rolled smoothly onto the highroad and headed toward London.

When they had paused momentarily to light the sidelamps, the colonel glanced across his niece’s head at the Earl.

“I suppose we must let the whole matter drop?”

“If my beef-witted heir had had his way about the duel, we should all have found ourselves an
on dit
. It is to be hoped we shall brush through without scandal if Aurora has not concocted some skip-brained ploy. She and my younger brother were forever coming up with absurd games from whose frequently unfortunate results I had to rescue them.”

This statement found no favor with either of his hearers. The colonel merely stiffened a little but Pommy cried out against the harshness of the Earl’s judgment. “Lady Masterson has been kindness itself to me! I cannot remember my mother very well, but she could not have been more loving than Her Ladyship!” Pommy had kept her head so far, but it had been a long day. To her own horror as well as that of her two escorts, she began to cry. The immediate reaction of both gentlemen was to put a comforting arm around the weeping Heroine. Unfortunately, the carriage, though luxurious, was not room-sized, and the two big masculine arms collided somewhere above Pommy’s head with a distinct thud.

The contact startled a smothered oath from both men, and a flailing readjustment, as a result of which Pommy ended up in the Earl’s close clasp, while Colonel Rand drew back into his own corner of the coach.

“There would seem to be some matters for discussion between us, Austell,” said George Rand coldly.

The Earl tightened his grasp upon the girl, who, in sheer surprise at his action, had ceased to weep. “Our first business, Rand, is to get to Aurora’s dam-
dashed
party,” he snapped, in a very un-Romantic tone. “I must be there not only to scotch any rumors about this abduction, but more importantly to prevent my rather whimsical sister-in-law from embroiling us all in something which
will
provide fresh fodder for the gabblemongers. Am I correct, sir, in thinking that
you
might have something to ask
me
? As head of Aurora’s family, I mean?”

This was carrying the battle to the enemy’s camp indeed. The gallant officer stiffened with shock, hemmed, hawed, and finally said to the younger man in almost a petulant tone, “I would have chosen a more suitable place for a discussion of such importance and confidentiality, Milord, but—”

“Yes, you may wed my sister-in-law with my blessing, Rand,” interrupted Lord Austell matter-of-factly, “and I shall be greatly obliged to you. It is a relief to know there will be someone with a firm hand to keep her rather colorful notions under control.”

Before the colonel could voice his objections to this offhand treatment of what was to him a Very Solemn Moment, Pommy had interrupted, eyes alight with interest.

“Uncle George, are you to wed my dear employer? But this is beyond anything famous! When was it contrived? I had no inkling of it!”

The colonel blessed the comparative gloom of the carriage, lit only by two small candles in glass lanterns, for hiding the color he could feel burning in his cheeks. “Why, Pommy, it . . . that is to say—”

“She got him to ask her today,” said the Earl, unforgivably.

“
Sir!
” began the colonel furiously.

“I hope you are not planning to cry off?” challenged the Earl, eyes brightly wicked with amusement. “That was a very convincing maneuver you executed just before we left Portman Square.”

“It will be the best thing in the world for her!” cried Pommy with enthusiasm. “She has
so
needed a strong right arm!”

“And—er—other things.” The Earl was apparently enjoying the situation all too well. “Very therapeutic.”

“Milord,” Colonel Rand began ominously, “your levity leads you beyond what is acceptable.”

“Surely not unacceptable—within the marriage bond?” teased Milord.

But he had underestimated his opponent. In a voice they had not heard before, Colonel Rand inquired, silkily, “Have you forgotten that
I
am the head of Melpomene’s family, Austell? I should not wish to have to make different arrangements for her.”

There was a shocked silence, and then:

“A hit! A very palpable hit!” quoted Derek in a much subdued tone. “You must forgive me if I have transgressed the bounds of propriety in my speech, Rand. My excuse must be that I am little drunk with relief at having Pommy safe and secure with—with us.” In an excess of decorum he removed his arm from around the girl and sat back into his corner of the carriage. Pommy was too worried by the apparent coolness between the two men to offer any conversational gambits, and the rest of the ride, mercifully fairly short, was taken in silence. Pommy was first to be dropped off, the carriage then went round to the colonel’s lodging, and finally deposited the Earl at his own Town house with barely time to dress for Lady Masterson’s Ball.

Twenty

At ten o’clock precisely the spacious entrance hall at Number Three Portman Square began to resound to the thunder of the brass knocker. Mikkle waved a hand imperiously, and a white-bewigged footman hurried forward to open the door for the first arrivals. Lady Masterson, superb in violet satin and diamonds, waited to welcome her guests at the top of the great staircase. Standing beside her, Gareth was breathtakingly handsome in dark purple velvet with a mauve and silver waistcoat. Lord Austell, waiting nearby to lead the guests to the ballroom, wondered idly if they had planned their costumes to complement one another so effectively. But there was no time for idle musing, for Mikkle was directing a growing stream of guests to the stairway to be received by Lady Masterson. In the next half hour the door was never closed, and the guests gradually filled the ballroom.