A Season for the Heart (6 page)

The Earl proffered a fee and profuse thanks for Dr. Stewart’s courtesy and dedication in coming out upon such a wretched night. The gentlemen parted with mutual good will, and a jocose comment by Dr. Stewart that if Milord’s niece ever chose to become a doctor’s assistant, he himself would be delighted to employ her.

“Now
do not
, I beg of you, Pommy,” pleaded the Earl when the door had closed after the doctor, “begin to spin out a story in which you accept Stewart’s offer, nurse a large family through the cholera, and then die in great agony, surrounded by all your grateful and grieving well-wishers!”

Pommy had to grin at him, thinking as she did so how very well he seemed to understand her, and that no one, not even her beloved grandfather, had ever entered into her fantasies as this man did.

The Earl had come over to the bed, and now was smiling down at the Fair Unknown. “Dr. Stewart gives us a very comfortable report of you, child. Can you rest a little now, while I take Pommy to eat her dinner? She has not had a bite for hours, and is gallantly starving to death in silence!”

This pleasantry caused the perfectly cut lips to form a smile. Slender fingers slowly released their grip on Pommy’s warm hand. “Oh, yes, you must refresh yourself, dear Pommy! I shall be content here until you return to me.”

“Would you wish to have a maidservant to keep you company?” asked Pommy.

“No!” sighed the invalid. “I shall just wait for you.”

The Earl got Pommy out of the room with dispatch. “I have ordered a meal for us in a private parlor. After we have eaten, we must discuss the future of the Fair Unknown, and of yourself.”

“However did you know I had designated our charge ‘the Fair Unknown’?” asked Pommy, much struck.

“What else?” teased Lord Austell. “I knew
you
, you see.”

With an odd little thrill, Pommy scanned the strong, impassive, handsome face above her. The Earl took her arm and escorted her down the passageway to an open door which led to a well-lighted parlor. Spread out upon a table was a splendid dinner, its savory odors steaming up into the air. Pommy was going to sit down when Lord Austell indicated a door leading off to the side.

“In there you will find everything necessary to refresh yourself after our long drive, Pommy. When you are ready, come back and we shall have our dinner.”

Pommy had never enjoyed a meal as much as she did that one. Her host was by turns witty and serious, fitting her own moods as though he could sense them. He led her skillfully to discuss a variety of subjects, and seemed to value her opinion. Pommy flowered under such attention as she had never before experienced. Her great green eyes gleamed like emeralds, and her small face was alight with pleasure.

“Have you ever,” asked the Earl after a brief silence in which both had been doing yeoman service to the sirloin, “considered releasing your hair from that braid?”

Pommy gave herself to a consideration of the question. “I used to wear it free over my shoulders, but Aunt Henga said it was messy, and told me to braid it.”

“Ah! Aunt Henga again,” observed His Lordship. “I think we might use your aunt as a guide line: Whatever she told you to do, we should do the opposite. I find her taste unerringly bad.”

Pommy chuckled. “Perhaps I brought out the worst in her? You must admit she presented Ceci very well?”

“Ceci—in the brief glimpse I had of her—impressed me as being one who could fend for herself very adequately,” commented the Earl. “She has a kittenish charm. Yes, I think Ceci knew from birth how to present her pretty smile and wide brown eyes to best advantage.”

“ ‘Brown-eyed beauty, do your mother’s duty,’ ” quoted Pommy involuntarily. She had heard that rhyme so often quoted by Ceci. At the Earl’s quizzical glance, she told him that Ceci had frequently chanted the doggerel at her.

“ ‘
Blue
-eyed beauty’ was the way my nanny taught it to me,” said the blue-eyed man across the table from her complacently. “It was ‘
Brown
eye, pick a pie, turn around and tell a lie,’ in Nanny’s version,” he continued, “but I will venture a wager that Ceci told you the thief and liar was green eyed?”

“You would win,” Pommy informed him, and laughed. Suddenly the sting was gone forever from that piece of petty malice. She stared at the Earl in such open admiration that a flush came up under his tanned skin.

“You would be well advised not to look at me like that, young Pommy,” he warned her. Pommy, experiencing a delicious thrill of excitement, lowered her eyes.

“And now,” said the Earl, with the air of one bringing himself firmly back to business, “we must decide on our course of action.”

At that moment, Pommy would have agreed to anything the Earl had cared to suggest. “About the Fair Unknown,” she nodded.

“About Miss Melpomene Rand, first, and the Fair Unknown as she fits in with those plans,” corrected His Lordship. “You may recall,” he added sternly, although there was a glow in his eyes as he regarded her, “that we decided you would need refurbishing before we presented you to my sister-in-law. And it was obvious to me that we must also secure some sort of chaperone or at least an abigail for you—for propriety’s sake.” He overrode her tentative objections. “Lady Masterson’s companion must be the Caesar’s wife.” He looked at her, waiting.

“Above suspicion,” she supplied.

They shared a laugh.

“You can have no idea how refreshing it is, after a dozen London Seasons, to encounter a maiden who catches one’s literary or scholarly allusions immediately,” the Earl told her.

“A dozen? You are chaffing me, unless you wish me to understand that you attended Almack’s while still in leading strings.” Pommy rallied him.

The color was bright in His Lordship’s cheeks, making him look a good deal younger. He said firmly, “To business, little witch. We shall proceed to Exeter tomorrow morning, by which time, I trust, if the good Stewart’s diagnosis is correct, our Fair Unknown will be sufficiently restored to travel. Although Exeter is not Paris, or even London, it should be able to supply us with two wardrobes which will pass muster in Town until I can arrange for a dressmaker to wait upon you in Lady Masterson’s home.” He paused, frowning a little. “I have an idea about our guest. I believe she may be a Londoner running away from something, or someone. She bears the signs of careful upbringing. See if she will confide in you, Pommy. We cannot leave her here in this provincial town without friends or acquaintances or even funds to keep her.”

“And she is far too beautiful and helpless to be abandoned,” Pommy said softly.

“As you say,” agreed His Lordship. “Now I have arranged that one of the older serving women will sit up with our guest while you sleep, for I cannot have two invalids upon my hands tomorrow, can I?” the Earl neatly countered her protest before Pommy could voice it.

Still Pommy made it. “I said I would sit with her.”

“She will be asleep,” promised the Earl. “Dr. Stewart gave her a sedative.”

In the event, the Earl was proven correct on all counts, for when Pommy entered the bedroom very quietly, it was to behold a motherly female nodding in a rocking chair, a trundle bed set up in a corner, and the Fair Unknown fast asleep in the four-poster. Blessing the Earl, Pommy settled into the cot for the most peaceful slumber she had enjoyed in a long time.

Five

The Earl’s party made a late start on the following morning. After disposing of a hearty breakfast in bed, the Fair Unknown acknowledged herself recovered from her exposure, and quite fit to travel. She permitted Pommy, now very much aware of time passing, to help her to dress, but then sent for Mrs. Ainton to compliment her upon the quickness with which her laundress had rinsed and dried her guest’s muddied clothing.

“For it is most proper to thank those who wait upon one, especially if they render any service outside of the ordinary,” she advised Pommy in her sweet breathy voice.

“Our host has been waiting for an hour,” Pommy advised
her
, with a little less than perfect charity.

The Beauty still did not move very quickly, though perfectly gracious and willing, and when Pommy finally shepherded her down to the front door, the Earl was discovered pacing back and forth in the sunshine beside his restive team with a rather grim look upon his countenance. Although he cast an enigmatic glance at the Beauty and a quizzical one at Pommy, he did not remark upon their dilatory appearance. Since the score had already been settled, the two females were handed at once into the rear set while His Lordship elected to place himself on the seat facing, where he could overlook them both without turning.

After about ten minutes of formal silence, Pommy could bear it no longer. “My Lord,” she began, “we must first thank you for the really
remarkable forbearance
you displayed in waiting so long for us this morning—”

“True,” said the Earl, succinctly.

“But it was my fault,” confessed the Fair Unknown. “From some cause or other I can never seem to move at a pace which satisfies anyone else. My papa is wont to say that I drive him to a frenzy, and my dressers are forever leaving in a huff!” Two large tears brimmed over her eyelids and slid down her flawless cheeks. “I am truly sorry for it.”

The Earl was regarding her with such alarm that Pommy could not prevent a small chuckle from escaping. That would teach him to give
her
a Look! His own face relaxed into a smile, and he leaned forward to offer the Beauty one of his snowy handkerchieves. While she neatly mopped her face, the Earl sat back and began to talk.

“I have been giving thought to our situation while I waited for you this morning—no, you really must not cry any more, I absolutely forbid it,” he said to the Beauty, as two more tears overflowed. “By the way, you must tell us your name. It is too fatiguing to be thinking of you as the Fair Unknown or the Beauty. How are you called?”

“I am Isabelle Boggs,” said the girl. “My father is Thomas Boggs, the best vintner in London. I presume you have heard of him?” She peeped at the Earl through lashes two inches long.

“Regularly, once a month,” acknowledged the Earl.

“Papa had arranged a match for me with a—minor nobleman in the City. I did not wish to go through with it.” She paused, and two more flawless pearls cascaded down her perfect cheeks. “One reason I did not wish for the marriage was that I overheard Alan—he is the minor nobleman of whom I spoke previously, Alan Corcran,” Isabella explained meticulously, “well, as I was saying, I overheard Alan telling a friend of his that I bored him to desperation, and that he, I mean Alan, probably would be forced to be unfaithful to me before the honeymoon was out.” She dried the tears from her face. “This conversation took place at the reception my father gave to announce our engagement—mine and Alan’s, that is.”

Lord Austell was looking as though he began to understand Alan’s dilemma, but Pommy was staring with shock and pity at the beautiful girl.

Isabelle caught her glance and said simply. “Alan did not intend anyone but his friend to hear his remark, I am sure. He was speaking quite softly in our entrance hall. I was coming downstairs to the reception. The grand stairway in our home has two bends in it—the servants
loathe
having to clean it—and he, that is, Alan, did not notice my presence. I was a little late, and everyone but Alan and his friend had gone on into the drawing room.”

“So you ran away?” asked Pommy, envisioning a frantic, secret flight by night.

“Well, not exactly,” Isabelle corrected her. “You see, although I could not really wish to marry a man who was already planning to be unfaithful to me, I had nothing packed and could hardly have fled London at that hour. It was after ten o’clock.”

“That should set
you
to rights, my impetuous child,” the Earl advised her,
sotto voce
.

Isabelle was going on with her story. “After the reception had ended, I told my father why I did not wish for the connection. He was angry.” She sighed, but to the Earl’s relief, did not weep again. “He said that I should have told him of my scruples before he had spent all that brass entertaining the
Ton
with best champagne and fine brandies. He refused to consider canceling the arrangements. I told him I would simply not make the responses in church if he forced me to attend the wedding ceremony.”

“No wonder you were angry!” cried Pommy, incurably partisan. “Your heart wrung with humiliation, your father obdurate—!”

“Oh, I wasn’t angry, exactly,” said Isabelle thoughtfully. “I just said no.”

The Earl did not bother to hide the mocking grin he sent in Pommy’s direction. Feeling a little annoyed, Pommy asked, “Then, if you did not run away, how . . . ?”

“How did I get on the road in the storm? My father packed me off to my aunt in Penzance, to stay until I had accepted his decision.” She added, in parenthesis, “That is my Great-aunt Sophronia, not my aunt Tabitha. I do not like Sophronia, and she dislikes me intensely. I like Tabitha,” she concluded, smiling.

“You are fleeing from Great-aunt Sophronia’s tyranny?” asked Pommy, hopefully.

“Oh, no! When I got to Penzance, I discovered that she had caught the measles. Both she and her physician were adamant that I should return to London.”