A Season for the Heart (9 page)

Pommy swallowed a gulp of surprise. She had never seen so flawless a human being in her life. Even the beautiful Isabelle’s luster was paled before the bright effulgence of this youth’s splendor.

Acknowledging a reaction she had seen many times before, Lady Masterson smiled proudly and announced, “Miss Rand, may I present my son Gareth?”

The man’s well-cut lips softened into a delightful smile. “Miss Rand! A pleasure to meet you, Ma’am.” He bowed over her hand, and Pommy was not surprised to note that his every action was graceful yet manly.

The Nonpareil turned to his mother. “I am happy to see you in such high spirits, Mama,” he said, kissing her hand and then her cheek. “Uncle Derek, this is a pleasure we have too seldom! You are looking well, sir. Are you back in town to stay?”

The two men shook hands, and the Earl’s smile was cordial. It was evident that he liked his heir. “I believe I shall find enough to keep me interested for a little while, Gareth. I plan a rather longer stay in London than usual. For one thing, I have brought your mother a companion—Miss Melpomene Rand, whose grandfather was the Reverend Augustus Mayo, one of our great scholars.”

“Oh!” Gareth said, smiling amiably. “Are you also a scholar, Miss Rand?”

“Oh, no, sir,” Pommy hastened to disclaim. “I have neither the wisdom nor the training.”

Both Lady Masterson and her son seemed to find this modesty admirable, and Gareth even sighed in relief. “I was beginning to be in a quake lest I should find myself exposing my deficiencies! At Eton I was forever running into difficulties with my tutors.” He chuckled. “They were wont to say that I had more bottom than brains!”

His mother proudly interpreted. “Like his dear father, Gareth excels in all the manly sports. He is a bruising rider who never refuses any hazard, I am told. Of course, he has no head for figures, but that is not at all necessary when dear Derek has instructed his comptroller to handle all our affairs for us.” She cast her brother-in-law a grateful look, and then summoned Mikkle again, requiring him to get the housekeeper to escort Miss Rand to her room.

“Go now, child, and let Mrs. Upton send a maid to assist you in dressing for dinner. Gareth, you may leave us also. I have matters to discuss with your uncle.”

When the two young people had gone, the Earl rattled in before his sister-in-law could begin the inquisition she clearly intended.

“Something is troubling Gareth.” It was a statement rather than a question.

The widow shrugged an exquisite shoulder, and would not meet his eyes. “Oh, it is some boyish whim! Gareth is moody, you know.”

“Gareth is one-and-twenty—
not
a boy, Aurora! Is he pining to go to his estate?”

Lady Masterson put on a lachrymose expression and took out a lace-edged scrap of handkerchief. “You know he is like a child, forever wishing to race in the fields and climb trees and shoot and ride horses—and dogs—”

“Hardly dogs, my dear Aurora, but I catch your meaning. Gareth has the soul and the interests of an English squire, and will make an excellent husbandman of his lands, for all his elegance of person and the Town bronze you have succeeded in giving him. Aurora—let the lad go! He will never leave your side as long as you hold him with you. He tries to please you, but he is truly miserable among the Beaux and the Corinthians. Free him to embrace his heritage! It is what his father would have desired.”

“Have you forgotten that it was that very heritage which took his father’s life? He would be with us today if he had not saved that herdsman’s child from the bull!”

“It was an act of heroism,” the Earl said gently. “He could not have done otherwise.”

Lady Masterson turned the conversation quickly. “I must thank you for your efforts to find me a companion,” she said, rallying him a little archly. “Am I to suppose that you have a special interest in—the scholar’s grandchild?”

The Earl looked sober. “Why, I suppose I must have,” he admitted. “I think it was her gallantry in her wretched situation which impressed me. And then she is so
Romantic
—!” he chuckled, his eyes soft.

Lady Masterson was amazed. This was more serious than she had thought. Prudently she decided to say no more upon this head until she had taken the child’s measure. At least she was a gentlewoman, and soft voiced, and she was young enough to be biddable. But as a wife for the Earl of Austell?

To her credit, Lady Masterson felt neither alarm nor jealousy at the thought that His Lordship might be intending to marry and provide his vast estates with an heir of his own body. She had more than enough in her lavish widow’s portion and her inheritance from her own father, an eccentric duke who was never seen without a posy in his hatband. Gareth’s small estate, which he had from his father, and his allowance from the Earl, would ensure that money would never be a problem to him. Her interest in Miss Rand was solely motivated by a fear that the child would not prove a suitable chatelaine for the two great mansions and the lavish Town house which were His Lordship’s possessions. For the girl was no beauty, and her background, while decent, was not impressive in any way.

During dinner, which was for some reason more amusing than any she had bothered to attend of late, she had ample opportunity to behold the side of the Earl which Pommy had praised. Derek’s humor was jovial; he made sly jokes, laughed frequently, and challenged Miss Rand into making a dozen witty observations on their journey. The girl was obviously smitten. Of the Earl’s feelings she could not be so certain: His smile was warm, and his eyes, when they rested on the girl, were alight with interest. But he must be nearly twenty years the child’s senior. Yes, there was much for Aurora to do! And the first thing would be to take the girl to her own dressmaker tomorrow—for it must never be said that Aurora Masterson’s companion was a dowd!

When Her Ladyship made the announcement, not at all apropos of anything which was being said, that she intended to introduce Miss Rand to the fashionable shops the following day, the Earl hid a smile, Pommy’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, and Gareth looked apprehensive.

“I have an appointment with some of my friends at Manton’s, Mother. I fear I shall not be able to—”

“Nonsense, Gareth, I do not at all wish to have you accompany us,” she said indulgently. “Your taste is not as good as your uncle’s. Now if
he
were to offer to come—” and she raised a mischievous eyebrow at the Earl, waiting to see him squirm out of the invitation. To her shocked surprise, Derek agreed at once to come, saying, with a challenging smile, “When do you wish me to call for you, my dear Aurora?”

By the time the details of the expedition had been settled, Lady Masterson felt almost breathless. Lord Austell was smiling imperturbably, and Pommy was pink with pleasure.

Seven

When Pommy awoke, she could not at first accept her luxurious surroundings as actual, and thought that she must still be in some sort of dream. Then the memory of the events of the previous day rushed into her mind, and she scrambled out of bed to examine, in the daylight, the charming room she had been almost too weary to take in the night before. It was a charming bedroom, all greens and blues and rich soft fabrics and mirrors. Mirrors! Half a dozen of them, including the first full-length one Pommy had ever seen. She ran to stand in front of it, chuckling at the sight of the tousle-haired girl who stared back at her with wide laughing eyes. Pommy hugged herself in glee.

“Even if Lady Masterson permits me to stay only a few days, it will be worth it! This is the bower of a princess. Oh, how lucky I am to be in it!”

Pulling her voluminous cotton nightgown, a hand-me-down from Aunt Henga, around her in what she considered to be a fashionable drape, Pommy walked back and forth in front of the mirror, eyes on her peacocking image.

Then she laughed aloud, and strolled around the spacious room, enjoying all the pretty and elegant furnishings. It was while she was so employed that a discreet knock sounded upon the door. Without waiting for an answer, a very capable-looking middle-aged woman in a dark blue uniform entered and greeted Pommy with surprise and a little censure.

“Oh, you are waking, Miss! I am Gordon, Lady M.’s dresser. I had not thought to find you up!”

“I have not yet learned to keep Town hours, you see,” confessed Pommy, smiling.

She could not know how young she looked, in the huge nightgown, her splendid mane of shining black hair tumbling down almost to her waist, her huge green eyes sparkling with excitement, her small piquant face alight. Lady Masterson’s dresser revised the intentions with which she had entered the room. She had come expecting to find a country bumpkin, a puffed-up little provincial, all presumption and push, who would disrupt the well-ordered routine of Milady’s house and create Problems, being neither true Quality nor actual menial. Instead she discovered an artless child, eager to share her delight in the unaccustomed luxury. No pretensions here which must be depressed, admitted Gordon, a martinet in the Servants’ Hall and so conscious of her role as Milady’s dresser as to have won the soubriquet “The Dragon.” Almost against her will her expression softened.

“Now then, Miss Rand, we must get you dressed an’ ready to go down to breakfast. For you will not wish it brought to you here, I think?”

Pommy looked appalled. “Oh no, ma’am! I have never had breakfast in bed—well, once, when I had the mumps, they left a tray inside my door, not wishing to catch the disease themselves, you see—”

“There will be nothing like that here,” Gordon assured her, with sublime confidence that an All-Wise Deity would not permit encroaching infections to disrupt Lady Masterson’s
ménage.
“Now, Miss Rand—”

“Oh,” interrupted Pommy urgently, “must you call me that? I know it is my name, but—but Pommy is more friendly!” she ended in a rush.

Gordon scrutinized the pleading face. Of course! Like a fish out of water in this grand household, the child was anxious for a guiding hand. Had she but known, Pommy could not have chosen a more acceptable approach.

The Dragon’s smile would not have been recognized in the Servants’ Hall. “Well, Miss, you must admit your given name is a mouthful.”

“Melpomene?” the girl sighed. “The
trouble
that name has caused me! But Pommy is not hard to say . . . if you please?”

Gordon smiled indulgently. “Very well, Miss Pommy. Now let me see your wardrobe, and we shall have you ready for your breakfast in the twinkling of a bed post!”

Nothing could have cemented the good relationship Pommy was establishing with the Dragon as well as what the girl did now. She hurried to the elegant armoire in which she had hung her two new dresses and the best two of her former wardrobe—all she had brought from Highcliff Manor. Both of these were years out of style—if indeed they had ever been in it—and well worn from many washings. The pitiful accessories, darned stockings, mended undergarments, were displayed in a small heap on the floor of the armoire, for Pommy had been too sleepy to look out a better place last night. But instead of showing embarrassment, or asking for pity, Pommy displayed the two new dresses with pride.

“I have this silk one for dressing up, and this pretty woolen one for everyday. There is even a bonnet to match it!”

The pride in the girl’s face as she displayed her meager wardrobe did something to Gordon’s well-armored heart. Then, noting the newness and the alamodality of the two costumes, she wondered sharply if Lord Austell had . . .

The child made her regret her suspicions before she had completely framed them.

“These may not be up to standards, but you see I had just two pounds to spend—in my home village a veritable fortune!—and we must remember that I have not come to London to make a fashionable début, Miss Gordon!” She chuckled at her own jest.

“You must call me just ‘Gordon,’ Miss Pommy. Your dresses are very pretty and suitable, but you will have need of more than two if you are to be Lady Masterson’s companion. I have no doubt she will arrange for a wardrobe for you. No,” she correctly identified the look on the girl’s face, “it will not be charity, for of course you are to receive a wage, as is customary.” To put an end to argument, Gordon said with the brisk hauteur of the superior dresser who knows both her own worth and her job, “Now you must wash your face and hands, Miss Pommy, and put on the woolen dress. I shall return to assist you with your hair in ten minutes.”

Half an hour later, Pommy, directed by Mikkle, entered the breakfast room. She was feeling complacent. Her new dress looked very well; it had apparently been freshened and pressed while she was wearing the evening gown the night before. Also Gordon had proved an even more accomplished
coiffeuse
than Isabelle ever was.

Gareth was already seated at the table, somberly addressing his breakfast. He rose and held her chair for her, naming the contents of several silver dishes set over candles to keep warm. Pommy chose some from each, which so put Gareth in charity with her that he smiled for the first time. Pommy began to eat without bothering him by inane inquiries into his health, or vapid chatter about the weather. This restraint at first surprised and then impressed him, and a little of the tension went out of his shoulders. After a silent five minutes dedicated to the absorption of food, Gareth touched his lips with a snowy napkin and asked Pommy if he could pour her a cup of coffee.