A Season for the Heart by Elizabeth Chater Read Free Book Online Page A

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