Free A Season for the Heart by Elizabeth Chater

in Thornapple Square. Boggs, initially inclined to be suspicious of his daughter’s unexpected appearance with two strangers, became too obsequious upon learning the name and style of his daughter’s rescuer. The Earl refused the vintner’s hearty invitation to take pot luck and they left with Isabelle’s tearful urgings that Pommy call soon to see her ringing in their ears.
    The drive to Portman Square was marked by a silence which Pommy found painful but impossible to break. Of course His Lordship was bored and wishing he had never involved himself in so much Samaritanism! Two hapless females to be rescued from the results of their own folly! No wonder he was wishing himself quit of the whole wretched business, and herself in Jericho, rather than Portman Square! Setting her small chin firmly, she used the time to consider a plan of action.
    You must begin as you intend to go on, she told herself. No flights of fancy, no romantic imaginings. You will do your best to entertain and console the weeping widow, you will be tireless in her service, sparing no attentions . And if this program seemed to offer little pleasure, Pommy accepted it solemnly. No matter that she would be, as always, on the outer fringe of the fun, watching others enjoy themselves, while she dwindled into an ape-leader, an old crone—companion!—she hastily corrected herself. Perhaps, if he thought of her at all, the Earl would be grateful for her devoted service to his widowed sister. She sighed involuntarily.
    The Earl turned to her with a quizzical smile and spoke at last.
    “Courage, Pommy! Aurora’s wail is worse than her behavior. I am hoping that you will bring both laughter and good common sense into my sister-in-law’s ménage . The Lady Masterson feeds upon melancholy, but she has a sweet and generous nature. She was quite a different person when my brother was alive. Since his death, however, she appears to have felt it her duty to wither away in a series of imagined illnesses. I shall expect you to restore her to a more wholesome view of life.”
    Pommy looked appalled at the task.
    The Earl laughed for the first time that day. “Just involve her and her household in some of your romantic adventures. I promise to pull you out of them if the consequences threaten to become disastrous!”
    And then they were at Number Three Portman Square.
    As Milord led her into the imposing mansion, where the butler was bowing almost to his knees, and the footmen stood rigid in their powdered wigs and livery, Pommy could only be thankful for her new moss-green gown and the charming little bonnet which had materialized with it. At least she need not meet this formidable dowager, with her vapors and megrims, in a dowdy dress!
    “You may tell Lady Masterson we are here, Mikkle.”
    “She is awaiting you, My Lord,” smiled the butler. “If you will follow me?”
    When they were shown into Milady’s drawing room, it was to see a bright fire, masses of fragrant flowers out of season, and furnishings of the most feminine elegance. Pommy peered around apprehensively for the imaginary invalid, only to find herself facing a tiny, delicate beauty with white-gold hair and huge sad gray eyes set like silver in a lovely face.
    “Aurora, my dear,” began the Earl briskly, bending over her fragile, bejeweled white hand, “may I present to you Miss Melpomene Rand of whom I wrote you, who has come all the way from Cornwall, through great vicissitudes and hazards, to bear you company? Miss Rand,” he took her hand and led her to his hostess, “this is my sister-in-law, Aurora, Lady Masterson.”
    The tiny sparkling hand was extended to her, and Pommy found herself curtseying as though her hostess were Royalty.
    This gesture seemed to please Milady. “So good of you to come,” said Her Ladyship in a voice as sweetly plangent as a chime of silver bells. “Did you have a wretched journey, my poor child?”
    Pommy, incurably honest, found that she could not mouth