Lady Polly
Lady Polly
Nicola Cornick
Even as Lady Polly rejected another proposal of marriage, her heart burned for the man she'd rejected five years ago.She'd heard that in his misery, her beloved Lord Henry Marchnight had become a rogue and a gambler. But when he appeared before her on a deserted terrace and stole a kiss, Polly knew that her passion hadn't died. The man still knew how to steal her reason with one touch.But reason she needed as suspicions of criminal behavior hovered about Lord Henry. Should she return to her routine of spurning suitors? Or should she do what she should have done five years ago–trust her love and follow her heart…?
Lord Henry made a slight, dismissive gesture
“What could a rake wish for from a lady on a providentially empty terrace?”
“Oh!”
Understanding came to Polly at the very last moment. She had once quite ached for Lord Henry to kiss her as long as it had been in a completely undemanding fashion. Some chaste but impassioned salutation had been the height of her aspirations.
This kiss might have been impassioned, but in no way could it be described as chaste. Lord Henry brought her into sudden, shocking contact with his body. His mouth captured hers with the ruthless skill of the expert, parting her lips so that her gasp was lost.
Lady Polly
Harlequin Historical
Harlequin Historicals is delighted to present author Nicola Cornick and her sparkling Regency
LADY POLLY
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Nicola Cornick
Nicola Cornick is passionate about many things: her country cottage and its garden, her two small cats, her husband and her writing, though not necessarily in that order! She has always been fascinated by history, both as her chosen subject at university and subsequently as an engrossing hobby. She works as university administrator and finds her writing the perfect antidote to the demands of life in a busy office.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Prologue
1812
“You’re a damned fool, Henry!” Simon Verey leant on the table and addressed his friend in tones that would have led Henry Marchnight to call him out under any other circumstances. “Leave it a few weeks—a month, even—for everyone to lose interest in Miss Jacques’s vicious rumours! If you go to Lady Paulersbury’s rout tonight, they’ll make mincemeat of you!”
Lord Henry’s only response was a rather lop-sided grin as he tilted his head to consider the intricate folds of his violet cravat in the mirror.
“The Napoleon,” he mused. “Rather a neat style, don’t you think, Simon? Languishing and romantic, as is appropriate for this evening! Do you think that it will bring me the luck of the French?”
“In love or in war?” Verey asked drily.
Lord Henry’s only reply was another smile. “I regret that I cannot take your advice, Simon,” he continued. “I must see Lady Polly Seagrave tonight. I am hoping that I may still persuade her to consent to be my wife.”
Verey’s lips tightened. He had seen that reckless look in his friend’s grey eyes before and knew it promised trouble. There was something both tense and watchful about Lord Henry’s elegantly clad form, some element held under the barest control. And Verey understood his desperation, but he thought Henry had miscalculated.
“They’ll never let you near her,” he prophesied grimly. “Good God, the whole Town thinks that you have tried to debauch Miss Jacques, then proposed marriage to Lady Polly for her fortune only a day later! You’ll be ripped to pieces, Henry!”
Lord Henry shrugged. “Lady Polly would never believe such a thing of me, Simon. I know she would have accepted my suit had the Earl not refused to countenance it!”
Verey shook his head. What madness could have possessed Lord Henry to ask the starchy old Earl of Seagrave for his daughter’s hand in marriage whilst such unsavoury, albeit untrue, rumours were being circulated? He must have known that the Earl was so high in the instep that he would never sanction a match between his only daughter and a man who had been branded a philanderer and deceiver.
With its usual appetite for scandal, Society had been quick to seize upon the accusations of Miss Sally Jacques that Henry Marchnight had promised her marriage and then attempted to seduce her. Verey knew that Miss Jacques was the daughter of a Cit who had attempted to establish herself amongst the ton and whose disappointment at being unable to bring Henry up to scratch had led to this ill-considered revenge. Verey also knew that most of Society thought Miss Jacques an ill-bred mushroom and that interest in the story would wane very swiftly. If only Henry had exercised his usual cool detachment! But in his very real passion for Lady Polly Seagrave he seemed uncharacteristically hasty, unable to wait even a few days for matters to cool. Simon was prepared to support his friend, but he was certain that the evening would be deeply unenjoyable.
Their reception at Lady Paulersbury’s was everything Verey had predicted and worse. Silence fell as Lord Henry Marchnight was announced. Men whom he had counted his friends pointedly turned their backs. Some women whispered maliciously behind their fans, whilst others drew aside from him with disgusted expressions. There was a moment when Lord Henry was certain Lord Paulersbury was about to have him horsewhipped from the house before his wife’s more temperate counsel prevailed. But he was treated as a social pariah, ignored or ridiculed, and it was a profoundly unpleasant and uncomfortable experience.
Lady Polly Seagrave saw Lord Henry’s tall figure across the ballroom and was immediately certain that he had come to seek her out. She caught her breath. To have dared so much public opprobrium, just for the chance of speech with her! He must know that her father had forbidden them to meet and the entire Town was reviling him over the scandal of Miss Jacques.
Polly burned with outraged fury at the treatment Sally Jacques had meted out to Lord Henry. Sally and Polly had once been friends, before Miss Jacques’s jealousy at Lord Henry’s partiality for Polly had driven a wedge between them. Sally had contrived that her carriage had broken down in the vicinity of Lord Henry’s home at Ruthford and had imposed on his hospitality overnight so that she had compromised them both. In vain had Lord Henry argued that Miss Jacques’s companion and his own servants had provided ample chaperonage and that nothing untoward had occurred. Public opinion, carefully encouraged by Miss Jacques and her chaperon with their hints at false proposals and attempted seduction, was firmly of the belief that he should have made her an offer. His refusal to do so proved him to be no gentleman. It was not long before the true facts of the case had been turned inside out and Henry Marchnight was denounced as a scoundrel and seducer.
A few days before, when Polly had heard the harmful gossip repeated by two salacious matrons, she had burst out that it was all malicious lies. Immediately their watchful gaze had turned thoughtfully on her. Her mother had pulled Polly to one side.
“Be quiet, you silly girl!” Lady Seagrave had hissed in Polly’s ear. “You will have them thinking that Lord Henry has debauched you too!”
“Lord Henry has not debauched anyone!” Polly had muttered furiously, but she kept her voice discreetly low for all her vehemence. “He is an honourable man!”
For a moment Lady Seagrave had looked almost sorry for her daughter. “Lord Henry may be as honourable as you please, but no one will believe it now! And that is because they do not want to believe it, for the tale is so much more interesting than the truth. So you will be a good girl and have no more to do with him!”
For a moment Polly had looked mutinous. Lord Henry had always behaved as a perfect gentleman towards her. She was more than half in love with him. But she had already had her father explain, very clearly and kindly, just why he could not entertain Lord Henry’s suit. And Polly was only eighteen, and accustomed to obeying her parents unquestioningly in everything…
And now Lady Seagrave had caught her arm, turning her away so that Lord Henry’s curiously compelling grey gaze could no longer disturb her so.
“You must not acknowledge him,” she murmured, whilst keeping a spurious social smile fixed on her face for the benefit of those about them who were watching with a keen interest.
Polly knew her mother was only acting with the best of intentions. A young lady’s good name was so fragile and scandal so contaminating. She had seen how a reputation could become so tarnished that a girl would become quite unmarriageable. But she was torn by her burgeoning feelings for Lord Henry. She had never been in love before and he had wooed her throughout the Season, so gently, so carefully. His attentions had never overstepped the mark and when he smiled at her with all the warmth and tenderness that spoke more clearly than any words, Polly felt deliciously safe and cherished.
She reluctantly allowed her mother to shepherd her away, but could not resist a quick glance over her shoulder. Lord Henry was still watching her. Polly gave a pleasurable little shiver of excitement, but at the same time a frisson of nerves prompted her to hope that he would not make a scene or press his attentions on her. That would be deliciously romantic but rather difficult to handle. Polly was not at all sure that she could cope with impassioned protestations of love.
It was much later in the evening when Lord Henry finally managed to get Polly on her own. Throughout the ball, she had been aware of his presence, the deceptively casual way in which he was watching her all the time. But she was never left alone. Lady Seagrave, a very dragon of propriety where her only daughter was concerned, seemed to follow her everywhere until Polly told her with asperity that she was quite capable of visiting the ladies’ withdrawing room alone.
It was on her way back that Lord Henry seized his chance, materialising in the deserted corridor and drawing her into an empty room before Polly even had time to catch her breath. It was vastly exciting, but also rather frightening. There was something driven about Lord Henry that evening, Polly thought, something so resolute that it made her quail and find him almost a stranger. She was not accustomed to strong emotion. The Seagrave household was run with apparent harmony and the Earl would never have countenanced any vulgar display of feeling.
Polly knew very little about love; she loved her parents with a dutiful respect, and knew, far more scandalously, that her brothers had both at one time or another had in keeping certain ladies on whom they lavished their affections. That, Polly had once overheard her mother darkly telling another matron, had very little to do with love at all. And here was Lord Henry Marchnight, burning with another type of romantic passion. His intensity frightened her.
“Lord Henry!” Polly’s voice trembled a little. “You know my father has forbidden me to speak with you—”
He took both her hands in his, his intent grey gaze fixed on her face. “I know it! But I had to see you! You know that he has refused my suit, but we cannot let that make us part! Come away with me, my love! If you will trust yourself to me—”
But Polly had taken a hasty step back, freeing her hands from his grasp. She had paled visibly, her cheeks as white as the pristine foulard at her throat. “Run away with you? But—”
“You must know that I love you! Say you’ll marry me!”
For a moment Polly wavered. He was taking her by storm, so ardent, so impassioned that she was tempted. But her feelings were barely awakened and everything in her upbringing conspired against him. His very ardour alienated her. He knew, a moment before she recoiled, that she was going to refuse him.
“Oh, no, indeed I could not! My father…the scandal…only think—” Polly’s eyes were huge with the horror of it. She broke off at the expression on Lord Henry’s face, suddenly aware that she might have been a little precipitate. Those grey eyes, so warm and tender before, were now so stony and withdrawn that Polly bit her lip. It was like looking into the face of a complete stranger.
The tears came into her eyes. She had a sudden conviction that she had just carelessly thrown away something infinitely precious, without truly understanding exactly what it was. She put out a tentative hand, but Lord Henry was already turning away.
“Polly!” The awesome tones were those of Lady Seagrave, who stood in the shadows, furious fire kindling in her dark eyes. “Come here at once! I knew I could not trust you on your own! And as for you, sir—”
She turned on Lord Henry, but he was already leaving. He sketched an immaculately elegant bow, first to the Countess and then to Polly.
“You need have no fears for your daughter at my hands, ma’am,” he said, his tone one of frigid courtesy. “I give you my word that I shall never approach her again.” And he was gone, leaving Polly with the comfort of her familiar world and a totally unfamiliar feeling of desolation in her heart.
Chapter One
1817
Sir Godfrey Orbison did not understand women. Never having entered the bond of matrimony and being devoid of close female relatives to guide him, he was ill-equipped to deal with a goddaughter he considered to be both foolish and ungrateful.
“You refused him because you did not love him?” Sir Godfrey’s black brows beetled together and he glared fiercely at Lady Polly Seagrave, his tone incredulous. “What is that to the purpose, pray? A fine situation if one had to love one’s intended spouse! The material point is that he is heir to the Duke of Bellars, and as such must be a better prospect than life as a penniless spinster! Aye, and a spinster who is fast approaching her dotage!”
The Dowager Countess of Seagrave was fluttering her hands in distress, but Lady Polly allowed herself a small smile, her elusive dimples peeping for a moment. She knew her godfather’s ill temper would not last long for he was incapable of bearing a grudge and was so fond of her that she could get away with most things. Turning down her fifth suitor of the Season and the nineteenth eligible proposal of her life was, however, testing his indulgence to the full. And he was her trustee, along with her elder brother, and as such could cut up rough about her allowance if he chose. In eighteen months she would be twenty-five and should be mistress of her own fortune, but if Sir Godfrey chose to make her a penniless spinster, it was within his legal powers to do so. Clearly some tact and charm was called for.
She dropped a small curtsy and smiled at her godfather beguilingly. “Dearest Sir Godfrey, you have been like a father to me since my own papa died, and I do thank you for all your guidance and advice! But I am persuaded that you could not really wish me to marry John Bellars! He is a pleasant enough man, if as dull as ditchwater, but it is old Lady Bellars who would be the rub! Why, she has him completely under her thumb and is the most mean-spirited woman—”
“Humph!” Sir Godfrey opined.
“And she is penny-pinching, too!” The Dowager Countess of Seagrave put in, hastily improving on her daughter’s theme. “I hear she keeps young John on a tight rein, for all that she has no real control over his fortune! And,” she added artfully, with a flash of her dark eyes, “was it not Augusta Bellars who tried to snare you in your salad days, Godfrey? She pursued you quite violently, as I recall! They were taking bets in the clubs that she would catch you!”
Sir Godfrey’s choleric gaze kindled again. “Gussie Grantley! Yes, b’God, I’d forgotten that! Tiresome woman, forever wheedling herself into my company, telling everyone there was an understanding between us! Well…” he sighed heavily, “…can’t be doing with that connection in the family, then. Why, she might view this as a second chance to catch me!”
“It is not to be contemplated!” The Dowager declared, smiling as much with genuine amusement as relief. The thought of the widowed Duchess of Bellars pursuing the elderly Sir Godfrey afforded her much secret amusement. In her experience, men often had a much-inflated view of their own attractions.
Sir Godfrey’s gaze had fallen on Polly again, demurely sitting with her chin in her hand smiling at him. Fond of her as he was, he was obliged to view her as another example of an unsatisfactory female.
“All the same, Poll, this won’t do, you know! Nineteen suitors, all worthy men, and not one of them up to your expectations!” Sir Godfrey cleared his throat, intent on delivering a homily. “I thought that you would take Julian Morrish when he offered this Season—damned…harrumph! Dashed silly not to! No better man in the whole of London! And Seagrave took Morrish’s rejection that badly, I know…”
The Dowager Lady Seagrave cleared her throat delicately. She had been quick to see her daughter’s discomfort, for the colour had come rushing into Polly’s ivory complexion, making her look suddenly more animated and much prettier. That was how she used to look, Lady Seagrave thought with a sudden pang of regret, remembering a time five years before, when her daughter had been a bright and vivacious debutante rather than a cool and withdrawn young lady with a reputation for pride. The young Lady Polly had been an appealing girl, drawing quite a following to her with her lustrous cloud of dark hair and expressive brown eyes. She had not lacked for offers, but none of them seemed to meet her exacting standards. No man in five years had been able to persuade her of the merit of his suit.
As for Julian Morrish, that had indeed been an unfortunate affair and one which had caused ill feeling within the family for several weeks until Lucille, the Dowager’s daughter-in-law, had interceded with her husband to forgive Polly. Nick Seagrave had been furious that his close friend, Julian Morrish, had been rejected by his sister. Everyone knew Morrish to be a fine man and one to whom no possible objection could be made on the grounds of rank, consequence, fortune or reputation. Polly’s behaviour had put a great strain on the friendship between Seagrave and Morrish, and an even greater strain on relationships within the family. Polly’s other brother, Peter, had strolled into the breakfast-room one morning and remarked that he would rather face the French again at Waterloo than be the butt of his brother and sister’s ill humour.
“I think, perhaps, that it would be wise for Polly to retire for a little now, Sir Godfrey,” the Dowager Countess said hastily, seeing that her daughter’s colour was still high. “We go to Lady Phillips’s ridotto tonight, and you know how Polly tires easily these days! Polly, my love—”
In response to her mother’s meaningful nod, Polly got up, pressed a kiss on Sir Godfrey’s whiskery face, and slipped out of the room. Her spirits had taken a tumble. The mention of Julian Morrish had been an unfortunate one.
Once out in the deserted entrance hall, Polly leaned against a marble pillar and rested one hot cheek against its coolness. She had known that Sir Godfrey would be angry at Bellars’s dismissal, especially as it followed on so swiftly from the fiasco of Julian Morrish. And she had been as upset as anyone at the necessity of rejecting Morrish, knowing it would cause difficulties for Nicholas Seagrave in particular. Yet, she could not have accepted Morrish, not whilst the spectre of Lord Henry Marchnight persisted in imposing itself between her and every eligible man she met. A tear slid from the corner of one of Polly’s closed eyes and she swallowed what seemed to be a huge lump in her throat.
Immediately after her estrangement from Lord Henry five years previously, Polly had been in very low spirits. She had berated herself fiercely for the lack of courage and the lack of faith that had led her to refuse to elope with Lord Henry. She had a curious feeling of loss, as though she had thrown away something priceless, something that would never be recaptured. The expression on Lord Henry’s face as he had left her that night, the stony withdrawal, the contempt for her weakness, had haunted her for a long time. It was only later, when she was older and understood her loss all the more, that she realised that his love for her had been far more mature than the girlish passion she had thought that she had felt for him. She had simply not been ready to accept the full responsibility of his love and all its implications, not ready to defy her family and run away with him.
The most acute elements of her misery wore off with time, particularly as Lord Henry was absent from Town much of the time and his path and Polly’s did not cross much for several years. Whenever she heard news of him it would invariably involve some highly coloured account of his amatory adventures, for he appeared to have become a thorough-going rake and wastrel. Polly’s heart ached when she heard the tales, as though some part of her could not relinquish Henry for good. And then, the previous summer, her dormant feelings had been stirred into life again.
Lord Henry had been in Suffolk that summer, at the same time that Polly was at Dillingham with her mother and brothers, and it was inevitable that they should be in each other’s company. Each tried to avoid the other as much as possible, their meetings made awkward by the history that lay between them. To Polly’s horror, she had discovered that her childish infatuation had somehow transformed itself over the years into a frighteningly strong attachment. She realised that Lord Henry had unconsciously influenced her refusal of every offer of marriage over the past five years, and that since she was unable to marry him now, she would marry no one.
The realisation made her even more self-conscious in his company and she cursed her inability to match Henry’s smooth detachment. Her original refusal to elope with him was now an awesome barrier between them, making the re-establishment of cordial or at the least civil relations between them well-nigh impossible. When Lord Henry had said, that fateful night, that he would never approach Polly again, he had meant just that. They were obliged to exchange a few words when they met in public, but he seldom sought her out. Then, of course, there was his reputation as a rake, which made every chaperon blench. Although many of his escapades were probably exaggerated, there was no doubt that he had become very wild and would not be considered a suitable escort for any unmarried lady. And now, there was an even more potent and unexpected reason why she could never hope to re-attach his affections…
The sound of voices at the main door stirred Polly from her thoughts. She straightened up to see her sister-in-law Lucille taking her leave of a couple on the doorstep and hurrying into the hall, pulling off her gloves. As Lucille’s eyes adjusted to the sudden shade, Polly came forward to greet her.
“Oh, Lucille, I am glad to see you back!” Then, as her sister-in-law fixed her with a rather too perceptive gaze, she said hastily, “Who were those people? They looked a little eccentric!”
Lucille laughed. “The lady was a Mrs Golightly, who is a friend of Miss Hannah More, and was telling me all about her work with the Bettering Society! They work to improve the condition of the poor, you know! And the gentleman is a poet, Mr Cleymore, who is accounted quite good, I believe, although I cannot understand his work! They are complete originals, but not people of fashion!”
“Who cares a button for that?” Polly said stoutly. One of the things she particularly liked about Lucille was her lack of interest in worldly concerns. She would befriend people because she liked them, support causes because she believed in them, and gently rebuke even the most high-ranking Dowager who ventured to criticise her for her quaint interests. Lucille had grown in poise and confidence since her marriage to Nicholas Seagrave, Polly thought now, but she retained the innocent interest she had in everyone and everything. It was a quality that added to her novelty value in the eyes of the ton, who were always seeking fresh amusement. Lucille, with her slightly eccentric ways, had been a gift to such jaded palates. And the final titillation, of course, was the dreadful, brassy Cyprian who was Lucille’s twin and had done her utmost to embarrass her sister, seeking her out at public events and trying to hang on her coattails. Lucille had dealt with all the pitfalls most admirably, Polly thought with a smile, taking her sister-in-law’s arm and steering her towards the green drawing-room and away from Sir Godfrey and the Dowager Countess.
“Do you have time to take tea with me?” she asked hopefully, and Lucille’s observant blue eyes scanned her face once more.
“Of course! Medlyn, tea for two in the Green Room, if you please!” She turned back to Polly. “But what has happened, Polly? You look quite blue-devilled! Oh, I know—” She wrinkled up her nose. “John Bellars has made you an offer and you have refused him! And…” she cast a glance towards the closed door of the blue drawing-room “…your mother and Sir Godfrey are on the high ropes over your behaviour!”
“Sir Godfrey has rung a peal over me,” Polly admitted ruefully, as they went into the Green Room. “How did you know that Bellars was about to make me a declaration, Lucille?”
“I guessed,” Lucille said serenely. “And I suspected you would refuse him. The only one I thought you might have accepted was Julian Morrish…”
Polly sighed. “I did think of accepting,” she said reluctantly, “for I like Julian very well, and had I wanted a marriage based on mutual respect and liking, it might have served. But—” she shook her head “—I could not do it, for—”
“For you are still in love with Harry Marchnight,” Lucille finished for her, disposing herself elegantly in a wing chair and looking at her sister-in-law with a rueful amusement.
Feeling a prickle of envy at the casual way Lucille mentioned Lord Henry, Polly sought to defend herself. “It is not that I am in love with him, precisely—”
The door opened to admit Medlyn with the tea. Lucille poured neatly and passed Polly a cup.
Once she had thanked him and the door had closed again, Lucille turned back to Polly.
“Come now, Polly, do you think you can cozen me? It may be that you originally suffered from a schoolroom infatuation for Lord Henry, but I am sure you have discovered that this has turned to something far more profound.”
“You have not forgotten what I told you at Dillingham in the autumn,” Polly said sadly. “I was being foolishly self-pitying! It was simply that your own wedding made me feel sorry for myself and I regretted the opportunity I threw away! But that was all over a long time ago! It is of no consequence!”
Lucille studied her sister-in-law over the rim of her teacup. “But I am concerned for your happiness, Polly! All these gentlemen you refuse are so very eligible and do not take their rejection lightly! You know that you are getting a reputation for pride! And what are you to do if you do not marry?”
Polly shrugged, a gesture which her mother deplored. “Oh, I shall devote myself to studying and good works! And if I miss the excitement of the Season in years to come, I shall set myself up as a chaperon for daughters of rich cits wishing to marry well!”
Lucille sensibly chose to disregard most of this. “Do you think,” she said carefully, “that there is any likelihood of yourself and Lord Henry making a match of it? He has told me that he still holds you in the greatest esteem—”
But Polly was shaking her head violently. “Oh, no, Lucille, that is impossible! Why, I am sure he had nothing but contempt for my poor-spiritness in refusing to elope with him five years ago and now I imagine he scarce thinks of me at all!”
She broke off, evading Lucille’s eyes. Impossible to explain to her sister-in-law that the most potent reason that Lord Henry could no longer have any interest in her was because he had quite obviously formed a romantic attachment to Lucille herself. Polly wondered just how innocent Lucille could be. She had no doubt that the attachment was one-sided and entirely emotional rather than physical. But how could Lucille not have noticed that Lord Henry was forever in her company, seeking her views and advice, valuing her opinion? Why, even Seagrave himself had commented humorously what a lapdog Harry Marchnight was becoming, forever following his wife about.
Polly searched rather desperately for a change of subject. “Do you think that you shall be joining the Bettering Society, Lucille?”
“Probably not,” her sister-in-law answered. “Nicholas has suggested that we travel a little at the end of the Season, and since I am still awaiting my wedding trip, I thought to encourage him! But—” she returned to the previous subject with an obstinacy for which she was well known “—we were speaking of you, Polly, not of myself! If you truly feel that any awkwardness with Lord Henry must be in the past now, why do the two of you spend all your time skulking behind trees or pillars in an effort to avoid each other? It makes matters very difficult for the rest of us! Why, Nicholas was saying only the other day that he wished to ask Harry’s advice on those greys he was thinking of buying, but he hesitated in case you accidently bumped into him! Could you not speak to Lord Henry and put an end to this, Polly?”
Polly stared in disbelief.
“Speak to him,” she echoed faintly. “Whatever can you mean, Lucille? Oh, I could not!”
Lucille’s brows rose at this missish response. She knew that Lady Appollonia Grace Seagrave was a well-brought-up and entirely orthodox daughter of the nobility, but had not thought her merely a pretty ninnyhammer.
“Well, upon my word, I only meant that you should discuss matters with him—clear the air!” she repeated patiently. “After all, you are both adults and cannot be forever behaving in this foolish manner! You yourself have said that it is all in the past! I apologise if I have offended your sensibility, but I should think that one slightly embarrassing encounter must be a small price to pay to be comfortable together in the future! If you truly believe that there is no hope for the two of you and you do not wish to try to re-engage his feelings, explain to Lord Henry that you have no wish to continue in this absurd way and that you should both regard the past as over! That way you may start afresh as friends!”
Polly sighed, reaching for the teapot. It was hopeless to try to explain to Lucille that gently bred ladies simply did not seek a gentleman out in order to engage him in a conversation of an intimate and personal nature. Disagreements such as the one Polly had with Lord Henry were simply to be ignored or endured. Lucille, who had earned a living as a schoolteacher before her marriage to the Earl, had no time for what she saw as the pointless prevarications of polite society, but Polly could no more approach Lord Henry than fly to the moon.
“You are great friends with Harry Marchnight,” Polly said lightly, trying not to let her envy show. “I doubt I could achieve your familiarity with him!”
“No, but I am a married lady—” Lucille broke off at Polly’s irrepressible burst of laughter, arching her eyebrows enquiringly. “Why, whatever have I said?”
“Married ladies are precisely the type Lord Henry prefers, so I hear,” Polly said drily.
“Oh, but—” For a moment Lucille looked confused, before regaining her poise. “Oh, no, it is not in the least like that! I am glad to have Harry’s esteem, but that is all there is to it! Why, to suggest anything else would be pure folly!”
Polly smiled, unconvinced. It was true that not even the ton, with its penchant for intrigue, had suggested anything improper in the relationship between the two, but that did not mean that Lord Henry might not wish it so. Lucille, totally absorbed in her husband, would be the last person to realise. Polly, thinking now of the consuming passion between Lucille and Nick Seagrave, shifted slightly in her chair. They were always perfectly proper in their behaviour in company, but it only needed one look…Polly sometimes thought that if any man ever looked at her with that explicit mixture of warmth and sensual demand she would faint dead away. But perhaps Lucille was lucky. Perhaps she was the unlucky one, hidebound by a conventional upbringing in a house where preserving the surface calm had always been all important.
The problem of Lord Henry Marchnight twitched at the corner of her mind again. Lucille was right, of course. Polly did not delude herself that there was any chance of re-establishing a rapport with Lord Henry, and under the circumstances, it was both foolish and pointless to be forever dwelling on the past. Perhaps she could at least try to put matters to rights. If she could find the right words to convey a genteel acceptance that they had both been young and foolish…It might suffice and put an end to awkwardness.
“I will try to speak to Lord Henry if I have an opportunity,” Polly agreed hesitantly. “I understand what you mean, Lucille. It is just so difficult…” She despised herself for her lack of spirit, even as her mind shrank from the thought of broaching such a personal subject with someone who was, to all intents and purposes, a stranger. Yet Lucille was also right that their social circle was relatively small: to try to avoid someone was always difficult. Friends always seemed to have other mutual friends or acquaintances and an invitation or chance meeting could prove awkward.
Lucille took a biscuit and poured a second cup of tea. “I own it will be a relief to have the matter settled,” she said with a candid smile. “Then I may stop worrying about you and turn my attention to Peter and Hetty! They are causing me great concern!”
“It must have been a great blow for Hetty when Mrs Markham’s ill health led to the postponment of the wedding,” Polly commented, secretly glad that Lucille had turned the subject. “But what do you mean, Lucille? How can Peter be giving you cause for concern?”
Lucille frowned. Polly’s brother and her own foster sister had been intending to wed that spring, but the marriage had been delayed indefinitely since Hetty’s mother had succumbed to the dropsy.
“You know how silly Hetty became at the start of the Season,” Lucille said, a little crossly. “Of course, she is very young and I think her head was turned by all the attention she received, but I thought that once she had returned to the country she might regain some of her natural sense! But only today I have had a letter from her telling me that Lord Grantley is in Essex and paying her lavish attentions! And your brother is as bad, Polly, for instead of posting down to Kingsmarton to see Hetty and untangle matters he persists in staying in Town, and last night at Lady Coombes’s ball he was paying the most outrageous attentions to Maria Leverstoke…”
“But I thought she was Lord Henry’s flirt,” Polly said, studiously picking an imaginary thread off Fanchon’s latest confection, and politely avoiding a description of Lady Leverstoke that might have been more appropriate but less discreet.
Lucille made an airy gesture. “That may be so, but she seemed smitten enough with Peter last night! He is become the most dreadful philanderer! You are for Lady Phillips’s ridotto tonight, are you not? Only watch, and you will see just what I mean!”
Chapter Two
Lady Phillips’s ridotto was one of the major social events of the Season, but already the June weather had turned hot, prompting some of the ton to leave London for their country estates or the cooling breezes of the seaside. Nevertheless, there was a great crush at the house in Berkeley Square and, even with the french windows flung wide open the temperature in the ballroom was enough to make the guests perspire unbecomingly.
Almost the first person Polly saw on entering the crowded reception room was Lord Henry Marchnight, lavishing his attentions in a thoroughly improper way on a lady in bright scarlet satin. Polly, trying to ignore the pang of misery that assailed her, considered that the colour of the lady’s outfit was an all-too-appropriate choice.
“Lady Melton,” hissed the Dowager Countess of Seagrave to her daughter, “married to his lordship but a twelvemonth ago and already driving him to his grave with her extravagance and her affaires! So Lady Phillips is letting the demi-monde patronise her ball! I should have expected her to exercise more judgement!”
Polly raised her brows. The Dowager Countess was very high in the instep and would never countenance such guests at one of her own events, but not all ton hostesses were as discerning. A moment later, Polly heard her mother give a stifled groan, halfway between a shriek and a moan, almost as though she were in pain. The Dowager Countess had stopped dead in the middle of the marbled floor.
Polly stopped too and turned enquiringly to her mother. “Mama, are you quite well?”
“Yes, only look! No, not over there…over by that pillar! The strumpet!”
Startled, Polly turned to scan the room. There were plenty of faces she recognised, but none surely to give rise to such vehemence in the Dowager Countess’s breast. Why, her mother had gone quite pale, though whether with shock, anger or illness it was impossible to tell. Then, she saw the reason.
“Good Lord—” The exclamation had escaped before she could help herself.
“Polly, you will not take the name of the Lord in vain!” the Dowager Countess said energetically. She seemed slightly restored by her daughter’s inadvertent slip into blasphemy.
“Yes, Mama, I am sorry, but it is Peter and—”
“I am as capable as the next person of recognising your brother,” the Dowager snapped. “We cannot acknowledge him, however! Come this way! Thank God that Nicholas and Lucille are not present tonight! That brass-faced trollop is always trying to embarrass us!” She took Polly’s arm in a tight grip and positively pulled her towards the ballroom.
“I thought that Peter had taken up with Lady Leverstoke,” Polly said, obediently allowing herself to be steered away with only one backward glance.
“Humph! I never thought to consider Maria Leverstoke as the lesser of two evils—” The Dowager broke off to give a tight-lipped smile to one of her acquaintance. “On no account must you allow your brother to approach you,” she continued, as they squeezed past the orchestra to appropriate two rout chairs in an inconspicuous corner. “It would be quite unacceptable!”
“Perhaps it would be easier for us to go home,” Polly said, a little dispiritedly. It was bad enough to be confronted by the prospect of Lord Henry flirting all evening with some fast-looking matron, but the thought of avoiding her own brother seemed quite ridiculous. Here, however, she ran up against the Dowager Countess’s stubborn streak.
“Go home! And have everyone say that that trollop has ousted us? Certainly not! Besides…” the Dowager looked around surreptitiously “…I most particularly wish to see Agatha Calvert tonight! She has not been up in Town this age and we have so much to catch up on!”
“Surely Lady Calvert can call on you tomorrow—”
The Dowager Countess looked disgusted. “Have you no pride, Polly? I assure you that the Cyprian will not drive me away!”
Polly smiled slightly. She could see her brother Peter coming into the ballroom at that very moment, threatening to put his mother’s resolution to the test. Lucille had mentioned Peter’s sudden descent into questionable company, but even she had apparently been unaware of this latest disaster. For with Peter Seagrave was none other than Lucille’s sister, the notorious Cyprian Susanna Bolt, in a dress of the most outrageous plunging black silk and ostrich feathers.
“Peter, what can you be doing!”
“Why, I’m talkin’ to my own sister!” Lord Peter Seagrave said, with pardonable indignation. “What could be more suitable?”
“You know that is not what I meant!” Polly looked up at him with asperity, feeling her annoyance begin to melt at the limpid innocence in those dark Seagrave eyes. It was so very difficult to be angry with Peter for long. Whilst Polly and Nicholas had inherited something of their father’s gravity, Peter had a gaiety and insouciance that was almost irresistible. “Oh, Peter, how could you squire Susanna Bolt about and embarrass Mama so?”
Peter looked affronted. “Mama ain’t embarrassed by me! Why, she’s nose to nose with Agatha Calvert and has barely noticed me!”
“Only because she has not seen Lady Calvert for an age!” Polly looked across to where the two matrons were chatting nineteen to the dozen. “I assure you, she would not have allowed me to even speak with you else! Supposing Lady Bolt approaches us?”
“Lady Bolt is almost one of the family,” Peter added virtuously, but unable to repress a slight twinkle, “and I am sure Mama would not slight a relative!”
“Fustian!” Polly was also trying not to smile. “Oh, this is too bad of you, Peter! I dare swear it is not for the family connection that you have sought her company!”
“Careful, Poll!”
“Well, if you are setting Lady Bolt up as your inamorata—”
“Polly!”
“Oh, I collect that it is acceptable for a gentleman to have such a thing, but not for ladies to refer to her?” Polly frowned at her brother. “And if you try to tell me that Lady Bolt has become respectable since her marriage I will count you a greater fool than I already do! What of Hetty, Peter?”
The amusement went out of Peter Seagrave’s face like a candle blown out. He studied the dancers with sudden intentness. “Miss Markham and I are no longer…That is, we have agreed that we would not suit.”
“Oh, Peter!” Polly looked up at him, genuinely shocked. Peter swung gently back on his rout chair, feigning nonchalance.
“It was only last summer that you were bowled over by her,” Polly added reproachfully.
“Miss Markham was a different girl last summer.” Peter was looking both annoyed and upset now. “Unspoilt, sweet-natured…It took only six weeks in Town to turn her into the type of silly simpering debutante that I detest! Besides,” he added bitterly, “she is after bigger game than me now!”
Polly was silent. She could hardly deny that Hetty had behaved very foolishly, flirting with any titled and personable man who had shown her attention and treating Peter in a most offhand way. She put her hand on her brother’s arm.
“It is only that her head was turned a little,” she pleaded. “Please will you reconsider—”
“Peter, darling!”
Peter rose to his feet, a schoolboy blush in his cheeks as Susanna Bolt put a gloved hand caressingly on his shoulder. The Cyprian gave Polly an appraising look and her feline smile. “Lady Polly…”
“Lady Bolt,” Polly said coldly. She marvelled at how different two sisters could be. There was a clear innocence about Lucille Seagrave which contrasted starkly with the predatory sexuality of her twin. Lady Bolt might have achieved a fragile respectability through her recent marriage, Polly thought, but her previous activities continued much as before, encouraged, some said, by Sir Edwin Bolt himself. Susanna’s blue gaze, as hard as the diamonds she preferred, raked Polly and dismissed her as an unworthy rival.
“Peter…” this time she trailed her fingers gently down his shirtfront “…you promised me you would play deep this evening…” The phrase was loaded with so much innuendo that Peter Seagrave looked acutely uncomfortable and his sister almost surprised herself by giggling. Doubtless she should have felt shocked, but Lady Bolt was so superlatively overdramatic that it was almost impossible to take her seriously.
“Do not let me keep you from your entertainments, Peter,” she said sweetly, and watched Susanna steer her sheepish brother away towards the cardroom.
There was a quadrille in progress, but Polly had refused a number of requests to dance because it was so hot and she had felt disinclined to become even more heated and flustered. The Dowager Lady Seagrave had moved away temporarily to chat with Lady Calvert and a number of other senior matrons, and when she had seen Peter approach his sister she had not troubled herself to disturb them despite her earlier words. The Dowager knew that Polly had so much Town bronze that she need not trouble herself to chaperon her too closely. After all, apart from one regrettable incident five years ago, her daughter had never given her cause to worry. Nevertheless, she kept her firmly within eyesight.
Peter’s rout chair was only vacant for a moment, then a voice said ingratiatingly, “Lady Polly! Vision of loveliness! I bring succour!”
Polly stifled a sigh.
“Sir Marmaduke. How do you do, sir?”
Sir Marmaduke Shipley gazed languishingly at her. An ageing roué, he was a gazetted fortune-hunter who liked to think that he was dangerous. A certain indulgent smile on the face of the Dowager Countess as she looked across at her daughter gave the lie to this. Sir Marmaduke handed Polly a glass and took the seat beside her with an ostentatious flick of his coattails.
The room was getting more and more humid and the drink was very welcome. Polly, who had been intending to be very chilly towards the lecherous Sir Marmaduke, found herself smiling gratefully at him instead.
“What exquisite looks you are in tonight, my lady,” Sir Marmaduke murmured, his breath hot against Polly’s neck. “Dare I hope that you will smile on me?”
“I doubt it, sir!” Polly said smartly, taking a mouthful of the drink. It was certainly not lemonade, but it tasted rather pleasantly fruity and quite innocuous, light and refreshing for a summer night. She took another sip.
“Still so cruel, divine one?” Sir Marmaduke’s dissolute gaze roved over her familiarly. Lady Polly Seagrave had never been an accredited beauty, but there was nevertheless something very alluring about her, he thought. Tonight, in the deep aquamarine which was rather daring for an unmarried lady, albeit one of more mature years than the debutantes, she looked particularly attractive. Her dark hair was upswept and restrained with a diamond studded slide but she wore no jewels other than a string of pearls that had the same translucent glow as her skin. She did not need adornment. Sir Marmaduke’s eyes lingered in lascivious appreciation. Whilst the dragonish Dowager was fully occupied, he intended to take full advantage of this unexpected tête-à-tête.
Polly sighed again. She had far too much assurance to feel threatened by Sir Marmaduke’s slimy overtures. In a crowded ballroom she was in no danger from him, other than of being bored to death by his unwelcome compliments.
“So your young brother has fallen for the lure,” Sir Marmaduke said, abandoning flattery and pursuing a more scandalous line. “Never did a lamb go more happily to the slaughter! The on-dit is that the lovely Susanna had a mind to take him away from her foster sister, and what chance did Miss Markham’s untried charms have against such a wealth of experience?”
Polly was shocked, but tried not to show it. It had not occurred to her that Peter’s flirtation with Susanna Bolt was anything more than a coincidence. She knew a little of Lady Bolt’s activities, far more in fact than her mother would have thought proper, and now that she thought about it she remembered hearing of more than one occasion when Susanna had set out to destroy a couple’s happiness. But her own foster sister? It argued a particularly harsh and jealous nature.
“Indeed?” Polly murmured, refusing to rise to Sir Marmaduke’s bait. “I do not care for this conversation, sir.”
“No?” Sir Marmaduke’s gaze moved thoughtfully to her empty glass and he summoned another full one from a passing flunkey. “Your pardon, I was only wishing to warn you of Lady Bolt’s vicious nature.”
“I should hope that her ladyship’s diversions would not affect me, sir.”
“No?” Sir Marmaduke said again. There was a look of malicious amusement in his eyes which made Polly profoundly uncomfortable. “Perhaps not. You will not be interested in the most piquant part of the tale, then, which is that young Peter is her ladyship’s second choice, for she first set her sights on Lord Henry Marchnight…”
For a moment Polly’s dark gaze met Sir Marmaduke’s, then she looked away. She took another mouthful of fruit punch without noticing. It was so easy to take refuge in her glass to avoid difficult subjects. And the drink was so refreshing and unusual. Normally she was only allowed lemonade, which, now she considered it, was ridiculous for one of her age and experience. The Dowager Countess was such a high stickler, Polly thought. Perhaps it was time she asserted her independence.
“Your squalid gossip is of no interest to me, sir,” she said distantly, wishing that more congenial company would present itself. Unfortunately, Lady Seagrave was still chatting, glancing across at her daughter with unusual and misplaced satisfaction. It would take a brave soul to interrupt Sir Marmaduke now that he was so entrenched, Polly thought resignedly. As if to underline the point, the elderly baronet stretched his arm along the back of Polly’s chair and leaned closer. His breath was stale with wine.
“Can I not please you?” Sir Marmaduke murmured. “When my sole intention is your delight, beauteous lady—”
“Your servant, Lady Polly. Shipley…”
Polly almost jumped. She felt a quiver of awareness along her nerves even before her hand was taken by Lord Henry Marchnight himself. Perhaps it was the drink, which she was now regarding suspiciously, or perhaps the effect of Lord Henry’s presence, but she felt suddenly light-headed.
“I am persuaded,” Lord Henry said gently, “that you would do so much better dancing with me, Lady Polly. Will you do me the honour?”
For a moment, as Polly’s startled dark eyes met Lord Henry’s narrowed, lazy gaze, she had the oddest feeling that he knew she had been thinking of him. Various thoughts jostled for dominance in her mind. Her first was that Lord Henry never asked her to dance. How could he, when he seldom even spoke to her? The second thought was that this was a waltz and the Dowager Countess would not approve. The third was that she was feeling ever so slightly odd—not unpleasantly odd, but definitely a little adrift…Which no doubt explained how she came to be waltzing in Lord Henry’s arms before she even had chance to think about it properly.
The lilt of the music was very seductive and Lord Henry was an exceptionally good dancer. After one circuit of the floor, Polly realized with some incredulity that she felt rather delightfully abandoned, like thistledown floating on air. Lord Henry was holding her at an entirely respectable distance from his body, but nevertheless the strength of his arm about her, the unfamiliar brush of his thigh against the slippery material of her dress, was peculiarly exciting. Polly blinked slightly, aware that she was not feeling quite normal, but the thought slid away, out of reach. Normal? She felt marvellous.
“You are keeping dangerous company tonight, Lady Polly,” Lord Henry said in her ear. The thought of his lips so close to the sensitive skin of her neck sent a delicious shiver through Polly. She tried to pull herself together. What on earth was wrong with her this evening?
“Are all the Seagraves courting scandal?” Lord Henry continued. “First your brother sets himself up as Lady Bolt’s new…” he hesitated “…new flirt, then you grant Sir Marmaduke Shipley a tête-à-tête and compound your daring by dancing with me!”
Polly looked up fully into his face for the first time. His words crystallised the thought which had entered her head when first he had whisked her from under Sir Marmaduke’s nose. Sir Marmaduke liked to consider himself a rake, but Lord Henry was the really dangerous one, a marauding tiger loose amongst the innocent flock of debutantes. Whatever was she about, to be dancing with him with such abandonment? Across the dance floor, she could see that the Dowager Countess had finally finished her conversation and was glaring at her most meaningfully. Polly felt exasperated. Why had her mother not objected to the unwelcome attentions of the odious Sir Marmaduke and yet had immediately perceived Lord Henry’s arrival? It was most unfair. She deliberately looked the other way.
Lucille had once said, without an iota of partiality, that Lord Henry Marchnight was the best-looking man that she had ever seen. Polly could certainly understand what she meant, for Lord Henry had the classical regularity of feature beloved of all sculptors and painters. His thick fair hair, immaculately ruffled in the Windswept style, made ladies long to run their fingers through it. The lazy appraisal of those grey eyes could, as one infatuated maiden declared, positively cause one to swoon, and his sporting pursuits had given him a physique envied by those less favoured.
“Are you really so dangerous then, sir?” Polly heard herself say. Surely that could not be her voice, so light, so teasing? She never flirted!
“I am accounted dangerous, certainly.” Lord Henry had given her a quizzical glance, no doubt as surprised by Polly’s flirtatiousness as she was herself.
“A real tiger, then, not merely a pussycat?”
This time Lord Henry’s look was rather more searching. “Have you been drinking the arrack punch, Lady Polly?”
“Certainly not.” Polly said with dignified aplomb. “I had some delicious fruit cup, but what is that to the purpose, pray?”
“Ah, the fruit cup,” Lord Henry murmured with a slight smile. “It is so refreshing, is it not? I see the Dowager Countess is looking daggers at us,” he continued indolently. “I must shortly redeem myself in her eyes and return you to her unscathed!”
“Oh, no!” Polly had suddenly remembered that she had promised Lucille that she would speak to Lord Henry about a matter of importance. She frowned in concentration, trying to remember what exactly the issue had been. It was something potentially difficult…embarrassing…but she did not feel embarrassed at the moment, only marvellously liberated. Her mind was a little fuzzy at the edges, perhaps, but she had not felt this confident in a long time! It was a moment before she realised that Lord Henry was looking at her with amusement.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Polly?”
“No, do not take me back just yet, sir!” Polly tried to grasp the appropriate words. “I…there is a matter I need…must discuss with you!”
“Indeed!” A faint smile touched Lord Henry’s firm mouth once more. “You intrigue me, madam! I am at your disposal, of course!”
The music was ending. Lord Henry gave her a mocking bow, taking her arm to escort her through the crowd and across to one of the silk-draped alcoves. It was sufficiently far from her mother to make Polly feel much more confident. She could deal with this matter without the Dowager Lady Seagrave even realising!
Lord Henry stood aside for her to sit down first, but she made no move to do so. He raised an eyebrow. “Well, Lady Polly? What is this urgent matter that demands our attention? Will you not sit down so that I may at least do the same?”
Polly discovered that her thought processes were suddenly beautifully clear.
“I meant,” she said deliberately, “that I needed to speak to you in private. Not here. There are too many people about!”
This time, Lord Henry did not scruple to hide his surprise. “A somewhat equivocal remark, my lady!” he said, with an ironic inflection. “Are you sure that is what you mean? It seems most singular.”
Polly frowned at him. She had no time for argument. All she was aware of was the single-minded need to fulfil her purpose.
“The terrace should suffice, my lord,” she said briskly, turning towards the door and praying that he would follow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Dowager Countess getting heavily to her feet. It was a long way around the dance floor and the room was crowded, but it would take a determined Mama seconds only to rescue her charge. Polly saw one of the Dowager Countess’s acquaintance accost her and heaved a sigh of relief. Old Lady Odgers was notoriously chatty and would not be easy to shake off. She prayed that this would give her enough time.
The terrace was deeply shadowed and Polly purposefully made for the furthest corner, only turning back to Lord Henry when she had gained its seclusion. The cool evening air had helped to sober her a little, but she still felt remarkably buoyant and determined. Yet as soon as she opened her mouth the words seemed to desert her.
“I hoped…I wished…I wanted to say…” Suddenly it seemed incredibly difficult to frame the appropriate phrases. She had wanted to be so gracious, easily putting an end to five years’ embarrassment. At this rate she would cause five years’ more! And Lord Henry was not helping her, lounging against the parapet and watching her with the same thoughtful consideration he had already shown.
“Yes, ma’am? You have already implied that you had something of importance to impart to me. I should not be here else.”
Polly’s cheeks, already flushed with unaccustomed high colour from the punch, became even rosier. “Oh, you are the most odious man! I only wished to say that I wanted us to be friends!” Memory came to her aid. “I want us to be friends in future and I want us to be comfortable together!” she brought out, triumphantly. It had a reassuring sound, although comfortable was about the last thing Lord Henry made her feel. “And if you wish it too, then there is no bar—”
“Ah, but perhaps I do not.” Lord Henry was smiling a little now, for he knew that certain suspicions he had harboured about Lady Polly’s lack of sobriety had been confirmed. She was not drunk, precisely, he thought, but she was not perfectly sober. And she was evidently too innocent to have realised her state. Or her danger.
“Oh!” Polly had anticipated his compliance and there was no doubt that this refusal to conform had thrown her plans. Lord Henry watched in amusement as she tried to puzzle it out. With her tumbled curls, pink cheeks and bright eyes, she looked wholly enchanting. He felt a certain impulse stir in him and tried half-heartedly to stifle it. He straightened up and took a step closer to her. Polly did not appear to notice.
“Well, if you do not care to be comfortable with me—”
“No, ma’am.” Lord Henry was still immaculately polite, even as he calculated, quite coldly, what he was about to do. “Comfortable is not a word I could ever apply to our situation.”
“Then—” Polly was at a loss. “If you do not wish us to be friends, what…?”
Lord Henry made a slight, dismissive gesture. “What could a rake wish for from a lady on a providentially empty terrace?”
“Oh!”
Understanding came to Polly at the very last moment, but her head still felt as though it was stuffed with wool. Time seemed to pass very slowly. Indeed, she had time to reflect that she had never been kissed by a man, since she had always been exceptionally careful to avoid being alone with any gentleman who was not a relative. Then she remembered that when she had been in the throes of her infatuation, she had quite ached for Lord Henry to kiss her as long as it had been in a completely undemanding fashion. Some chaste but impassioned salutation had been the height of her aspirations.
This kiss might have been impassioned, but in no way could it be described as chaste. Lord Henry’s arm slid about Polly’s waist and brought her into sudden, shocking contact with his body. His mouth captured hers with the ruthless skill of the expert, parting her lips so that her gasp of outrage was lost. For several long, spellbinding seconds, Polly was swept up in a passion too complex and demanding for her even to begin to resist.
Lord Henry let her go very gently and Polly stared at him in silence. The combined effects of unaccustomed drink and strong emotion made her feel quite shaken and she put a hand onto the parapet to steady herself. The stone was cool beneath her fingers, already damp with the night’s dew. Polly frowned a little, confused. How could this have happened when she had intended so different an outcome? Then, utterly unexpectedly, Lord Henry took her hand and pressed a kiss on the palm.
“Do not look at me so reproachfully, Lady Polly,” he said quietly. “Remember that you took your part in making me what I am.”
He turned to go and was confronted once again by the Dowager Countess of Seagrave, rushing precipitately to the rescue. He gave her a most flawless, ironic bow.
“Lady Seagrave! How do you do, ma’am? I remember once telling you that I would never approach your daughter again. Alas that I am forced to contradict myself, for I find I have a most urgent need to make her reacquaintance! Your servant, ma’am!”
And he left the outraged Dowager spluttering for words.
Chapter Three
Polly woke up with the conviction that something was terribly wrong. Her head ached with an unaccustomed thick throbbing and her tongue felt furry. She rolled on to her back. The sun was streaming through the curtains and she could hear the sound of wheels in the street outside. It was late.
Through the woolly feeling in her head, Polly remembered the fruit punch, so apparently innocuous and yet so dangerous. Oh, how could she have been such a fool, she who had been out for five years! Drinking spirits, becoming flirtatious, crowning her folly with a drunken encounter on the terrace with Lord Henry Marchnight! No doubt he thought her the most unutterable fool! She squirmed, turning her hot face into the cool linen pillow in an attempt to wipe out the vivid memories which were flooding back.
“I’ve tried to wake her once already, my lady,” a voice was saying, and Polly shot bolt upright, suddenly terrified that her mother was at the door. But it was only Lucille, who came into the room and pulled back the bedcurtains with a resounding rasp that echoed through Polly’s head.
“Oh! Do not!” Polly’s groan was heartfelt. She slumped back on the pillows, feeling dizzy. Her sister-in-law paused in surprise.
“Polly? Are you ill? I thought that you were coming with me to Lady Routledge’s picnic?”
The light was making Polly’s eyes stream. She squinted at Lucille through the brightness. There was a rhythmic pounding in her ears although she had no recollection of any major building works currently taking place on the house. “Oh dear…I think I may be sick…”
“If I did not know better, I should say that you were foxed,” Lucille was saying severely, eyeing her sister-in-law closely. “I had no idea that Lady Phillips’s ridotto had been such a hotbed of iniquity! Or was it the prawn patties you ate, perhaps? Yes, so much better for it to be the prawns, I think…That is what I shall tell your Mama. I will come and see you later…”
Polly was beyond replying. She turned over and was asleep again at once.
It was the afternoon when she awoke again, feeling marginally better.
“Lady Seagrave said that I wasn’t to disturb you on account of you being so sick, ma’am,” Polly’s maid said sympathetically, when summoned at last by the bell. “Can I fetch you anything, ma’am? Some food?”
A spasm of distaste crossed Polly’s face. “I think not, Jessie. Just a very large glass of water, if you please. I have seldom been so thirsty! And I shall get up now, I think.”
Jessie looked dubious. “Well, ma’am, if you’re sure you’re ready! My brother usually takes a day to sleep off his excesses…” She caught Polly’s outraged expression and dropped a submissive curtsy. A country girl from the Seagraves’ Suffolk estate, Jessie had a kind heart but no tact. “As you wish, ma’am!” she finished hastily. “Shall you be going out?”
“Yes!” Polly snapped, suddenly anxious to refute the suggestion that she was a drunkard to rival Jessie’s brother. “We shall go to the circulating library! My lilac walking dress, please!”
Half an hour later, attired in the lilac and lace dress and with a very becoming black straw bonnet on her dark curls, Polly sallied forth into the fresh air with Jessie trotting along behind. Lucille and the Dowager Countess had not returned from the picnic, but Polly thought it unlikely her mother could object to so innocuous a plan as a trip to the library. After all, no possible harm could befall her there.
It was pleasantly cool within and Polly spent an enjoyable time browsing amongst the shelves and choosing her books. There was something very soothing about the shadowy quiet of the library, something tranquil when Polly still felt a little disordered in both body and spirit. An elderly gentleman was dozing in a seat in the corner and two ladies were whispering together over a copy of Louisa Sidney Stanhope’s The Confessional of Valombre. There was nothing to disturb the peace. Polly leant forward to pull a book from the shelf and found herself looking into a pair of sleepy grey eyes as someone selected a book from the other side at precisely the same moment as she.
“Oh!” She dropped all her books and recoiled a step, causing the two ladies to break off their conversation and hush her noisily. The gentleman came around the end of the bookcase, bent down and gravely handed her back the books of her choice.
“Good afternoon, Lady Polly,” Lord Henry Marchnight said.
“What are you doing here?” Polly hissed crossly, forgetful of the fact that only hours earlier she had privately resolved never to speak to him again. He was looking immaculate in a dove-grey jacket which echoed the colour of those disturbing grey eyes and Polly felt both annoyed and ill prepared to meet him. If only she had stayed at home! The scene on Lady Phillips’s terrace flashed before her eyes once more, adding to her confusion. It was the greatest piece of bad luck to be obliged to face him again so soon.
Lord Henry gestured to the two slender volumes under his arm. “Like you, I am selecting some reading matter,” he said calmly. “A gentleman may attend the circulating library if he wishes!”
“Yes, but I would hardly have considered reading to be amongst your favoured occupations—” Polly bit her lip, aware that her confusion had prompted her to sound less than civil. “I beg your pardon, I only meant that I imagined you had other interests—” Again she broke off. That sounded even worse!
Lord Henry smiled, showing her the books. “Allow me to astound you then, ma’am! I have here Coleridge’s Biographica Literaria and some Homer, which I have not read since I was in short coats! I assure you, I am far more erudite than you think me!”
Polly blinked, unable to refute the evidence of her eyes. It seemed singular that a man whose self-proclaimed aim in life was enjoyment to the point of dissipation should sit in alone with only his books for company.
“I am so glad to see you restored to health,” Lord Henry continued smoothly. “I was at Lady Routledge’s picnic earlier and your sister-in-law intimated that you had been taken ill after the ball last night. Something you ate—or drank, perhaps?”
Polly could feel herself blushing with vexation. The last thing that she wanted was to be reminded of the previous evening and Lord Henry’s scandalous behaviour.
“I am quite recovered now, I thank you,” she said stiffly. “Good day, sir. I must be on my way home for we are promised for the theatre this evening.”
“Perhaps I may escort you back to Brook Street?” Lord Henry suggested politely.
He held the door for her as she went out into the sunny street. It was tempting to accept his offer, but since Polly was still smarting with mortification over her behaviour the night before, Lord Henry’s continued presence could only be a dangerous reminder. She gave him a smile behind which her regret was imperfectly hidden.
“Thank you, sir, but I think not. I have my maid with me for company and it is not far to home.”
“I am disappointed, ma’am,” Lord Henry said, falling into step beside her as though she had not spoken. “Are we not pledged to a better understanding? How may that be achieved if you refuse my company?”
“Pledged to a better understanding?” Polly stopped and stared up at him. The summer breeze was ruffling his thick fair hair and she stifled a sudden urge to touch it. She realised that she was still staring. Hastily, she started walking again.
“Why, yes.” Somehow Lord Henry had taken her arm without her noticing. It seemed churlish to draw away from him. “We are to be friends, remember? You suggested it last night!”
“Friends!” Polly almost tripped up with shock and his hand tightened momentarily on her arm, sending all sorts of strange but delicious sensations through her body.
“Yes, of course you must remember! We were on the terrace—”
“Yes!” Polly squeaked, convinced he was about to remind her of every searing detail. She took a deep breath. “Of course I remember our conversation, sir. I had the particular impression, however, that you did not care for my suggestion!”
Lord Henry turned to look at her. It was a distinctly speculative look. “You did not find my response to you…friendly?”
Polly blushed with indignation. “I did not, my lord! Presumptuous, outrageous, but scarcely friendly!”
Lord Henry’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. “Come now, Lady Polly! You are severe! Was my company so repulsive to you?”
Polly was in a dilemma. Modesty required her to lie but she had been brought up to be exceptionally truthful.
“Your behaviour was not that of a gentleman, sir!”
“Ah, true!” Lord Henry smiled whimsically. “But I find myself rather taken by your proposal, Lady Polly. I have an ardent desire to promote our friendship. Our encounter last night whetted my appetite for it!”
They had reached Brook Street, which was fortunate since Polly was utterly unable to think of a suitable response. Lord Henry kissed her hand. “If you wish to be persuaded further of my erudition, perhaps you might wish to join me in St James’s Square? I have an excellent art collection which you might like to view…” His glance was wicked. “Unless you are already convinced of my scholarship and good taste?”
“I will accept your word on it,” Polly said, still trying to be severe though tempted to giggle. “Good day, sir!”
Art collection, indeed! Polly blushed a little as she considered the implications of his teasing invitation. He must consider her a green girl to be caught by that one! Lord Henry grinned and strolled off down the street, with just one provocative look back. Polly was annoyed that he had caught her looking after him.
“There’s a likely gentleman,” Jessie opined, looking over Polly’s shoulder. “Aye, and a dangerous one, too! You be careful, madam!”
Polly, who had been thinking exactly the same thing, turned away with studied indifference. “Oh, nonsense, Jessie! Lord Henry is just a flirt!”
“A flirt!” Jessie was indignant. “A rake, more to the point! Aye, and you like it, madam!”
Polly did not deign to reply.
As she dressed for the theatre that evening, she repressed a little shiver of excitement and apprehension at the possibility of seeing Lord Henry again. It seemed that her behaviour the previous night had, entirely unexpectedly, caught his interest. But his attentions could never be anything other than dishonourable, and as a result of her own actions he was now pursuing her in a wholly improper way.
The play that night was the farce The Devil to Pay, and the company was a merry one. Nicholas and Lucille Seagrave, the Dowager Countess and Polly, made up a party with Sir Godfrey Orbison and his cousins the Dacres. There was a vast number of their acquaintance at Drury Lane that night and the Dowager Countess spent an entertaining time leaning over the side of their box and identifying members of the fashionable crowd. When she saw Lucille’s twin sister Susanna Bolt on the arm of a distinguished-looking gentleman of military bearing, she dug Lady Dacre in the ribs.
“Do look, Marianne! There is the Duke of Garston making a fool of himself over the Cyprian! Only see how she preens and pouts! Lord, what is it about these worthy gentlemen that makes them such easy meat for her?”
Fortunately, Lucille was engrossed in conversation with Nicholas and Lord Dacre and did not hear, but Polly leant forward curiously. Susanna Bolt was looking very striking again, she thought, in her bold and flaunting style. There were jewels glittering in her hair and her mouth was a deep, curving red as she smiled triumphantly over her conquest. The sapphire blue eyes which appraised the crowd were the exact shade of Lucille’s but there the resemblance finished, for the Countess of Seagrave had such a sweetness of character and bearing that it softened every feature that Susanna’s avarice had turned hard.
Polly sighed, just a little envious of Susanna’s bold beauty. She knew that her own looks were pleasant enough, although she had never been considered an Incomparable. The Seagrave colouring of chestnut hair and dark brown eyes flecked with gold seemed to suit her brothers better, although her creamy complexion was much admired. And her figure was trim rather than voluptuous, which the gentlemen seemed to prefer. Polly wondered idly whether Susanna’s appearance on Garston’s arm indicated that her brief interest in Peter was over or whether she was just being naïve to imagine the Cyprian confining herself to one man at a time.
“Polly!” the Dowager Countess said sharply, as a young buck raised his quizzing glass to ogle her daughter. “Kindly sit back! You do not wish to attract the attention of the hoi polloi!”
Polly’s heart skipped a beat and she sat back slowly, for she had just seen Lord Henry Marchnight in a box across from them. He was in a lively group with Simon Verey, his wife Therese and some of their friends, all laughing animatedly at a remark Lady Verey had just made. Polly felt a quiver of envy and repressed it quickly. It was not that she was bored with her own party, for she always enjoyed Lucille’s company and the Misses Dacre were pleasant enough, if henwitted. Just for once, however, it would be fun to be part of a racier crowd. She was forever being chaperoned about by her mother or some other elderly female relative, which was all very well for a new debutante but decidedly slow for a lady of twenty-three. She risked another look across at the box, to find that Lord Henry was studying her with a concentrated regard which made her pulse beat faster.
The play began, but Polly found it incredibly difficult to concentrate. Normally she became engrossed in a performance, for playgoing was one of her favourite entertainments, but tonight all she seemed able to think about was whether Lord Henry was serious in his pursuit and whether she should respond. On the one hand, he could not have any serious intention and since her feelings were already engaged—and had been so for five years—she would be only stirring up all the old emotions that she should be trying to forget. On the other hand, she could not deny that she derived immense enjoyment from his company. If she managed matters well, perhaps…But could she manage Lord Henry? It would be very dangerous…a challenge, then? No, a risk and a hazardous one at that. Foolish even to consider it, knowing his reputation. But…Polly shivered. A risk worth taking? She had found the Season dull, repetitious. She wanted some excitement…The prim side of her character, the orthodox side, was asking her what on earth she was thinking of, to encourage the attentions of so notorious a rake.
There was a burst of applause, and Polly realised to her horror that the entire first act had passed without her even noticing. The audience started to chatter, to mill around and stretch their legs before the second act. Lucille took Polly’s arm as they strolled out with everyone else.
“What do you think of Venn’s performance, Polly? Is he as accomplished as Edmund Keen, do you think?”
Polly floundered. “Well, perhaps so…Or perhaps not…I need more time to consider—” She broke off as Lord Henry and the Vereys approached, and was not sure whether to be glad or nervous at the interruption.
Lord Henry greeted Lucille very warmly, and once again Polly felt a stirring of jealousy when she considered their friendship. She was not unsophisticated enough to think that just because Lord Henry had suddenly paid some attention to her, he might not be pursuing other interests. But surely Lucille could not rank as one of those! There was an innocence about the Countess of Seagrave which made such a thought seem foolish. Besides, Lucille had now turned her attention to the Vereys, leaving Polly and Lord Henry standing together.
“Are you enjoying the play, Lady Polly?” Lord Henry asked conventionally enough as they strolled down the corridor.
“Yes, thank you, my lord.” Polly was desperately hoping that he would not question her too closely about it.
“You always enjoyed the theatre, did you not?” Lord Henry said with a smile. “You are not one of those who come only to see and be seen! I remember when we came to see As You Like It, you were so enraptured that no one could get a word from you for a full half-hour afterwards!”
Polly blushed. She could remember the occasion to which he referred and the memory troubled her. It had been very early on in their acquaintance, when she was first out, and she had sat through the play in a dream. Although utterly engrossed in the story, she had still been fully aware of Lord Henry sitting slightly behind her, his attention as much on her as it was on the play. He had leant forward, smiling at her enthusiasm, and it had seemed to Polly that his enjoyment had derived as much from her pleasure as from the entertainment.
The bell rang for the second act, saving her the necessity of reply.
“A moment, Lady Polly,” Lord Henry said, when she would have excused herself and returned to the box. “Will you drive with me in the park tomorrow?”
Polly stood still, jostled by those returning to their seats.
“Surely not an unusual request?” Lord Henry said gently, with a smile that made her heart race. “You must be inundated by gentlemen asking to escort you!”
“Yes, but not by you—” Polly stopped herself. “I beg your pardon. What I meant was that you never take a lady up in your phaeton!”
“Not often,” Lord Henry amended, with the same disconcerting smile. “I am, however, accomplished enough as a whip to make the offer!”
Polly knew he was being deliberately obtuse. It was not his skill that was in question but the fact that it would cause a storm of comment if he took her up. Lord Henry handed her back into the box as the lights went down.
“I will see you tomorrow at five,” he murmured, taking her acquiescence for granted, and was gone. Polly saw him slide into his seat in the box opposite and incline his head as he saw her watching. She was annoyed that he had caught her looking at him yet again, rather than at the play.
Chapter Four
“Well, I think it is a famous thing that you and Harry are now such good friends,” Lucille Seagrave declared at breakfast, when Polly shyly confided that Lord Henry was to take her driving that afternoon.
“I do not think Mama will view it in quite the same light, Lucille,” Polly said gloomily. The Dowager Countess had been almost apoplectic on finding her only daughter alone on the terrace at Lady Phillips’s with the most notorious rake in Town. Polly’s repeated statement that she and Lord Henry had only been talking together had met with short shrift. Not only did the Dowager disbelieve her but she had some pungent words to say about young ladies who decided to talk alone with rakehells.
A moment later, the Dowager swished bad-temperedly into the breakfast room and eyed her daughter and daughter-in-law with disfavour.
“What are you two whispering about?” she demanded querulously. She asked for a plate of kedgeree then picked at it so disagreeably that Polly’s heart sank. She could already tell that the Dowager Countess had a headache, induced by her late night at the theatre, and would be in a bad mood.
“I was telling Lucille that Lord Henry Marchnight is to take me driving this afternooon,” she said, rather defiantly. “He is to collect me at five.”
The Dowager flushed an unbecoming puce.
“Driving? With Lord Henry Marchnight? Have you taken leave of your senses, miss? Why, the man’s unsafe!”
“As a whip or as a man?” Nicholas Seagrave enquired lazily, rustling his newspaper. He had given no indication that he had been listening to the previous conversation, but now Polly saw the look of amusement in her brother’s dark eyes and her heart sank still further. If Nicholas objected as well, the trip was as good as ruined. Lucille gave her husband a reproving glance.
“I am persuaded that nothing so very dreadful can happen in the park, ma’am,” she said mildly to her mother-in-law. “There will be plenty of people about, after all.”
The Dowager cast her a darkling look. “You have no idea of what that man is capable, Lucille! And it is not simply the risk to Polly’s person, but the damage to her reputation! If she is seen in company with him, all claim to respectability would be lost—”
“Oh, come, Mama, you are making too much of this,” Nicholas interrupted. “Harry Marchnight is a good enough fellow! He will not do anything to injure Polly’s good name! I say she should go!”
He folded his paper up a little irritably, got up, bent to kiss his wife and murmured that he was taking refuge in his bookroom.
“Some honey in your tea, ma’am?” Lucille said hastily, seeing her mother-in-law glare at Seagrave’s departing back. “You know that it is very soothing for the headache.”
The Dowager Countess smiled reluctantly. She was very fond of her unconventional daughter-in-law.
“Thank you, Lucille. It is good to know that you have so much concern for my health when my own brood seem set on tormenting me! Now, will you be accompanying me to Mrs Manbury’s this afternoon? I realise that Polly—” she glared again “—will be otherwise engaged!”
Polly was to remember Seagrave’s unlikely championing and her mother’s reluctant acquiescence later, when she was ensconsed in Lord Henry’s perch phaeton and they were bowling along under the trees. They were attracting a great deal of attention from the fashionable crowds who had come to take the air and Polly had begun to wish that she had taken her mother’s advice. She felt uncomfortable as the focus of so much speculative interest. Nor did Lord Henry stop to greet his acquaintance, but concentrated his attention solely on her. Polly thought she should have been flattered. Instead, such single-minded attention was beginning to make her nervous. She was suddenly unsure where it was leading—or where it might end.
And yet Lord Henry’s conversation was unexceptionable. Surely she had nothing to fear.
“Are you enjoying the Season?” he enquired, expertly avoiding an oncoming vehicle which was being driven with considerably less skill and more waywardness than his own. “Do you like London?”
Polly relaxed slightly. It was most enjoyable to be out in the fresh air, for it was another sunny day with a cool breeze and to be driven with such expertise was a real pleasure.
“Are those not two entirely separate questions, my lord?” she queried with a smile. “I have found the Season a little flat this year, but yes, I like London a great deal, for there are so many beautiful buildings and interesting sights to observe. There, will that do?”
Lord Henry took his eyes off the road for long enough to give her an amused glance. “Most comprehensively answered, my lady, but with little real information given! Why has the Season been so tedious for you?”
Polly shrugged a little uncomfortably, regretting her flippancy. She had no desire to sound like a spoilt Society miss. “Well, the round of parties and balls and entertainments is much like it was last time. Perhaps I am becoming a little jaded after all these years—”
Lord Henry burst out laughing. “Yes, you have a great many years in your dish, ma’am!” He lowered his voice. “Perhaps it is just that you need a change of scene? Do you go to Brighton in the summer?”
Polly nodded without much enthusiasm. “We do. But it is the same people and the same diversions!” She brightened. “I love the sea though, and find the air most refreshing. I don’t know why I should not be looking forward to it…” Her voice trailed away. She was regretting telling him of her boredom with the endless, superficial round of society events, for it sounded as though she were simply complaining.
“Perhaps you prefer the country?” Lord Henry was saying thoughtfully. “Suffolk is a beautiful place to be. You seemed very happy at Dillingham last year.”
“Yes…” Polly smiled “…I love Dillingham. I can ride, and paint and walk and please myself…”
Lord Henry flashed her another smile. “So you are a rebel at heart, Lady Polly! You wish to please yourself rather than follow the fashion!”
It was an appealing concept. “Gentlemen are more fortunate when it comes to such matters,” Polly observed judiciously. “You may do as you please, but we are watched over and instructed and restricted…And if we marry, the tyranny of our parents is exchanged for the tyranny of a husband!” Filled with a sudden sense of absurdity at her own words, she started to laugh.
“I wondered whether that was why you had never married,” Lord Henry said quietly. “Is that the reason, ma’am? That you had no wish to exchange a circumscribed girlhood for an equally restrictive marriage?”
Polly’s laughter faded and she fell silent. The only sound was the noise of the phaeton’s wheels and the cooing of the doves in the shady trees.
“No,” she said slowly, “that was not the reason that I have never married.”
“Then will you tell me what it is?” They had reached a quiet stretch of the road and Lord Henry was allowing his team to slow down while he concentrated on her. Their eyes met for a split second of tension.
“No,” Polly said again, half-lightly, half in earnest, “I shall not, sir! You have no right to ask so leading a question on so small an acquaintance!”
She saw Lord Henry smile as he accepted her refusal and allowed her to retreat.
“I protest,” he said easily. “I have known you for years, ma’am, yet you insist we are as strangers!”
“We may have been acquainted for years,” Polly agreed, equally casually, “but for most of that time you have been away, sir, travelling or entertaining yourself…” She frowned as it occurred to her that she did not actually know what it was that had taken Lord Henry away so often. Society whispered that it was scandal—women, gambling, racing—but no one actually knew…
“Very true, ma’am,” Lord Henry agreed, clearly unprepared to enlighten her further. “Like you, I find Society stifling if I spend too long in its company! I have noticed a change in London lately. Oh, the ton enjoy themselves as much as before, with as many outrageous amusements as they can devise, but the rest of the populace is not as tolerant as it used to be!”
Polly knew what he meant. There were so many of the dispossessed on the streets, looking resentfully as the rich and fashionable passed by, so many men who had served their country at war and now had no occupation in peace time. There were many who preached against the accepted order and agitated for change and some who would be prepared to resort to violence to get it.
“There is a sort of anger about the city at times,” Polly agreed, shivering in the cool air. “I sometimes wonder how long things can stay unchanged…”
“Melancholy thoughts for so bright a day,” Lord Henry observed. “My apologies for striking a discordant note. Why, look, is that not your esteemed relative Lady Bolt, over there? Your brother will be desolate that she has found a richer man in the Duke of Garston!”
“Oh, dear!” Polly looked across to the approaching curricle, where Lady Bolt was arrayed in a dress of scarlet silk entirely unsuitable for an afternoon’s drive. A hat adorned with curling ostrich plumes framed her face. Polly felt both dowdy and insignificant in comparison.
“Henry!” Lady Bolt was hailing them now, with more familiarity than Polly liked to see. “How delightful to see you! Why—” her eye fell on Polly in amused scorn “—hardly your usual taste, my dear? So sweet and tediously dull!”
Polly flushed with anger and mortification. It would have been impossible to miss Lady Bolt since the two carriages had to pass each other, and as she and Henry had slowed down to talk, the Cyprian had come upon them almost unawares. Nevertheless it was unfortunate. The Dowager Countess would have a fit if she heard of the meeting, and as for Lady Bolt’s barbed insults, it strained Polly’s natural courtesy to accept them without retaliation.
“How do you do, Lady Bolt.” Lord Henry spoke very coldly. “I fear I was so engrossed in Lady Polly’s delightful company that I missed your approach! Good day, ma’am!” And he gave the horses the office to move off.
“Oh, dear,” Polly said again, when the infuriated Cyprian had been left behind, “it is so very difficult! Lucille is so charming and her sister so much her opposite! I would not for all the world cut her dead, but—”
“But you have little choice,” Lord Henry said grimly. “Society dictates that a lady such as yourself should not even know what Lady Bolt is, let alone speak to her—as well you know, ma’am!”
“Yes, but—” Polly was a kind girl; although she detested Susanna Bolt’s nature, she could not help but feel uncomfortable. “Lucille once said that they were both obliged to find the means to support themselves, and Susanna chose one course and Lucille another! It is easy to judge when one has not had to make such a choice!”
“You are all generosity, Lady Polly!” Polly knew Lord Henry was laughing at her, albeit somewhat ruefully. “Console yourself with the fact that Susanna Bolt is a harpy and you will then feel no need to sympathize with her!”
“You seem to know her very well,” Polly said unguardedly, piqued by his amusement.
“I know her type,” Lord Henry conceded. They turned through the park gates and back towards Brook Street. “I am happy to continue this entirely improper conversation,” he added, “but only if you are willing to admit to being its instigator! I will not take the blame for discussing matters unsuitable for a lady’s ears!”
“Society can be very foolish,” Polly said crossly, “dictating what a lady may and may not do, or hear, or say! It puts me out of all patience!”
The phaeton stopped and Lord Henry jumped lightly down, holding out a hand to help Polly descend. He did not allow their bodies to touch as he swung her to the ground, nor did he hold on to her hand for longer than was strictly necessary. Polly found herself disappointed. For some reason the drive had ended on an unsatisfactory note. Polly was inclined to blame Lady Bolt’s interruption, although honesty prompted her that this was not really true. It seemed that she was dissatisfied when Lord Henry behaved properly and nervous when he did not. Flirtation was clearly not a game she could play with anywhere near Lord Henry’s aplomb.
The flower cart arrived early in Brook Street the following day, bringing a beautiful posy of pale pink roses for Polly and a card from Lord Henry saying that he had been called unexpectedly from Town, but hoped to see her again shortly. Polly did not even attempt to hide her pleasure in the gift, merely burying her face in the soft fragrant petals when Jessie made pointed comments about fine gentlemen and pretty gestures.
The days of Lord Henry’s absence crept by. There were only a few weeks of the Season left to run and the weather had turned very hot. The Dowager Countess became quite peevish when her ankles swelled up in the heat. She declined to accompany Polly and the Dacres on a sightseeing trip to St Paul’s Cathedral and when her daughter returned enervated and exhausted, told her that she had known the weather had been too inclement for a trip out. She fretted over Peter’s absence and when he did call, upbraided him for his foolishness in still running after Susanna Bolt. The servants all became very bad-tempered as they went about their work, and the house in Brook Street became a somewhat uncomfortable place to live.
“Everyone is so cross at the moment,” Polly sighed to Lucille, after Jessie had grumbled ceaselessly over her decision to change her chosen dress for a soirée one night. “Have you noticed how the heat makes people quicker-tempered? It’s very strange. Thank goodness there is to be no dancing tonight! I feel sure we should all melt into a puddle!”
Lucille fanned herself vigorously. “I hear that there were riots in The Strand last night,” she said, frowning. “Some windows were smashed and shops looted. I am sure that this weather can only add to people’s grievances. I shall ask Nicholas to give all the servants a day off on Saturday, and perhaps we may all go out of Town to somewhere cooler. Hampstead Wells, perhaps? A walk on the Heath might be quite refreshing.”
Even the Dowager Countess agreed to the proposed trip, feeling that the village air would be less noxious than that in London. The day was sunny but not too hot and they spent a most enjoyable few hours strolling on the Heath, playing bowls, and taking the waters at the spa. Polly declared the water so unpleasant that she needed a cup of tea to wash away the taste, so they retired to one of the honeysuckle-covered tea arbours for further refreshment.
“Oh, do let us stay a little longer,” Lucille urged, catching sight of a sign which promised a concert in the pump-room that evening, followed by fireworks. “There are plenty more of the gardens and grottoes to explore and it would be such fun to stay for the evening’s entertainments!”
The light was fading when the concert finished and they came out on to the Heath for the firework display. It was busy and many of the benches on the edge of the hill were already full.
“Heavens, what a crush!” The Dowager Countess exclaimed. “I had no idea that the whole of Town would have come out for this! Let us walk a little way along and see if we can find any seats!”
Polly was dawdling along behind the others, pulling her velvet cloak closer, for the evening was cool now that the sun had gone. A florid gentleman and large lady, amorously entwined, bumped into her and almost sent her flying without noticing. Polly stumbled. The first of the rockets soared into the sky above her and scattered a trail of bright stars. Suddenly it was very dark and she could not see the others at all. The crowd pressed about her; ladies, gentlemen, servants, tradesmen, cits and people of quite another sort.
A voice said: “All alone, lady? Let me take care of you!” He was young and attired as a gentleman, but Polly knew him to be no such thing. He was also drunk. And as she looked around wildly for her family, he took her arm.
“Your help will not be necessary, sir,” a voice said smoothly, from behind her. “The lady is with me, but I am grateful to you for your consideration.”
Polly recognised the voice even before she swung around to see Lord Henry Marchnight standing so protectively close to her. Something in his demeanour also communicated itself to the man who had accosted her, for he mumbled something about meaning no harm, and stumbled away. Lord Henry watched him go with a slight smile then turned his attention back to Polly.
“Tell me, Lady Polly,” he said conversationally, steering her out of the crowd to the edge of the path, “is this part of your claim for independence, to wander alone on Hampstead Heath in the dark? It seems rather foolhardy!”
“Don’t be absurd!” Polly snapped. Reaction was setting in now and she was horrified at what had almost happened to her. “I have become separated from my party, that is all! We were looking for seats for the fireworks—” Another rocket soared overhead as though to illustrate her point.
“Well, they could be anywhere now,” Lord Henry said resignedly, looking at the crowds. “It will be best for me to escort you back to your carriage, I think. They should have no trouble in finding you there. Is Seagrave here with you?”
Polly nodded.
“Thank God. He at least will have the sense to keep the others calm and search for you in a sensible fashion! Now, if we go down this path it should take us to the Well Walk. Did you leave your carriage there?”
Polly nodded unhappily. She knew that the Dowager Countess would be beside herself with worry and could not but regret spoiling the end of such a lovely day.
“We were having such a nice time,” she said regretfully. “I am sorry that it has had to end this way.”
It was very dark down the steep little passage that led to the street where the carriages were waiting. The scent of honeysuckle still hung in the air and the stars arched above them. Polly, trying to find her way in the dark, suddenly remembered that she had not even thanked Lord Henry for rescuing her.
“I am sorry,” she said in a small voice, “I should have thanked you. Your arrival was most timely, my lord. I hope that I have not taken you away from your friends?”
“I am here alone,” Lord Henry said, sounding preoccupied. “It is comforting to think that you feel safer with me than with that ruffian!”
This was an aspect of the situation that had not occurred to Polly at all. She stopped in an arched doorway. It was not possible to see Lord Henry’s face in the pale light. “Oh, I never even thought—” she said, uncertainly.
“Perhaps you should have done.” Lord Henry sounded grim. “You were flatteringly quick to entrust yourself to me, but my reputation is scarce such that a young lady should consider taking a walk in the dark with me!”
“Well!” Polly had had time to become indignant. “I think it most unfair of you to ring a peal over me for trusting you, sir! I had little choice but to consider you the lesser of two evils!”
She heard Lord Henry laugh at that. “Better the devil you know?” His shoulder brushed a spray of honeysuckle and released fresh scent into the air. He was very close and Polly suddenly became intensely aware of his physical presence. Her throat felt constricted.
“Besides…” she was clutching at straws now “…on the last occasion that we met, sir, you behaved with perfect propriety! It led me to believe that what I had heard of you was grossly exaggerated—”
She had taken a cautious step forward as she spoke, missed her footing on a step, and felt Lord Henry’s arms go around her to steady her.
“You misjudged me,” Lord Henry said with satisfaction, “and this, Lady Polly, is where I have been wanting you ever since I saw you this evening.”
The dark night was intimate and warm. Polly felt curiously anonymous, as though she could say anything, do anything, without it really mattering. She did not try to break away from him, but stood in the circle of his arms, their bodies touching lightly. In the silence she could hear him breathing.
She raised her mouth to Henry’s, waiting in a fever of anticipation for the gentle persuasiveness of his first kiss to deepen into passion. She pressed herself against him, entwining her arms about his neck to hold him close. He was keeping his kisses frustratingly light, but when Polly slid her hands into his hair she heard him groan and his mouth returned to hers with more force and more demand. She parted her lips beneath the sensual pressure of his and leaned back against the doorway, drawing him with her. It was as though she had become a creature of sensation only. Her cloak had slid back and she could feel the warmth of his body against hers creating a delicious, seductive need within her. One of his hands brushed the cloak aside and moved to caress her breast very gently. His mouth was rough on hers now and she revelled in it, gasping his name against his lips. And then, suddenly, it was over and she was left shivering in the chill breeze.
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Nicola Cornick
Even as Lady Polly rejected another proposal of marriage, her heart burned for the man she'd rejected five years ago.She'd heard that in his misery, her beloved Lord Henry Marchnight had become a rogue and a gambler. But when he appeared before her on a deserted terrace and stole a kiss, Polly knew that her passion hadn't died. The man still knew how to steal her reason with one touch.But reason she needed as suspicions of criminal behavior hovered about Lord Henry. Should she return to her routine of spurning suitors? Or should she do what she should have done five years ago–trust her love and follow her heart…?
Lord Henry made a slight, dismissive gesture
“What could a rake wish for from a lady on a providentially empty terrace?”
“Oh!”
Understanding came to Polly at the very last moment. She had once quite ached for Lord Henry to kiss her as long as it had been in a completely undemanding fashion. Some chaste but impassioned salutation had been the height of her aspirations.
This kiss might have been impassioned, but in no way could it be described as chaste. Lord Henry brought her into sudden, shocking contact with his body. His mouth captured hers with the ruthless skill of the expert, parting her lips so that her gasp was lost.
Lady Polly
Harlequin Historical
Harlequin Historicals is delighted to present author Nicola Cornick and her sparkling Regency
LADY POLLY
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Nicola Cornick
Nicola Cornick is passionate about many things: her country cottage and its garden, her two small cats, her husband and her writing, though not necessarily in that order! She has always been fascinated by history, both as her chosen subject at university and subsequently as an engrossing hobby. She works as university administrator and finds her writing the perfect antidote to the demands of life in a busy office.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Prologue
1812
“You’re a damned fool, Henry!” Simon Verey leant on the table and addressed his friend in tones that would have led Henry Marchnight to call him out under any other circumstances. “Leave it a few weeks—a month, even—for everyone to lose interest in Miss Jacques’s vicious rumours! If you go to Lady Paulersbury’s rout tonight, they’ll make mincemeat of you!”
Lord Henry’s only response was a rather lop-sided grin as he tilted his head to consider the intricate folds of his violet cravat in the mirror.
“The Napoleon,” he mused. “Rather a neat style, don’t you think, Simon? Languishing and romantic, as is appropriate for this evening! Do you think that it will bring me the luck of the French?”
“In love or in war?” Verey asked drily.
Lord Henry’s only reply was another smile. “I regret that I cannot take your advice, Simon,” he continued. “I must see Lady Polly Seagrave tonight. I am hoping that I may still persuade her to consent to be my wife.”
Verey’s lips tightened. He had seen that reckless look in his friend’s grey eyes before and knew it promised trouble. There was something both tense and watchful about Lord Henry’s elegantly clad form, some element held under the barest control. And Verey understood his desperation, but he thought Henry had miscalculated.
“They’ll never let you near her,” he prophesied grimly. “Good God, the whole Town thinks that you have tried to debauch Miss Jacques, then proposed marriage to Lady Polly for her fortune only a day later! You’ll be ripped to pieces, Henry!”
Lord Henry shrugged. “Lady Polly would never believe such a thing of me, Simon. I know she would have accepted my suit had the Earl not refused to countenance it!”
Verey shook his head. What madness could have possessed Lord Henry to ask the starchy old Earl of Seagrave for his daughter’s hand in marriage whilst such unsavoury, albeit untrue, rumours were being circulated? He must have known that the Earl was so high in the instep that he would never sanction a match between his only daughter and a man who had been branded a philanderer and deceiver.
With its usual appetite for scandal, Society had been quick to seize upon the accusations of Miss Sally Jacques that Henry Marchnight had promised her marriage and then attempted to seduce her. Verey knew that Miss Jacques was the daughter of a Cit who had attempted to establish herself amongst the ton and whose disappointment at being unable to bring Henry up to scratch had led to this ill-considered revenge. Verey also knew that most of Society thought Miss Jacques an ill-bred mushroom and that interest in the story would wane very swiftly. If only Henry had exercised his usual cool detachment! But in his very real passion for Lady Polly Seagrave he seemed uncharacteristically hasty, unable to wait even a few days for matters to cool. Simon was prepared to support his friend, but he was certain that the evening would be deeply unenjoyable.
Their reception at Lady Paulersbury’s was everything Verey had predicted and worse. Silence fell as Lord Henry Marchnight was announced. Men whom he had counted his friends pointedly turned their backs. Some women whispered maliciously behind their fans, whilst others drew aside from him with disgusted expressions. There was a moment when Lord Henry was certain Lord Paulersbury was about to have him horsewhipped from the house before his wife’s more temperate counsel prevailed. But he was treated as a social pariah, ignored or ridiculed, and it was a profoundly unpleasant and uncomfortable experience.
Lady Polly Seagrave saw Lord Henry’s tall figure across the ballroom and was immediately certain that he had come to seek her out. She caught her breath. To have dared so much public opprobrium, just for the chance of speech with her! He must know that her father had forbidden them to meet and the entire Town was reviling him over the scandal of Miss Jacques.
Polly burned with outraged fury at the treatment Sally Jacques had meted out to Lord Henry. Sally and Polly had once been friends, before Miss Jacques’s jealousy at Lord Henry’s partiality for Polly had driven a wedge between them. Sally had contrived that her carriage had broken down in the vicinity of Lord Henry’s home at Ruthford and had imposed on his hospitality overnight so that she had compromised them both. In vain had Lord Henry argued that Miss Jacques’s companion and his own servants had provided ample chaperonage and that nothing untoward had occurred. Public opinion, carefully encouraged by Miss Jacques and her chaperon with their hints at false proposals and attempted seduction, was firmly of the belief that he should have made her an offer. His refusal to do so proved him to be no gentleman. It was not long before the true facts of the case had been turned inside out and Henry Marchnight was denounced as a scoundrel and seducer.
A few days before, when Polly had heard the harmful gossip repeated by two salacious matrons, she had burst out that it was all malicious lies. Immediately their watchful gaze had turned thoughtfully on her. Her mother had pulled Polly to one side.
“Be quiet, you silly girl!” Lady Seagrave had hissed in Polly’s ear. “You will have them thinking that Lord Henry has debauched you too!”
“Lord Henry has not debauched anyone!” Polly had muttered furiously, but she kept her voice discreetly low for all her vehemence. “He is an honourable man!”
For a moment Lady Seagrave had looked almost sorry for her daughter. “Lord Henry may be as honourable as you please, but no one will believe it now! And that is because they do not want to believe it, for the tale is so much more interesting than the truth. So you will be a good girl and have no more to do with him!”
For a moment Polly had looked mutinous. Lord Henry had always behaved as a perfect gentleman towards her. She was more than half in love with him. But she had already had her father explain, very clearly and kindly, just why he could not entertain Lord Henry’s suit. And Polly was only eighteen, and accustomed to obeying her parents unquestioningly in everything…
And now Lady Seagrave had caught her arm, turning her away so that Lord Henry’s curiously compelling grey gaze could no longer disturb her so.
“You must not acknowledge him,” she murmured, whilst keeping a spurious social smile fixed on her face for the benefit of those about them who were watching with a keen interest.
Polly knew her mother was only acting with the best of intentions. A young lady’s good name was so fragile and scandal so contaminating. She had seen how a reputation could become so tarnished that a girl would become quite unmarriageable. But she was torn by her burgeoning feelings for Lord Henry. She had never been in love before and he had wooed her throughout the Season, so gently, so carefully. His attentions had never overstepped the mark and when he smiled at her with all the warmth and tenderness that spoke more clearly than any words, Polly felt deliciously safe and cherished.
She reluctantly allowed her mother to shepherd her away, but could not resist a quick glance over her shoulder. Lord Henry was still watching her. Polly gave a pleasurable little shiver of excitement, but at the same time a frisson of nerves prompted her to hope that he would not make a scene or press his attentions on her. That would be deliciously romantic but rather difficult to handle. Polly was not at all sure that she could cope with impassioned protestations of love.
It was much later in the evening when Lord Henry finally managed to get Polly on her own. Throughout the ball, she had been aware of his presence, the deceptively casual way in which he was watching her all the time. But she was never left alone. Lady Seagrave, a very dragon of propriety where her only daughter was concerned, seemed to follow her everywhere until Polly told her with asperity that she was quite capable of visiting the ladies’ withdrawing room alone.
It was on her way back that Lord Henry seized his chance, materialising in the deserted corridor and drawing her into an empty room before Polly even had time to catch her breath. It was vastly exciting, but also rather frightening. There was something driven about Lord Henry that evening, Polly thought, something so resolute that it made her quail and find him almost a stranger. She was not accustomed to strong emotion. The Seagrave household was run with apparent harmony and the Earl would never have countenanced any vulgar display of feeling.
Polly knew very little about love; she loved her parents with a dutiful respect, and knew, far more scandalously, that her brothers had both at one time or another had in keeping certain ladies on whom they lavished their affections. That, Polly had once overheard her mother darkly telling another matron, had very little to do with love at all. And here was Lord Henry Marchnight, burning with another type of romantic passion. His intensity frightened her.
“Lord Henry!” Polly’s voice trembled a little. “You know my father has forbidden me to speak with you—”
He took both her hands in his, his intent grey gaze fixed on her face. “I know it! But I had to see you! You know that he has refused my suit, but we cannot let that make us part! Come away with me, my love! If you will trust yourself to me—”
But Polly had taken a hasty step back, freeing her hands from his grasp. She had paled visibly, her cheeks as white as the pristine foulard at her throat. “Run away with you? But—”
“You must know that I love you! Say you’ll marry me!”
For a moment Polly wavered. He was taking her by storm, so ardent, so impassioned that she was tempted. But her feelings were barely awakened and everything in her upbringing conspired against him. His very ardour alienated her. He knew, a moment before she recoiled, that she was going to refuse him.
“Oh, no, indeed I could not! My father…the scandal…only think—” Polly’s eyes were huge with the horror of it. She broke off at the expression on Lord Henry’s face, suddenly aware that she might have been a little precipitate. Those grey eyes, so warm and tender before, were now so stony and withdrawn that Polly bit her lip. It was like looking into the face of a complete stranger.
The tears came into her eyes. She had a sudden conviction that she had just carelessly thrown away something infinitely precious, without truly understanding exactly what it was. She put out a tentative hand, but Lord Henry was already turning away.
“Polly!” The awesome tones were those of Lady Seagrave, who stood in the shadows, furious fire kindling in her dark eyes. “Come here at once! I knew I could not trust you on your own! And as for you, sir—”
She turned on Lord Henry, but he was already leaving. He sketched an immaculately elegant bow, first to the Countess and then to Polly.
“You need have no fears for your daughter at my hands, ma’am,” he said, his tone one of frigid courtesy. “I give you my word that I shall never approach her again.” And he was gone, leaving Polly with the comfort of her familiar world and a totally unfamiliar feeling of desolation in her heart.
Chapter One
1817
Sir Godfrey Orbison did not understand women. Never having entered the bond of matrimony and being devoid of close female relatives to guide him, he was ill-equipped to deal with a goddaughter he considered to be both foolish and ungrateful.
“You refused him because you did not love him?” Sir Godfrey’s black brows beetled together and he glared fiercely at Lady Polly Seagrave, his tone incredulous. “What is that to the purpose, pray? A fine situation if one had to love one’s intended spouse! The material point is that he is heir to the Duke of Bellars, and as such must be a better prospect than life as a penniless spinster! Aye, and a spinster who is fast approaching her dotage!”
The Dowager Countess of Seagrave was fluttering her hands in distress, but Lady Polly allowed herself a small smile, her elusive dimples peeping for a moment. She knew her godfather’s ill temper would not last long for he was incapable of bearing a grudge and was so fond of her that she could get away with most things. Turning down her fifth suitor of the Season and the nineteenth eligible proposal of her life was, however, testing his indulgence to the full. And he was her trustee, along with her elder brother, and as such could cut up rough about her allowance if he chose. In eighteen months she would be twenty-five and should be mistress of her own fortune, but if Sir Godfrey chose to make her a penniless spinster, it was within his legal powers to do so. Clearly some tact and charm was called for.
She dropped a small curtsy and smiled at her godfather beguilingly. “Dearest Sir Godfrey, you have been like a father to me since my own papa died, and I do thank you for all your guidance and advice! But I am persuaded that you could not really wish me to marry John Bellars! He is a pleasant enough man, if as dull as ditchwater, but it is old Lady Bellars who would be the rub! Why, she has him completely under her thumb and is the most mean-spirited woman—”
“Humph!” Sir Godfrey opined.
“And she is penny-pinching, too!” The Dowager Countess of Seagrave put in, hastily improving on her daughter’s theme. “I hear she keeps young John on a tight rein, for all that she has no real control over his fortune! And,” she added artfully, with a flash of her dark eyes, “was it not Augusta Bellars who tried to snare you in your salad days, Godfrey? She pursued you quite violently, as I recall! They were taking bets in the clubs that she would catch you!”
Sir Godfrey’s choleric gaze kindled again. “Gussie Grantley! Yes, b’God, I’d forgotten that! Tiresome woman, forever wheedling herself into my company, telling everyone there was an understanding between us! Well…” he sighed heavily, “…can’t be doing with that connection in the family, then. Why, she might view this as a second chance to catch me!”
“It is not to be contemplated!” The Dowager declared, smiling as much with genuine amusement as relief. The thought of the widowed Duchess of Bellars pursuing the elderly Sir Godfrey afforded her much secret amusement. In her experience, men often had a much-inflated view of their own attractions.
Sir Godfrey’s gaze had fallen on Polly again, demurely sitting with her chin in her hand smiling at him. Fond of her as he was, he was obliged to view her as another example of an unsatisfactory female.
“All the same, Poll, this won’t do, you know! Nineteen suitors, all worthy men, and not one of them up to your expectations!” Sir Godfrey cleared his throat, intent on delivering a homily. “I thought that you would take Julian Morrish when he offered this Season—damned…harrumph! Dashed silly not to! No better man in the whole of London! And Seagrave took Morrish’s rejection that badly, I know…”
The Dowager Lady Seagrave cleared her throat delicately. She had been quick to see her daughter’s discomfort, for the colour had come rushing into Polly’s ivory complexion, making her look suddenly more animated and much prettier. That was how she used to look, Lady Seagrave thought with a sudden pang of regret, remembering a time five years before, when her daughter had been a bright and vivacious debutante rather than a cool and withdrawn young lady with a reputation for pride. The young Lady Polly had been an appealing girl, drawing quite a following to her with her lustrous cloud of dark hair and expressive brown eyes. She had not lacked for offers, but none of them seemed to meet her exacting standards. No man in five years had been able to persuade her of the merit of his suit.
As for Julian Morrish, that had indeed been an unfortunate affair and one which had caused ill feeling within the family for several weeks until Lucille, the Dowager’s daughter-in-law, had interceded with her husband to forgive Polly. Nick Seagrave had been furious that his close friend, Julian Morrish, had been rejected by his sister. Everyone knew Morrish to be a fine man and one to whom no possible objection could be made on the grounds of rank, consequence, fortune or reputation. Polly’s behaviour had put a great strain on the friendship between Seagrave and Morrish, and an even greater strain on relationships within the family. Polly’s other brother, Peter, had strolled into the breakfast-room one morning and remarked that he would rather face the French again at Waterloo than be the butt of his brother and sister’s ill humour.
“I think, perhaps, that it would be wise for Polly to retire for a little now, Sir Godfrey,” the Dowager Countess said hastily, seeing that her daughter’s colour was still high. “We go to Lady Phillips’s ridotto tonight, and you know how Polly tires easily these days! Polly, my love—”
In response to her mother’s meaningful nod, Polly got up, pressed a kiss on Sir Godfrey’s whiskery face, and slipped out of the room. Her spirits had taken a tumble. The mention of Julian Morrish had been an unfortunate one.
Once out in the deserted entrance hall, Polly leaned against a marble pillar and rested one hot cheek against its coolness. She had known that Sir Godfrey would be angry at Bellars’s dismissal, especially as it followed on so swiftly from the fiasco of Julian Morrish. And she had been as upset as anyone at the necessity of rejecting Morrish, knowing it would cause difficulties for Nicholas Seagrave in particular. Yet, she could not have accepted Morrish, not whilst the spectre of Lord Henry Marchnight persisted in imposing itself between her and every eligible man she met. A tear slid from the corner of one of Polly’s closed eyes and she swallowed what seemed to be a huge lump in her throat.
Immediately after her estrangement from Lord Henry five years previously, Polly had been in very low spirits. She had berated herself fiercely for the lack of courage and the lack of faith that had led her to refuse to elope with Lord Henry. She had a curious feeling of loss, as though she had thrown away something priceless, something that would never be recaptured. The expression on Lord Henry’s face as he had left her that night, the stony withdrawal, the contempt for her weakness, had haunted her for a long time. It was only later, when she was older and understood her loss all the more, that she realised that his love for her had been far more mature than the girlish passion she had thought that she had felt for him. She had simply not been ready to accept the full responsibility of his love and all its implications, not ready to defy her family and run away with him.
The most acute elements of her misery wore off with time, particularly as Lord Henry was absent from Town much of the time and his path and Polly’s did not cross much for several years. Whenever she heard news of him it would invariably involve some highly coloured account of his amatory adventures, for he appeared to have become a thorough-going rake and wastrel. Polly’s heart ached when she heard the tales, as though some part of her could not relinquish Henry for good. And then, the previous summer, her dormant feelings had been stirred into life again.
Lord Henry had been in Suffolk that summer, at the same time that Polly was at Dillingham with her mother and brothers, and it was inevitable that they should be in each other’s company. Each tried to avoid the other as much as possible, their meetings made awkward by the history that lay between them. To Polly’s horror, she had discovered that her childish infatuation had somehow transformed itself over the years into a frighteningly strong attachment. She realised that Lord Henry had unconsciously influenced her refusal of every offer of marriage over the past five years, and that since she was unable to marry him now, she would marry no one.
The realisation made her even more self-conscious in his company and she cursed her inability to match Henry’s smooth detachment. Her original refusal to elope with him was now an awesome barrier between them, making the re-establishment of cordial or at the least civil relations between them well-nigh impossible. When Lord Henry had said, that fateful night, that he would never approach Polly again, he had meant just that. They were obliged to exchange a few words when they met in public, but he seldom sought her out. Then, of course, there was his reputation as a rake, which made every chaperon blench. Although many of his escapades were probably exaggerated, there was no doubt that he had become very wild and would not be considered a suitable escort for any unmarried lady. And now, there was an even more potent and unexpected reason why she could never hope to re-attach his affections…
The sound of voices at the main door stirred Polly from her thoughts. She straightened up to see her sister-in-law Lucille taking her leave of a couple on the doorstep and hurrying into the hall, pulling off her gloves. As Lucille’s eyes adjusted to the sudden shade, Polly came forward to greet her.
“Oh, Lucille, I am glad to see you back!” Then, as her sister-in-law fixed her with a rather too perceptive gaze, she said hastily, “Who were those people? They looked a little eccentric!”
Lucille laughed. “The lady was a Mrs Golightly, who is a friend of Miss Hannah More, and was telling me all about her work with the Bettering Society! They work to improve the condition of the poor, you know! And the gentleman is a poet, Mr Cleymore, who is accounted quite good, I believe, although I cannot understand his work! They are complete originals, but not people of fashion!”
“Who cares a button for that?” Polly said stoutly. One of the things she particularly liked about Lucille was her lack of interest in worldly concerns. She would befriend people because she liked them, support causes because she believed in them, and gently rebuke even the most high-ranking Dowager who ventured to criticise her for her quaint interests. Lucille had grown in poise and confidence since her marriage to Nicholas Seagrave, Polly thought now, but she retained the innocent interest she had in everyone and everything. It was a quality that added to her novelty value in the eyes of the ton, who were always seeking fresh amusement. Lucille, with her slightly eccentric ways, had been a gift to such jaded palates. And the final titillation, of course, was the dreadful, brassy Cyprian who was Lucille’s twin and had done her utmost to embarrass her sister, seeking her out at public events and trying to hang on her coattails. Lucille had dealt with all the pitfalls most admirably, Polly thought with a smile, taking her sister-in-law’s arm and steering her towards the green drawing-room and away from Sir Godfrey and the Dowager Countess.
“Do you have time to take tea with me?” she asked hopefully, and Lucille’s observant blue eyes scanned her face once more.
“Of course! Medlyn, tea for two in the Green Room, if you please!” She turned back to Polly. “But what has happened, Polly? You look quite blue-devilled! Oh, I know—” She wrinkled up her nose. “John Bellars has made you an offer and you have refused him! And…” she cast a glance towards the closed door of the blue drawing-room “…your mother and Sir Godfrey are on the high ropes over your behaviour!”
“Sir Godfrey has rung a peal over me,” Polly admitted ruefully, as they went into the Green Room. “How did you know that Bellars was about to make me a declaration, Lucille?”
“I guessed,” Lucille said serenely. “And I suspected you would refuse him. The only one I thought you might have accepted was Julian Morrish…”
Polly sighed. “I did think of accepting,” she said reluctantly, “for I like Julian very well, and had I wanted a marriage based on mutual respect and liking, it might have served. But—” she shook her head “—I could not do it, for—”
“For you are still in love with Harry Marchnight,” Lucille finished for her, disposing herself elegantly in a wing chair and looking at her sister-in-law with a rueful amusement.
Feeling a prickle of envy at the casual way Lucille mentioned Lord Henry, Polly sought to defend herself. “It is not that I am in love with him, precisely—”
The door opened to admit Medlyn with the tea. Lucille poured neatly and passed Polly a cup.
Once she had thanked him and the door had closed again, Lucille turned back to Polly.
“Come now, Polly, do you think you can cozen me? It may be that you originally suffered from a schoolroom infatuation for Lord Henry, but I am sure you have discovered that this has turned to something far more profound.”
“You have not forgotten what I told you at Dillingham in the autumn,” Polly said sadly. “I was being foolishly self-pitying! It was simply that your own wedding made me feel sorry for myself and I regretted the opportunity I threw away! But that was all over a long time ago! It is of no consequence!”
Lucille studied her sister-in-law over the rim of her teacup. “But I am concerned for your happiness, Polly! All these gentlemen you refuse are so very eligible and do not take their rejection lightly! You know that you are getting a reputation for pride! And what are you to do if you do not marry?”
Polly shrugged, a gesture which her mother deplored. “Oh, I shall devote myself to studying and good works! And if I miss the excitement of the Season in years to come, I shall set myself up as a chaperon for daughters of rich cits wishing to marry well!”
Lucille sensibly chose to disregard most of this. “Do you think,” she said carefully, “that there is any likelihood of yourself and Lord Henry making a match of it? He has told me that he still holds you in the greatest esteem—”
But Polly was shaking her head violently. “Oh, no, Lucille, that is impossible! Why, I am sure he had nothing but contempt for my poor-spiritness in refusing to elope with him five years ago and now I imagine he scarce thinks of me at all!”
She broke off, evading Lucille’s eyes. Impossible to explain to her sister-in-law that the most potent reason that Lord Henry could no longer have any interest in her was because he had quite obviously formed a romantic attachment to Lucille herself. Polly wondered just how innocent Lucille could be. She had no doubt that the attachment was one-sided and entirely emotional rather than physical. But how could Lucille not have noticed that Lord Henry was forever in her company, seeking her views and advice, valuing her opinion? Why, even Seagrave himself had commented humorously what a lapdog Harry Marchnight was becoming, forever following his wife about.
Polly searched rather desperately for a change of subject. “Do you think that you shall be joining the Bettering Society, Lucille?”
“Probably not,” her sister-in-law answered. “Nicholas has suggested that we travel a little at the end of the Season, and since I am still awaiting my wedding trip, I thought to encourage him! But—” she returned to the previous subject with an obstinacy for which she was well known “—we were speaking of you, Polly, not of myself! If you truly feel that any awkwardness with Lord Henry must be in the past now, why do the two of you spend all your time skulking behind trees or pillars in an effort to avoid each other? It makes matters very difficult for the rest of us! Why, Nicholas was saying only the other day that he wished to ask Harry’s advice on those greys he was thinking of buying, but he hesitated in case you accidently bumped into him! Could you not speak to Lord Henry and put an end to this, Polly?”
Polly stared in disbelief.
“Speak to him,” she echoed faintly. “Whatever can you mean, Lucille? Oh, I could not!”
Lucille’s brows rose at this missish response. She knew that Lady Appollonia Grace Seagrave was a well-brought-up and entirely orthodox daughter of the nobility, but had not thought her merely a pretty ninnyhammer.
“Well, upon my word, I only meant that you should discuss matters with him—clear the air!” she repeated patiently. “After all, you are both adults and cannot be forever behaving in this foolish manner! You yourself have said that it is all in the past! I apologise if I have offended your sensibility, but I should think that one slightly embarrassing encounter must be a small price to pay to be comfortable together in the future! If you truly believe that there is no hope for the two of you and you do not wish to try to re-engage his feelings, explain to Lord Henry that you have no wish to continue in this absurd way and that you should both regard the past as over! That way you may start afresh as friends!”
Polly sighed, reaching for the teapot. It was hopeless to try to explain to Lucille that gently bred ladies simply did not seek a gentleman out in order to engage him in a conversation of an intimate and personal nature. Disagreements such as the one Polly had with Lord Henry were simply to be ignored or endured. Lucille, who had earned a living as a schoolteacher before her marriage to the Earl, had no time for what she saw as the pointless prevarications of polite society, but Polly could no more approach Lord Henry than fly to the moon.
“You are great friends with Harry Marchnight,” Polly said lightly, trying not to let her envy show. “I doubt I could achieve your familiarity with him!”
“No, but I am a married lady—” Lucille broke off at Polly’s irrepressible burst of laughter, arching her eyebrows enquiringly. “Why, whatever have I said?”
“Married ladies are precisely the type Lord Henry prefers, so I hear,” Polly said drily.
“Oh, but—” For a moment Lucille looked confused, before regaining her poise. “Oh, no, it is not in the least like that! I am glad to have Harry’s esteem, but that is all there is to it! Why, to suggest anything else would be pure folly!”
Polly smiled, unconvinced. It was true that not even the ton, with its penchant for intrigue, had suggested anything improper in the relationship between the two, but that did not mean that Lord Henry might not wish it so. Lucille, totally absorbed in her husband, would be the last person to realise. Polly, thinking now of the consuming passion between Lucille and Nick Seagrave, shifted slightly in her chair. They were always perfectly proper in their behaviour in company, but it only needed one look…Polly sometimes thought that if any man ever looked at her with that explicit mixture of warmth and sensual demand she would faint dead away. But perhaps Lucille was lucky. Perhaps she was the unlucky one, hidebound by a conventional upbringing in a house where preserving the surface calm had always been all important.
The problem of Lord Henry Marchnight twitched at the corner of her mind again. Lucille was right, of course. Polly did not delude herself that there was any chance of re-establishing a rapport with Lord Henry, and under the circumstances, it was both foolish and pointless to be forever dwelling on the past. Perhaps she could at least try to put matters to rights. If she could find the right words to convey a genteel acceptance that they had both been young and foolish…It might suffice and put an end to awkwardness.
“I will try to speak to Lord Henry if I have an opportunity,” Polly agreed hesitantly. “I understand what you mean, Lucille. It is just so difficult…” She despised herself for her lack of spirit, even as her mind shrank from the thought of broaching such a personal subject with someone who was, to all intents and purposes, a stranger. Yet Lucille was also right that their social circle was relatively small: to try to avoid someone was always difficult. Friends always seemed to have other mutual friends or acquaintances and an invitation or chance meeting could prove awkward.
Lucille took a biscuit and poured a second cup of tea. “I own it will be a relief to have the matter settled,” she said with a candid smile. “Then I may stop worrying about you and turn my attention to Peter and Hetty! They are causing me great concern!”
“It must have been a great blow for Hetty when Mrs Markham’s ill health led to the postponment of the wedding,” Polly commented, secretly glad that Lucille had turned the subject. “But what do you mean, Lucille? How can Peter be giving you cause for concern?”
Lucille frowned. Polly’s brother and her own foster sister had been intending to wed that spring, but the marriage had been delayed indefinitely since Hetty’s mother had succumbed to the dropsy.
“You know how silly Hetty became at the start of the Season,” Lucille said, a little crossly. “Of course, she is very young and I think her head was turned by all the attention she received, but I thought that once she had returned to the country she might regain some of her natural sense! But only today I have had a letter from her telling me that Lord Grantley is in Essex and paying her lavish attentions! And your brother is as bad, Polly, for instead of posting down to Kingsmarton to see Hetty and untangle matters he persists in staying in Town, and last night at Lady Coombes’s ball he was paying the most outrageous attentions to Maria Leverstoke…”
“But I thought she was Lord Henry’s flirt,” Polly said, studiously picking an imaginary thread off Fanchon’s latest confection, and politely avoiding a description of Lady Leverstoke that might have been more appropriate but less discreet.
Lucille made an airy gesture. “That may be so, but she seemed smitten enough with Peter last night! He is become the most dreadful philanderer! You are for Lady Phillips’s ridotto tonight, are you not? Only watch, and you will see just what I mean!”
Chapter Two
Lady Phillips’s ridotto was one of the major social events of the Season, but already the June weather had turned hot, prompting some of the ton to leave London for their country estates or the cooling breezes of the seaside. Nevertheless, there was a great crush at the house in Berkeley Square and, even with the french windows flung wide open the temperature in the ballroom was enough to make the guests perspire unbecomingly.
Almost the first person Polly saw on entering the crowded reception room was Lord Henry Marchnight, lavishing his attentions in a thoroughly improper way on a lady in bright scarlet satin. Polly, trying to ignore the pang of misery that assailed her, considered that the colour of the lady’s outfit was an all-too-appropriate choice.
“Lady Melton,” hissed the Dowager Countess of Seagrave to her daughter, “married to his lordship but a twelvemonth ago and already driving him to his grave with her extravagance and her affaires! So Lady Phillips is letting the demi-monde patronise her ball! I should have expected her to exercise more judgement!”
Polly raised her brows. The Dowager Countess was very high in the instep and would never countenance such guests at one of her own events, but not all ton hostesses were as discerning. A moment later, Polly heard her mother give a stifled groan, halfway between a shriek and a moan, almost as though she were in pain. The Dowager Countess had stopped dead in the middle of the marbled floor.
Polly stopped too and turned enquiringly to her mother. “Mama, are you quite well?”
“Yes, only look! No, not over there…over by that pillar! The strumpet!”
Startled, Polly turned to scan the room. There were plenty of faces she recognised, but none surely to give rise to such vehemence in the Dowager Countess’s breast. Why, her mother had gone quite pale, though whether with shock, anger or illness it was impossible to tell. Then, she saw the reason.
“Good Lord—” The exclamation had escaped before she could help herself.
“Polly, you will not take the name of the Lord in vain!” the Dowager Countess said energetically. She seemed slightly restored by her daughter’s inadvertent slip into blasphemy.
“Yes, Mama, I am sorry, but it is Peter and—”
“I am as capable as the next person of recognising your brother,” the Dowager snapped. “We cannot acknowledge him, however! Come this way! Thank God that Nicholas and Lucille are not present tonight! That brass-faced trollop is always trying to embarrass us!” She took Polly’s arm in a tight grip and positively pulled her towards the ballroom.
“I thought that Peter had taken up with Lady Leverstoke,” Polly said, obediently allowing herself to be steered away with only one backward glance.
“Humph! I never thought to consider Maria Leverstoke as the lesser of two evils—” The Dowager broke off to give a tight-lipped smile to one of her acquaintance. “On no account must you allow your brother to approach you,” she continued, as they squeezed past the orchestra to appropriate two rout chairs in an inconspicuous corner. “It would be quite unacceptable!”
“Perhaps it would be easier for us to go home,” Polly said, a little dispiritedly. It was bad enough to be confronted by the prospect of Lord Henry flirting all evening with some fast-looking matron, but the thought of avoiding her own brother seemed quite ridiculous. Here, however, she ran up against the Dowager Countess’s stubborn streak.
“Go home! And have everyone say that that trollop has ousted us? Certainly not! Besides…” the Dowager looked around surreptitiously “…I most particularly wish to see Agatha Calvert tonight! She has not been up in Town this age and we have so much to catch up on!”
“Surely Lady Calvert can call on you tomorrow—”
The Dowager Countess looked disgusted. “Have you no pride, Polly? I assure you that the Cyprian will not drive me away!”
Polly smiled slightly. She could see her brother Peter coming into the ballroom at that very moment, threatening to put his mother’s resolution to the test. Lucille had mentioned Peter’s sudden descent into questionable company, but even she had apparently been unaware of this latest disaster. For with Peter Seagrave was none other than Lucille’s sister, the notorious Cyprian Susanna Bolt, in a dress of the most outrageous plunging black silk and ostrich feathers.
“Peter, what can you be doing!”
“Why, I’m talkin’ to my own sister!” Lord Peter Seagrave said, with pardonable indignation. “What could be more suitable?”
“You know that is not what I meant!” Polly looked up at him with asperity, feeling her annoyance begin to melt at the limpid innocence in those dark Seagrave eyes. It was so very difficult to be angry with Peter for long. Whilst Polly and Nicholas had inherited something of their father’s gravity, Peter had a gaiety and insouciance that was almost irresistible. “Oh, Peter, how could you squire Susanna Bolt about and embarrass Mama so?”
Peter looked affronted. “Mama ain’t embarrassed by me! Why, she’s nose to nose with Agatha Calvert and has barely noticed me!”
“Only because she has not seen Lady Calvert for an age!” Polly looked across to where the two matrons were chatting nineteen to the dozen. “I assure you, she would not have allowed me to even speak with you else! Supposing Lady Bolt approaches us?”
“Lady Bolt is almost one of the family,” Peter added virtuously, but unable to repress a slight twinkle, “and I am sure Mama would not slight a relative!”
“Fustian!” Polly was also trying not to smile. “Oh, this is too bad of you, Peter! I dare swear it is not for the family connection that you have sought her company!”
“Careful, Poll!”
“Well, if you are setting Lady Bolt up as your inamorata—”
“Polly!”
“Oh, I collect that it is acceptable for a gentleman to have such a thing, but not for ladies to refer to her?” Polly frowned at her brother. “And if you try to tell me that Lady Bolt has become respectable since her marriage I will count you a greater fool than I already do! What of Hetty, Peter?”
The amusement went out of Peter Seagrave’s face like a candle blown out. He studied the dancers with sudden intentness. “Miss Markham and I are no longer…That is, we have agreed that we would not suit.”
“Oh, Peter!” Polly looked up at him, genuinely shocked. Peter swung gently back on his rout chair, feigning nonchalance.
“It was only last summer that you were bowled over by her,” Polly added reproachfully.
“Miss Markham was a different girl last summer.” Peter was looking both annoyed and upset now. “Unspoilt, sweet-natured…It took only six weeks in Town to turn her into the type of silly simpering debutante that I detest! Besides,” he added bitterly, “she is after bigger game than me now!”
Polly was silent. She could hardly deny that Hetty had behaved very foolishly, flirting with any titled and personable man who had shown her attention and treating Peter in a most offhand way. She put her hand on her brother’s arm.
“It is only that her head was turned a little,” she pleaded. “Please will you reconsider—”
“Peter, darling!”
Peter rose to his feet, a schoolboy blush in his cheeks as Susanna Bolt put a gloved hand caressingly on his shoulder. The Cyprian gave Polly an appraising look and her feline smile. “Lady Polly…”
“Lady Bolt,” Polly said coldly. She marvelled at how different two sisters could be. There was a clear innocence about Lucille Seagrave which contrasted starkly with the predatory sexuality of her twin. Lady Bolt might have achieved a fragile respectability through her recent marriage, Polly thought, but her previous activities continued much as before, encouraged, some said, by Sir Edwin Bolt himself. Susanna’s blue gaze, as hard as the diamonds she preferred, raked Polly and dismissed her as an unworthy rival.
“Peter…” this time she trailed her fingers gently down his shirtfront “…you promised me you would play deep this evening…” The phrase was loaded with so much innuendo that Peter Seagrave looked acutely uncomfortable and his sister almost surprised herself by giggling. Doubtless she should have felt shocked, but Lady Bolt was so superlatively overdramatic that it was almost impossible to take her seriously.
“Do not let me keep you from your entertainments, Peter,” she said sweetly, and watched Susanna steer her sheepish brother away towards the cardroom.
There was a quadrille in progress, but Polly had refused a number of requests to dance because it was so hot and she had felt disinclined to become even more heated and flustered. The Dowager Lady Seagrave had moved away temporarily to chat with Lady Calvert and a number of other senior matrons, and when she had seen Peter approach his sister she had not troubled herself to disturb them despite her earlier words. The Dowager knew that Polly had so much Town bronze that she need not trouble herself to chaperon her too closely. After all, apart from one regrettable incident five years ago, her daughter had never given her cause to worry. Nevertheless, she kept her firmly within eyesight.
Peter’s rout chair was only vacant for a moment, then a voice said ingratiatingly, “Lady Polly! Vision of loveliness! I bring succour!”
Polly stifled a sigh.
“Sir Marmaduke. How do you do, sir?”
Sir Marmaduke Shipley gazed languishingly at her. An ageing roué, he was a gazetted fortune-hunter who liked to think that he was dangerous. A certain indulgent smile on the face of the Dowager Countess as she looked across at her daughter gave the lie to this. Sir Marmaduke handed Polly a glass and took the seat beside her with an ostentatious flick of his coattails.
The room was getting more and more humid and the drink was very welcome. Polly, who had been intending to be very chilly towards the lecherous Sir Marmaduke, found herself smiling gratefully at him instead.
“What exquisite looks you are in tonight, my lady,” Sir Marmaduke murmured, his breath hot against Polly’s neck. “Dare I hope that you will smile on me?”
“I doubt it, sir!” Polly said smartly, taking a mouthful of the drink. It was certainly not lemonade, but it tasted rather pleasantly fruity and quite innocuous, light and refreshing for a summer night. She took another sip.
“Still so cruel, divine one?” Sir Marmaduke’s dissolute gaze roved over her familiarly. Lady Polly Seagrave had never been an accredited beauty, but there was nevertheless something very alluring about her, he thought. Tonight, in the deep aquamarine which was rather daring for an unmarried lady, albeit one of more mature years than the debutantes, she looked particularly attractive. Her dark hair was upswept and restrained with a diamond studded slide but she wore no jewels other than a string of pearls that had the same translucent glow as her skin. She did not need adornment. Sir Marmaduke’s eyes lingered in lascivious appreciation. Whilst the dragonish Dowager was fully occupied, he intended to take full advantage of this unexpected tête-à-tête.
Polly sighed again. She had far too much assurance to feel threatened by Sir Marmaduke’s slimy overtures. In a crowded ballroom she was in no danger from him, other than of being bored to death by his unwelcome compliments.
“So your young brother has fallen for the lure,” Sir Marmaduke said, abandoning flattery and pursuing a more scandalous line. “Never did a lamb go more happily to the slaughter! The on-dit is that the lovely Susanna had a mind to take him away from her foster sister, and what chance did Miss Markham’s untried charms have against such a wealth of experience?”
Polly was shocked, but tried not to show it. It had not occurred to her that Peter’s flirtation with Susanna Bolt was anything more than a coincidence. She knew a little of Lady Bolt’s activities, far more in fact than her mother would have thought proper, and now that she thought about it she remembered hearing of more than one occasion when Susanna had set out to destroy a couple’s happiness. But her own foster sister? It argued a particularly harsh and jealous nature.
“Indeed?” Polly murmured, refusing to rise to Sir Marmaduke’s bait. “I do not care for this conversation, sir.”
“No?” Sir Marmaduke’s gaze moved thoughtfully to her empty glass and he summoned another full one from a passing flunkey. “Your pardon, I was only wishing to warn you of Lady Bolt’s vicious nature.”
“I should hope that her ladyship’s diversions would not affect me, sir.”
“No?” Sir Marmaduke said again. There was a look of malicious amusement in his eyes which made Polly profoundly uncomfortable. “Perhaps not. You will not be interested in the most piquant part of the tale, then, which is that young Peter is her ladyship’s second choice, for she first set her sights on Lord Henry Marchnight…”
For a moment Polly’s dark gaze met Sir Marmaduke’s, then she looked away. She took another mouthful of fruit punch without noticing. It was so easy to take refuge in her glass to avoid difficult subjects. And the drink was so refreshing and unusual. Normally she was only allowed lemonade, which, now she considered it, was ridiculous for one of her age and experience. The Dowager Countess was such a high stickler, Polly thought. Perhaps it was time she asserted her independence.
“Your squalid gossip is of no interest to me, sir,” she said distantly, wishing that more congenial company would present itself. Unfortunately, Lady Seagrave was still chatting, glancing across at her daughter with unusual and misplaced satisfaction. It would take a brave soul to interrupt Sir Marmaduke now that he was so entrenched, Polly thought resignedly. As if to underline the point, the elderly baronet stretched his arm along the back of Polly’s chair and leaned closer. His breath was stale with wine.
“Can I not please you?” Sir Marmaduke murmured. “When my sole intention is your delight, beauteous lady—”
“Your servant, Lady Polly. Shipley…”
Polly almost jumped. She felt a quiver of awareness along her nerves even before her hand was taken by Lord Henry Marchnight himself. Perhaps it was the drink, which she was now regarding suspiciously, or perhaps the effect of Lord Henry’s presence, but she felt suddenly light-headed.
“I am persuaded,” Lord Henry said gently, “that you would do so much better dancing with me, Lady Polly. Will you do me the honour?”
For a moment, as Polly’s startled dark eyes met Lord Henry’s narrowed, lazy gaze, she had the oddest feeling that he knew she had been thinking of him. Various thoughts jostled for dominance in her mind. Her first was that Lord Henry never asked her to dance. How could he, when he seldom even spoke to her? The second thought was that this was a waltz and the Dowager Countess would not approve. The third was that she was feeling ever so slightly odd—not unpleasantly odd, but definitely a little adrift…Which no doubt explained how she came to be waltzing in Lord Henry’s arms before she even had chance to think about it properly.
The lilt of the music was very seductive and Lord Henry was an exceptionally good dancer. After one circuit of the floor, Polly realized with some incredulity that she felt rather delightfully abandoned, like thistledown floating on air. Lord Henry was holding her at an entirely respectable distance from his body, but nevertheless the strength of his arm about her, the unfamiliar brush of his thigh against the slippery material of her dress, was peculiarly exciting. Polly blinked slightly, aware that she was not feeling quite normal, but the thought slid away, out of reach. Normal? She felt marvellous.
“You are keeping dangerous company tonight, Lady Polly,” Lord Henry said in her ear. The thought of his lips so close to the sensitive skin of her neck sent a delicious shiver through Polly. She tried to pull herself together. What on earth was wrong with her this evening?
“Are all the Seagraves courting scandal?” Lord Henry continued. “First your brother sets himself up as Lady Bolt’s new…” he hesitated “…new flirt, then you grant Sir Marmaduke Shipley a tête-à-tête and compound your daring by dancing with me!”
Polly looked up fully into his face for the first time. His words crystallised the thought which had entered her head when first he had whisked her from under Sir Marmaduke’s nose. Sir Marmaduke liked to consider himself a rake, but Lord Henry was the really dangerous one, a marauding tiger loose amongst the innocent flock of debutantes. Whatever was she about, to be dancing with him with such abandonment? Across the dance floor, she could see that the Dowager Countess had finally finished her conversation and was glaring at her most meaningfully. Polly felt exasperated. Why had her mother not objected to the unwelcome attentions of the odious Sir Marmaduke and yet had immediately perceived Lord Henry’s arrival? It was most unfair. She deliberately looked the other way.
Lucille had once said, without an iota of partiality, that Lord Henry Marchnight was the best-looking man that she had ever seen. Polly could certainly understand what she meant, for Lord Henry had the classical regularity of feature beloved of all sculptors and painters. His thick fair hair, immaculately ruffled in the Windswept style, made ladies long to run their fingers through it. The lazy appraisal of those grey eyes could, as one infatuated maiden declared, positively cause one to swoon, and his sporting pursuits had given him a physique envied by those less favoured.
“Are you really so dangerous then, sir?” Polly heard herself say. Surely that could not be her voice, so light, so teasing? She never flirted!
“I am accounted dangerous, certainly.” Lord Henry had given her a quizzical glance, no doubt as surprised by Polly’s flirtatiousness as she was herself.
“A real tiger, then, not merely a pussycat?”
This time Lord Henry’s look was rather more searching. “Have you been drinking the arrack punch, Lady Polly?”
“Certainly not.” Polly said with dignified aplomb. “I had some delicious fruit cup, but what is that to the purpose, pray?”
“Ah, the fruit cup,” Lord Henry murmured with a slight smile. “It is so refreshing, is it not? I see the Dowager Countess is looking daggers at us,” he continued indolently. “I must shortly redeem myself in her eyes and return you to her unscathed!”
“Oh, no!” Polly had suddenly remembered that she had promised Lucille that she would speak to Lord Henry about a matter of importance. She frowned in concentration, trying to remember what exactly the issue had been. It was something potentially difficult…embarrassing…but she did not feel embarrassed at the moment, only marvellously liberated. Her mind was a little fuzzy at the edges, perhaps, but she had not felt this confident in a long time! It was a moment before she realised that Lord Henry was looking at her with amusement.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Polly?”
“No, do not take me back just yet, sir!” Polly tried to grasp the appropriate words. “I…there is a matter I need…must discuss with you!”
“Indeed!” A faint smile touched Lord Henry’s firm mouth once more. “You intrigue me, madam! I am at your disposal, of course!”
The music was ending. Lord Henry gave her a mocking bow, taking her arm to escort her through the crowd and across to one of the silk-draped alcoves. It was sufficiently far from her mother to make Polly feel much more confident. She could deal with this matter without the Dowager Lady Seagrave even realising!
Lord Henry stood aside for her to sit down first, but she made no move to do so. He raised an eyebrow. “Well, Lady Polly? What is this urgent matter that demands our attention? Will you not sit down so that I may at least do the same?”
Polly discovered that her thought processes were suddenly beautifully clear.
“I meant,” she said deliberately, “that I needed to speak to you in private. Not here. There are too many people about!”
This time, Lord Henry did not scruple to hide his surprise. “A somewhat equivocal remark, my lady!” he said, with an ironic inflection. “Are you sure that is what you mean? It seems most singular.”
Polly frowned at him. She had no time for argument. All she was aware of was the single-minded need to fulfil her purpose.
“The terrace should suffice, my lord,” she said briskly, turning towards the door and praying that he would follow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Dowager Countess getting heavily to her feet. It was a long way around the dance floor and the room was crowded, but it would take a determined Mama seconds only to rescue her charge. Polly saw one of the Dowager Countess’s acquaintance accost her and heaved a sigh of relief. Old Lady Odgers was notoriously chatty and would not be easy to shake off. She prayed that this would give her enough time.
The terrace was deeply shadowed and Polly purposefully made for the furthest corner, only turning back to Lord Henry when she had gained its seclusion. The cool evening air had helped to sober her a little, but she still felt remarkably buoyant and determined. Yet as soon as she opened her mouth the words seemed to desert her.
“I hoped…I wished…I wanted to say…” Suddenly it seemed incredibly difficult to frame the appropriate phrases. She had wanted to be so gracious, easily putting an end to five years’ embarrassment. At this rate she would cause five years’ more! And Lord Henry was not helping her, lounging against the parapet and watching her with the same thoughtful consideration he had already shown.
“Yes, ma’am? You have already implied that you had something of importance to impart to me. I should not be here else.”
Polly’s cheeks, already flushed with unaccustomed high colour from the punch, became even rosier. “Oh, you are the most odious man! I only wished to say that I wanted us to be friends!” Memory came to her aid. “I want us to be friends in future and I want us to be comfortable together!” she brought out, triumphantly. It had a reassuring sound, although comfortable was about the last thing Lord Henry made her feel. “And if you wish it too, then there is no bar—”
“Ah, but perhaps I do not.” Lord Henry was smiling a little now, for he knew that certain suspicions he had harboured about Lady Polly’s lack of sobriety had been confirmed. She was not drunk, precisely, he thought, but she was not perfectly sober. And she was evidently too innocent to have realised her state. Or her danger.
“Oh!” Polly had anticipated his compliance and there was no doubt that this refusal to conform had thrown her plans. Lord Henry watched in amusement as she tried to puzzle it out. With her tumbled curls, pink cheeks and bright eyes, she looked wholly enchanting. He felt a certain impulse stir in him and tried half-heartedly to stifle it. He straightened up and took a step closer to her. Polly did not appear to notice.
“Well, if you do not care to be comfortable with me—”
“No, ma’am.” Lord Henry was still immaculately polite, even as he calculated, quite coldly, what he was about to do. “Comfortable is not a word I could ever apply to our situation.”
“Then—” Polly was at a loss. “If you do not wish us to be friends, what…?”
Lord Henry made a slight, dismissive gesture. “What could a rake wish for from a lady on a providentially empty terrace?”
“Oh!”
Understanding came to Polly at the very last moment, but her head still felt as though it was stuffed with wool. Time seemed to pass very slowly. Indeed, she had time to reflect that she had never been kissed by a man, since she had always been exceptionally careful to avoid being alone with any gentleman who was not a relative. Then she remembered that when she had been in the throes of her infatuation, she had quite ached for Lord Henry to kiss her as long as it had been in a completely undemanding fashion. Some chaste but impassioned salutation had been the height of her aspirations.
This kiss might have been impassioned, but in no way could it be described as chaste. Lord Henry’s arm slid about Polly’s waist and brought her into sudden, shocking contact with his body. His mouth captured hers with the ruthless skill of the expert, parting her lips so that her gasp of outrage was lost. For several long, spellbinding seconds, Polly was swept up in a passion too complex and demanding for her even to begin to resist.
Lord Henry let her go very gently and Polly stared at him in silence. The combined effects of unaccustomed drink and strong emotion made her feel quite shaken and she put a hand onto the parapet to steady herself. The stone was cool beneath her fingers, already damp with the night’s dew. Polly frowned a little, confused. How could this have happened when she had intended so different an outcome? Then, utterly unexpectedly, Lord Henry took her hand and pressed a kiss on the palm.
“Do not look at me so reproachfully, Lady Polly,” he said quietly. “Remember that you took your part in making me what I am.”
He turned to go and was confronted once again by the Dowager Countess of Seagrave, rushing precipitately to the rescue. He gave her a most flawless, ironic bow.
“Lady Seagrave! How do you do, ma’am? I remember once telling you that I would never approach your daughter again. Alas that I am forced to contradict myself, for I find I have a most urgent need to make her reacquaintance! Your servant, ma’am!”
And he left the outraged Dowager spluttering for words.
Chapter Three
Polly woke up with the conviction that something was terribly wrong. Her head ached with an unaccustomed thick throbbing and her tongue felt furry. She rolled on to her back. The sun was streaming through the curtains and she could hear the sound of wheels in the street outside. It was late.
Through the woolly feeling in her head, Polly remembered the fruit punch, so apparently innocuous and yet so dangerous. Oh, how could she have been such a fool, she who had been out for five years! Drinking spirits, becoming flirtatious, crowning her folly with a drunken encounter on the terrace with Lord Henry Marchnight! No doubt he thought her the most unutterable fool! She squirmed, turning her hot face into the cool linen pillow in an attempt to wipe out the vivid memories which were flooding back.
“I’ve tried to wake her once already, my lady,” a voice was saying, and Polly shot bolt upright, suddenly terrified that her mother was at the door. But it was only Lucille, who came into the room and pulled back the bedcurtains with a resounding rasp that echoed through Polly’s head.
“Oh! Do not!” Polly’s groan was heartfelt. She slumped back on the pillows, feeling dizzy. Her sister-in-law paused in surprise.
“Polly? Are you ill? I thought that you were coming with me to Lady Routledge’s picnic?”
The light was making Polly’s eyes stream. She squinted at Lucille through the brightness. There was a rhythmic pounding in her ears although she had no recollection of any major building works currently taking place on the house. “Oh dear…I think I may be sick…”
“If I did not know better, I should say that you were foxed,” Lucille was saying severely, eyeing her sister-in-law closely. “I had no idea that Lady Phillips’s ridotto had been such a hotbed of iniquity! Or was it the prawn patties you ate, perhaps? Yes, so much better for it to be the prawns, I think…That is what I shall tell your Mama. I will come and see you later…”
Polly was beyond replying. She turned over and was asleep again at once.
It was the afternoon when she awoke again, feeling marginally better.
“Lady Seagrave said that I wasn’t to disturb you on account of you being so sick, ma’am,” Polly’s maid said sympathetically, when summoned at last by the bell. “Can I fetch you anything, ma’am? Some food?”
A spasm of distaste crossed Polly’s face. “I think not, Jessie. Just a very large glass of water, if you please. I have seldom been so thirsty! And I shall get up now, I think.”
Jessie looked dubious. “Well, ma’am, if you’re sure you’re ready! My brother usually takes a day to sleep off his excesses…” She caught Polly’s outraged expression and dropped a submissive curtsy. A country girl from the Seagraves’ Suffolk estate, Jessie had a kind heart but no tact. “As you wish, ma’am!” she finished hastily. “Shall you be going out?”
“Yes!” Polly snapped, suddenly anxious to refute the suggestion that she was a drunkard to rival Jessie’s brother. “We shall go to the circulating library! My lilac walking dress, please!”
Half an hour later, attired in the lilac and lace dress and with a very becoming black straw bonnet on her dark curls, Polly sallied forth into the fresh air with Jessie trotting along behind. Lucille and the Dowager Countess had not returned from the picnic, but Polly thought it unlikely her mother could object to so innocuous a plan as a trip to the library. After all, no possible harm could befall her there.
It was pleasantly cool within and Polly spent an enjoyable time browsing amongst the shelves and choosing her books. There was something very soothing about the shadowy quiet of the library, something tranquil when Polly still felt a little disordered in both body and spirit. An elderly gentleman was dozing in a seat in the corner and two ladies were whispering together over a copy of Louisa Sidney Stanhope’s The Confessional of Valombre. There was nothing to disturb the peace. Polly leant forward to pull a book from the shelf and found herself looking into a pair of sleepy grey eyes as someone selected a book from the other side at precisely the same moment as she.
“Oh!” She dropped all her books and recoiled a step, causing the two ladies to break off their conversation and hush her noisily. The gentleman came around the end of the bookcase, bent down and gravely handed her back the books of her choice.
“Good afternoon, Lady Polly,” Lord Henry Marchnight said.
“What are you doing here?” Polly hissed crossly, forgetful of the fact that only hours earlier she had privately resolved never to speak to him again. He was looking immaculate in a dove-grey jacket which echoed the colour of those disturbing grey eyes and Polly felt both annoyed and ill prepared to meet him. If only she had stayed at home! The scene on Lady Phillips’s terrace flashed before her eyes once more, adding to her confusion. It was the greatest piece of bad luck to be obliged to face him again so soon.
Lord Henry gestured to the two slender volumes under his arm. “Like you, I am selecting some reading matter,” he said calmly. “A gentleman may attend the circulating library if he wishes!”
“Yes, but I would hardly have considered reading to be amongst your favoured occupations—” Polly bit her lip, aware that her confusion had prompted her to sound less than civil. “I beg your pardon, I only meant that I imagined you had other interests—” Again she broke off. That sounded even worse!
Lord Henry smiled, showing her the books. “Allow me to astound you then, ma’am! I have here Coleridge’s Biographica Literaria and some Homer, which I have not read since I was in short coats! I assure you, I am far more erudite than you think me!”
Polly blinked, unable to refute the evidence of her eyes. It seemed singular that a man whose self-proclaimed aim in life was enjoyment to the point of dissipation should sit in alone with only his books for company.
“I am so glad to see you restored to health,” Lord Henry continued smoothly. “I was at Lady Routledge’s picnic earlier and your sister-in-law intimated that you had been taken ill after the ball last night. Something you ate—or drank, perhaps?”
Polly could feel herself blushing with vexation. The last thing that she wanted was to be reminded of the previous evening and Lord Henry’s scandalous behaviour.
“I am quite recovered now, I thank you,” she said stiffly. “Good day, sir. I must be on my way home for we are promised for the theatre this evening.”
“Perhaps I may escort you back to Brook Street?” Lord Henry suggested politely.
He held the door for her as she went out into the sunny street. It was tempting to accept his offer, but since Polly was still smarting with mortification over her behaviour the night before, Lord Henry’s continued presence could only be a dangerous reminder. She gave him a smile behind which her regret was imperfectly hidden.
“Thank you, sir, but I think not. I have my maid with me for company and it is not far to home.”
“I am disappointed, ma’am,” Lord Henry said, falling into step beside her as though she had not spoken. “Are we not pledged to a better understanding? How may that be achieved if you refuse my company?”
“Pledged to a better understanding?” Polly stopped and stared up at him. The summer breeze was ruffling his thick fair hair and she stifled a sudden urge to touch it. She realised that she was still staring. Hastily, she started walking again.
“Why, yes.” Somehow Lord Henry had taken her arm without her noticing. It seemed churlish to draw away from him. “We are to be friends, remember? You suggested it last night!”
“Friends!” Polly almost tripped up with shock and his hand tightened momentarily on her arm, sending all sorts of strange but delicious sensations through her body.
“Yes, of course you must remember! We were on the terrace—”
“Yes!” Polly squeaked, convinced he was about to remind her of every searing detail. She took a deep breath. “Of course I remember our conversation, sir. I had the particular impression, however, that you did not care for my suggestion!”
Lord Henry turned to look at her. It was a distinctly speculative look. “You did not find my response to you…friendly?”
Polly blushed with indignation. “I did not, my lord! Presumptuous, outrageous, but scarcely friendly!”
Lord Henry’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. “Come now, Lady Polly! You are severe! Was my company so repulsive to you?”
Polly was in a dilemma. Modesty required her to lie but she had been brought up to be exceptionally truthful.
“Your behaviour was not that of a gentleman, sir!”
“Ah, true!” Lord Henry smiled whimsically. “But I find myself rather taken by your proposal, Lady Polly. I have an ardent desire to promote our friendship. Our encounter last night whetted my appetite for it!”
They had reached Brook Street, which was fortunate since Polly was utterly unable to think of a suitable response. Lord Henry kissed her hand. “If you wish to be persuaded further of my erudition, perhaps you might wish to join me in St James’s Square? I have an excellent art collection which you might like to view…” His glance was wicked. “Unless you are already convinced of my scholarship and good taste?”
“I will accept your word on it,” Polly said, still trying to be severe though tempted to giggle. “Good day, sir!”
Art collection, indeed! Polly blushed a little as she considered the implications of his teasing invitation. He must consider her a green girl to be caught by that one! Lord Henry grinned and strolled off down the street, with just one provocative look back. Polly was annoyed that he had caught her looking after him.
“There’s a likely gentleman,” Jessie opined, looking over Polly’s shoulder. “Aye, and a dangerous one, too! You be careful, madam!”
Polly, who had been thinking exactly the same thing, turned away with studied indifference. “Oh, nonsense, Jessie! Lord Henry is just a flirt!”
“A flirt!” Jessie was indignant. “A rake, more to the point! Aye, and you like it, madam!”
Polly did not deign to reply.
As she dressed for the theatre that evening, she repressed a little shiver of excitement and apprehension at the possibility of seeing Lord Henry again. It seemed that her behaviour the previous night had, entirely unexpectedly, caught his interest. But his attentions could never be anything other than dishonourable, and as a result of her own actions he was now pursuing her in a wholly improper way.
The play that night was the farce The Devil to Pay, and the company was a merry one. Nicholas and Lucille Seagrave, the Dowager Countess and Polly, made up a party with Sir Godfrey Orbison and his cousins the Dacres. There was a vast number of their acquaintance at Drury Lane that night and the Dowager Countess spent an entertaining time leaning over the side of their box and identifying members of the fashionable crowd. When she saw Lucille’s twin sister Susanna Bolt on the arm of a distinguished-looking gentleman of military bearing, she dug Lady Dacre in the ribs.
“Do look, Marianne! There is the Duke of Garston making a fool of himself over the Cyprian! Only see how she preens and pouts! Lord, what is it about these worthy gentlemen that makes them such easy meat for her?”
Fortunately, Lucille was engrossed in conversation with Nicholas and Lord Dacre and did not hear, but Polly leant forward curiously. Susanna Bolt was looking very striking again, she thought, in her bold and flaunting style. There were jewels glittering in her hair and her mouth was a deep, curving red as she smiled triumphantly over her conquest. The sapphire blue eyes which appraised the crowd were the exact shade of Lucille’s but there the resemblance finished, for the Countess of Seagrave had such a sweetness of character and bearing that it softened every feature that Susanna’s avarice had turned hard.
Polly sighed, just a little envious of Susanna’s bold beauty. She knew that her own looks were pleasant enough, although she had never been considered an Incomparable. The Seagrave colouring of chestnut hair and dark brown eyes flecked with gold seemed to suit her brothers better, although her creamy complexion was much admired. And her figure was trim rather than voluptuous, which the gentlemen seemed to prefer. Polly wondered idly whether Susanna’s appearance on Garston’s arm indicated that her brief interest in Peter was over or whether she was just being naïve to imagine the Cyprian confining herself to one man at a time.
“Polly!” the Dowager Countess said sharply, as a young buck raised his quizzing glass to ogle her daughter. “Kindly sit back! You do not wish to attract the attention of the hoi polloi!”
Polly’s heart skipped a beat and she sat back slowly, for she had just seen Lord Henry Marchnight in a box across from them. He was in a lively group with Simon Verey, his wife Therese and some of their friends, all laughing animatedly at a remark Lady Verey had just made. Polly felt a quiver of envy and repressed it quickly. It was not that she was bored with her own party, for she always enjoyed Lucille’s company and the Misses Dacre were pleasant enough, if henwitted. Just for once, however, it would be fun to be part of a racier crowd. She was forever being chaperoned about by her mother or some other elderly female relative, which was all very well for a new debutante but decidedly slow for a lady of twenty-three. She risked another look across at the box, to find that Lord Henry was studying her with a concentrated regard which made her pulse beat faster.
The play began, but Polly found it incredibly difficult to concentrate. Normally she became engrossed in a performance, for playgoing was one of her favourite entertainments, but tonight all she seemed able to think about was whether Lord Henry was serious in his pursuit and whether she should respond. On the one hand, he could not have any serious intention and since her feelings were already engaged—and had been so for five years—she would be only stirring up all the old emotions that she should be trying to forget. On the other hand, she could not deny that she derived immense enjoyment from his company. If she managed matters well, perhaps…But could she manage Lord Henry? It would be very dangerous…a challenge, then? No, a risk and a hazardous one at that. Foolish even to consider it, knowing his reputation. But…Polly shivered. A risk worth taking? She had found the Season dull, repetitious. She wanted some excitement…The prim side of her character, the orthodox side, was asking her what on earth she was thinking of, to encourage the attentions of so notorious a rake.
There was a burst of applause, and Polly realised to her horror that the entire first act had passed without her even noticing. The audience started to chatter, to mill around and stretch their legs before the second act. Lucille took Polly’s arm as they strolled out with everyone else.
“What do you think of Venn’s performance, Polly? Is he as accomplished as Edmund Keen, do you think?”
Polly floundered. “Well, perhaps so…Or perhaps not…I need more time to consider—” She broke off as Lord Henry and the Vereys approached, and was not sure whether to be glad or nervous at the interruption.
Lord Henry greeted Lucille very warmly, and once again Polly felt a stirring of jealousy when she considered their friendship. She was not unsophisticated enough to think that just because Lord Henry had suddenly paid some attention to her, he might not be pursuing other interests. But surely Lucille could not rank as one of those! There was an innocence about the Countess of Seagrave which made such a thought seem foolish. Besides, Lucille had now turned her attention to the Vereys, leaving Polly and Lord Henry standing together.
“Are you enjoying the play, Lady Polly?” Lord Henry asked conventionally enough as they strolled down the corridor.
“Yes, thank you, my lord.” Polly was desperately hoping that he would not question her too closely about it.
“You always enjoyed the theatre, did you not?” Lord Henry said with a smile. “You are not one of those who come only to see and be seen! I remember when we came to see As You Like It, you were so enraptured that no one could get a word from you for a full half-hour afterwards!”
Polly blushed. She could remember the occasion to which he referred and the memory troubled her. It had been very early on in their acquaintance, when she was first out, and she had sat through the play in a dream. Although utterly engrossed in the story, she had still been fully aware of Lord Henry sitting slightly behind her, his attention as much on her as it was on the play. He had leant forward, smiling at her enthusiasm, and it had seemed to Polly that his enjoyment had derived as much from her pleasure as from the entertainment.
The bell rang for the second act, saving her the necessity of reply.
“A moment, Lady Polly,” Lord Henry said, when she would have excused herself and returned to the box. “Will you drive with me in the park tomorrow?”
Polly stood still, jostled by those returning to their seats.
“Surely not an unusual request?” Lord Henry said gently, with a smile that made her heart race. “You must be inundated by gentlemen asking to escort you!”
“Yes, but not by you—” Polly stopped herself. “I beg your pardon. What I meant was that you never take a lady up in your phaeton!”
“Not often,” Lord Henry amended, with the same disconcerting smile. “I am, however, accomplished enough as a whip to make the offer!”
Polly knew he was being deliberately obtuse. It was not his skill that was in question but the fact that it would cause a storm of comment if he took her up. Lord Henry handed her back into the box as the lights went down.
“I will see you tomorrow at five,” he murmured, taking her acquiescence for granted, and was gone. Polly saw him slide into his seat in the box opposite and incline his head as he saw her watching. She was annoyed that he had caught her looking at him yet again, rather than at the play.
Chapter Four
“Well, I think it is a famous thing that you and Harry are now such good friends,” Lucille Seagrave declared at breakfast, when Polly shyly confided that Lord Henry was to take her driving that afternoon.
“I do not think Mama will view it in quite the same light, Lucille,” Polly said gloomily. The Dowager Countess had been almost apoplectic on finding her only daughter alone on the terrace at Lady Phillips’s with the most notorious rake in Town. Polly’s repeated statement that she and Lord Henry had only been talking together had met with short shrift. Not only did the Dowager disbelieve her but she had some pungent words to say about young ladies who decided to talk alone with rakehells.
A moment later, the Dowager swished bad-temperedly into the breakfast room and eyed her daughter and daughter-in-law with disfavour.
“What are you two whispering about?” she demanded querulously. She asked for a plate of kedgeree then picked at it so disagreeably that Polly’s heart sank. She could already tell that the Dowager Countess had a headache, induced by her late night at the theatre, and would be in a bad mood.
“I was telling Lucille that Lord Henry Marchnight is to take me driving this afternooon,” she said, rather defiantly. “He is to collect me at five.”
The Dowager flushed an unbecoming puce.
“Driving? With Lord Henry Marchnight? Have you taken leave of your senses, miss? Why, the man’s unsafe!”
“As a whip or as a man?” Nicholas Seagrave enquired lazily, rustling his newspaper. He had given no indication that he had been listening to the previous conversation, but now Polly saw the look of amusement in her brother’s dark eyes and her heart sank still further. If Nicholas objected as well, the trip was as good as ruined. Lucille gave her husband a reproving glance.
“I am persuaded that nothing so very dreadful can happen in the park, ma’am,” she said mildly to her mother-in-law. “There will be plenty of people about, after all.”
The Dowager cast her a darkling look. “You have no idea of what that man is capable, Lucille! And it is not simply the risk to Polly’s person, but the damage to her reputation! If she is seen in company with him, all claim to respectability would be lost—”
“Oh, come, Mama, you are making too much of this,” Nicholas interrupted. “Harry Marchnight is a good enough fellow! He will not do anything to injure Polly’s good name! I say she should go!”
He folded his paper up a little irritably, got up, bent to kiss his wife and murmured that he was taking refuge in his bookroom.
“Some honey in your tea, ma’am?” Lucille said hastily, seeing her mother-in-law glare at Seagrave’s departing back. “You know that it is very soothing for the headache.”
The Dowager Countess smiled reluctantly. She was very fond of her unconventional daughter-in-law.
“Thank you, Lucille. It is good to know that you have so much concern for my health when my own brood seem set on tormenting me! Now, will you be accompanying me to Mrs Manbury’s this afternoon? I realise that Polly—” she glared again “—will be otherwise engaged!”
Polly was to remember Seagrave’s unlikely championing and her mother’s reluctant acquiescence later, when she was ensconsed in Lord Henry’s perch phaeton and they were bowling along under the trees. They were attracting a great deal of attention from the fashionable crowds who had come to take the air and Polly had begun to wish that she had taken her mother’s advice. She felt uncomfortable as the focus of so much speculative interest. Nor did Lord Henry stop to greet his acquaintance, but concentrated his attention solely on her. Polly thought she should have been flattered. Instead, such single-minded attention was beginning to make her nervous. She was suddenly unsure where it was leading—or where it might end.
And yet Lord Henry’s conversation was unexceptionable. Surely she had nothing to fear.
“Are you enjoying the Season?” he enquired, expertly avoiding an oncoming vehicle which was being driven with considerably less skill and more waywardness than his own. “Do you like London?”
Polly relaxed slightly. It was most enjoyable to be out in the fresh air, for it was another sunny day with a cool breeze and to be driven with such expertise was a real pleasure.
“Are those not two entirely separate questions, my lord?” she queried with a smile. “I have found the Season a little flat this year, but yes, I like London a great deal, for there are so many beautiful buildings and interesting sights to observe. There, will that do?”
Lord Henry took his eyes off the road for long enough to give her an amused glance. “Most comprehensively answered, my lady, but with little real information given! Why has the Season been so tedious for you?”
Polly shrugged a little uncomfortably, regretting her flippancy. She had no desire to sound like a spoilt Society miss. “Well, the round of parties and balls and entertainments is much like it was last time. Perhaps I am becoming a little jaded after all these years—”
Lord Henry burst out laughing. “Yes, you have a great many years in your dish, ma’am!” He lowered his voice. “Perhaps it is just that you need a change of scene? Do you go to Brighton in the summer?”
Polly nodded without much enthusiasm. “We do. But it is the same people and the same diversions!” She brightened. “I love the sea though, and find the air most refreshing. I don’t know why I should not be looking forward to it…” Her voice trailed away. She was regretting telling him of her boredom with the endless, superficial round of society events, for it sounded as though she were simply complaining.
“Perhaps you prefer the country?” Lord Henry was saying thoughtfully. “Suffolk is a beautiful place to be. You seemed very happy at Dillingham last year.”
“Yes…” Polly smiled “…I love Dillingham. I can ride, and paint and walk and please myself…”
Lord Henry flashed her another smile. “So you are a rebel at heart, Lady Polly! You wish to please yourself rather than follow the fashion!”
It was an appealing concept. “Gentlemen are more fortunate when it comes to such matters,” Polly observed judiciously. “You may do as you please, but we are watched over and instructed and restricted…And if we marry, the tyranny of our parents is exchanged for the tyranny of a husband!” Filled with a sudden sense of absurdity at her own words, she started to laugh.
“I wondered whether that was why you had never married,” Lord Henry said quietly. “Is that the reason, ma’am? That you had no wish to exchange a circumscribed girlhood for an equally restrictive marriage?”
Polly’s laughter faded and she fell silent. The only sound was the noise of the phaeton’s wheels and the cooing of the doves in the shady trees.
“No,” she said slowly, “that was not the reason that I have never married.”
“Then will you tell me what it is?” They had reached a quiet stretch of the road and Lord Henry was allowing his team to slow down while he concentrated on her. Their eyes met for a split second of tension.
“No,” Polly said again, half-lightly, half in earnest, “I shall not, sir! You have no right to ask so leading a question on so small an acquaintance!”
She saw Lord Henry smile as he accepted her refusal and allowed her to retreat.
“I protest,” he said easily. “I have known you for years, ma’am, yet you insist we are as strangers!”
“We may have been acquainted for years,” Polly agreed, equally casually, “but for most of that time you have been away, sir, travelling or entertaining yourself…” She frowned as it occurred to her that she did not actually know what it was that had taken Lord Henry away so often. Society whispered that it was scandal—women, gambling, racing—but no one actually knew…
“Very true, ma’am,” Lord Henry agreed, clearly unprepared to enlighten her further. “Like you, I find Society stifling if I spend too long in its company! I have noticed a change in London lately. Oh, the ton enjoy themselves as much as before, with as many outrageous amusements as they can devise, but the rest of the populace is not as tolerant as it used to be!”
Polly knew what he meant. There were so many of the dispossessed on the streets, looking resentfully as the rich and fashionable passed by, so many men who had served their country at war and now had no occupation in peace time. There were many who preached against the accepted order and agitated for change and some who would be prepared to resort to violence to get it.
“There is a sort of anger about the city at times,” Polly agreed, shivering in the cool air. “I sometimes wonder how long things can stay unchanged…”
“Melancholy thoughts for so bright a day,” Lord Henry observed. “My apologies for striking a discordant note. Why, look, is that not your esteemed relative Lady Bolt, over there? Your brother will be desolate that she has found a richer man in the Duke of Garston!”
“Oh, dear!” Polly looked across to the approaching curricle, where Lady Bolt was arrayed in a dress of scarlet silk entirely unsuitable for an afternoon’s drive. A hat adorned with curling ostrich plumes framed her face. Polly felt both dowdy and insignificant in comparison.
“Henry!” Lady Bolt was hailing them now, with more familiarity than Polly liked to see. “How delightful to see you! Why—” her eye fell on Polly in amused scorn “—hardly your usual taste, my dear? So sweet and tediously dull!”
Polly flushed with anger and mortification. It would have been impossible to miss Lady Bolt since the two carriages had to pass each other, and as she and Henry had slowed down to talk, the Cyprian had come upon them almost unawares. Nevertheless it was unfortunate. The Dowager Countess would have a fit if she heard of the meeting, and as for Lady Bolt’s barbed insults, it strained Polly’s natural courtesy to accept them without retaliation.
“How do you do, Lady Bolt.” Lord Henry spoke very coldly. “I fear I was so engrossed in Lady Polly’s delightful company that I missed your approach! Good day, ma’am!” And he gave the horses the office to move off.
“Oh, dear,” Polly said again, when the infuriated Cyprian had been left behind, “it is so very difficult! Lucille is so charming and her sister so much her opposite! I would not for all the world cut her dead, but—”
“But you have little choice,” Lord Henry said grimly. “Society dictates that a lady such as yourself should not even know what Lady Bolt is, let alone speak to her—as well you know, ma’am!”
“Yes, but—” Polly was a kind girl; although she detested Susanna Bolt’s nature, she could not help but feel uncomfortable. “Lucille once said that they were both obliged to find the means to support themselves, and Susanna chose one course and Lucille another! It is easy to judge when one has not had to make such a choice!”
“You are all generosity, Lady Polly!” Polly knew Lord Henry was laughing at her, albeit somewhat ruefully. “Console yourself with the fact that Susanna Bolt is a harpy and you will then feel no need to sympathize with her!”
“You seem to know her very well,” Polly said unguardedly, piqued by his amusement.
“I know her type,” Lord Henry conceded. They turned through the park gates and back towards Brook Street. “I am happy to continue this entirely improper conversation,” he added, “but only if you are willing to admit to being its instigator! I will not take the blame for discussing matters unsuitable for a lady’s ears!”
“Society can be very foolish,” Polly said crossly, “dictating what a lady may and may not do, or hear, or say! It puts me out of all patience!”
The phaeton stopped and Lord Henry jumped lightly down, holding out a hand to help Polly descend. He did not allow their bodies to touch as he swung her to the ground, nor did he hold on to her hand for longer than was strictly necessary. Polly found herself disappointed. For some reason the drive had ended on an unsatisfactory note. Polly was inclined to blame Lady Bolt’s interruption, although honesty prompted her that this was not really true. It seemed that she was dissatisfied when Lord Henry behaved properly and nervous when he did not. Flirtation was clearly not a game she could play with anywhere near Lord Henry’s aplomb.
The flower cart arrived early in Brook Street the following day, bringing a beautiful posy of pale pink roses for Polly and a card from Lord Henry saying that he had been called unexpectedly from Town, but hoped to see her again shortly. Polly did not even attempt to hide her pleasure in the gift, merely burying her face in the soft fragrant petals when Jessie made pointed comments about fine gentlemen and pretty gestures.
The days of Lord Henry’s absence crept by. There were only a few weeks of the Season left to run and the weather had turned very hot. The Dowager Countess became quite peevish when her ankles swelled up in the heat. She declined to accompany Polly and the Dacres on a sightseeing trip to St Paul’s Cathedral and when her daughter returned enervated and exhausted, told her that she had known the weather had been too inclement for a trip out. She fretted over Peter’s absence and when he did call, upbraided him for his foolishness in still running after Susanna Bolt. The servants all became very bad-tempered as they went about their work, and the house in Brook Street became a somewhat uncomfortable place to live.
“Everyone is so cross at the moment,” Polly sighed to Lucille, after Jessie had grumbled ceaselessly over her decision to change her chosen dress for a soirée one night. “Have you noticed how the heat makes people quicker-tempered? It’s very strange. Thank goodness there is to be no dancing tonight! I feel sure we should all melt into a puddle!”
Lucille fanned herself vigorously. “I hear that there were riots in The Strand last night,” she said, frowning. “Some windows were smashed and shops looted. I am sure that this weather can only add to people’s grievances. I shall ask Nicholas to give all the servants a day off on Saturday, and perhaps we may all go out of Town to somewhere cooler. Hampstead Wells, perhaps? A walk on the Heath might be quite refreshing.”
Even the Dowager Countess agreed to the proposed trip, feeling that the village air would be less noxious than that in London. The day was sunny but not too hot and they spent a most enjoyable few hours strolling on the Heath, playing bowls, and taking the waters at the spa. Polly declared the water so unpleasant that she needed a cup of tea to wash away the taste, so they retired to one of the honeysuckle-covered tea arbours for further refreshment.
“Oh, do let us stay a little longer,” Lucille urged, catching sight of a sign which promised a concert in the pump-room that evening, followed by fireworks. “There are plenty more of the gardens and grottoes to explore and it would be such fun to stay for the evening’s entertainments!”
The light was fading when the concert finished and they came out on to the Heath for the firework display. It was busy and many of the benches on the edge of the hill were already full.
“Heavens, what a crush!” The Dowager Countess exclaimed. “I had no idea that the whole of Town would have come out for this! Let us walk a little way along and see if we can find any seats!”
Polly was dawdling along behind the others, pulling her velvet cloak closer, for the evening was cool now that the sun had gone. A florid gentleman and large lady, amorously entwined, bumped into her and almost sent her flying without noticing. Polly stumbled. The first of the rockets soared into the sky above her and scattered a trail of bright stars. Suddenly it was very dark and she could not see the others at all. The crowd pressed about her; ladies, gentlemen, servants, tradesmen, cits and people of quite another sort.
A voice said: “All alone, lady? Let me take care of you!” He was young and attired as a gentleman, but Polly knew him to be no such thing. He was also drunk. And as she looked around wildly for her family, he took her arm.
“Your help will not be necessary, sir,” a voice said smoothly, from behind her. “The lady is with me, but I am grateful to you for your consideration.”
Polly recognised the voice even before she swung around to see Lord Henry Marchnight standing so protectively close to her. Something in his demeanour also communicated itself to the man who had accosted her, for he mumbled something about meaning no harm, and stumbled away. Lord Henry watched him go with a slight smile then turned his attention back to Polly.
“Tell me, Lady Polly,” he said conversationally, steering her out of the crowd to the edge of the path, “is this part of your claim for independence, to wander alone on Hampstead Heath in the dark? It seems rather foolhardy!”
“Don’t be absurd!” Polly snapped. Reaction was setting in now and she was horrified at what had almost happened to her. “I have become separated from my party, that is all! We were looking for seats for the fireworks—” Another rocket soared overhead as though to illustrate her point.
“Well, they could be anywhere now,” Lord Henry said resignedly, looking at the crowds. “It will be best for me to escort you back to your carriage, I think. They should have no trouble in finding you there. Is Seagrave here with you?”
Polly nodded.
“Thank God. He at least will have the sense to keep the others calm and search for you in a sensible fashion! Now, if we go down this path it should take us to the Well Walk. Did you leave your carriage there?”
Polly nodded unhappily. She knew that the Dowager Countess would be beside herself with worry and could not but regret spoiling the end of such a lovely day.
“We were having such a nice time,” she said regretfully. “I am sorry that it has had to end this way.”
It was very dark down the steep little passage that led to the street where the carriages were waiting. The scent of honeysuckle still hung in the air and the stars arched above them. Polly, trying to find her way in the dark, suddenly remembered that she had not even thanked Lord Henry for rescuing her.
“I am sorry,” she said in a small voice, “I should have thanked you. Your arrival was most timely, my lord. I hope that I have not taken you away from your friends?”
“I am here alone,” Lord Henry said, sounding preoccupied. “It is comforting to think that you feel safer with me than with that ruffian!”
This was an aspect of the situation that had not occurred to Polly at all. She stopped in an arched doorway. It was not possible to see Lord Henry’s face in the pale light. “Oh, I never even thought—” she said, uncertainly.
“Perhaps you should have done.” Lord Henry sounded grim. “You were flatteringly quick to entrust yourself to me, but my reputation is scarce such that a young lady should consider taking a walk in the dark with me!”
“Well!” Polly had had time to become indignant. “I think it most unfair of you to ring a peal over me for trusting you, sir! I had little choice but to consider you the lesser of two evils!”
She heard Lord Henry laugh at that. “Better the devil you know?” His shoulder brushed a spray of honeysuckle and released fresh scent into the air. He was very close and Polly suddenly became intensely aware of his physical presence. Her throat felt constricted.
“Besides…” she was clutching at straws now “…on the last occasion that we met, sir, you behaved with perfect propriety! It led me to believe that what I had heard of you was grossly exaggerated—”
She had taken a cautious step forward as she spoke, missed her footing on a step, and felt Lord Henry’s arms go around her to steady her.
“You misjudged me,” Lord Henry said with satisfaction, “and this, Lady Polly, is where I have been wanting you ever since I saw you this evening.”
The dark night was intimate and warm. Polly felt curiously anonymous, as though she could say anything, do anything, without it really mattering. She did not try to break away from him, but stood in the circle of his arms, their bodies touching lightly. In the silence she could hear him breathing.
She raised her mouth to Henry’s, waiting in a fever of anticipation for the gentle persuasiveness of his first kiss to deepen into passion. She pressed herself against him, entwining her arms about his neck to hold him close. He was keeping his kisses frustratingly light, but when Polly slid her hands into his hair she heard him groan and his mouth returned to hers with more force and more demand. She parted her lips beneath the sensual pressure of his and leaned back against the doorway, drawing him with her. It was as though she had become a creature of sensation only. Her cloak had slid back and she could feel the warmth of his body against hers creating a delicious, seductive need within her. One of his hands brushed the cloak aside and moved to caress her breast very gently. His mouth was rough on hers now and she revelled in it, gasping his name against his lips. And then, suddenly, it was over and she was left shivering in the chill breeze.
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Nicola Cornick
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Even as Lady Polly rejected another proposal of marriage, her heart burned for the man she′d rejected five years ago.She′d heard that in his misery, her beloved Lord Henry Marchnight had become a rogue and a gambler. But when he appeared before her on a deserted terrace and stole a kiss, Polly knew that her passion hadn′t died. The man still knew how to steal her reason with one touch.But reason she needed as suspicions of criminal behavior hovered about Lord Henry. Should she return to her routine of spurning suitors? Or should she do what she should have done five years ago–trust her love and follow her heart…?