Lady Polly

“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.