Lady Polly

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!”