There was a martial light in Polly's eye.

"Your attentions are bestowed somewhat indiscriminately, my lord!"

"I protest! There is no truth in those rum ours!"

Polly looked sceptical.

"How can you deny it, sir? I suppose that at the least I should commend your taste in admiring my sister-in-law!"

Lord Henry raised a lazy eyebrow.

"I collect that you refer to Lady Sea grave?"

"How many other sisters-in-law do I have, sir?" Polly snapped, wishing she had not started on this line of conversation.

"Can you deny that you hold her in great esteem?"

"Certainly not!" Henry said promptly.

"She is a woman of great good sense and I admire her extremely! But that is all there is to it!"

Polly noted how relieved she felt and perversely wished to punish him.

"That at least could be understood I suppose! But as for Lady Bolt! Do you forget that I saw you with my own eyes at Richmond?"

"Ah." Lord Henry stretched his long legs and admired the polish on his boots.

"I wondered whether you would ever have the courage to challenge me with that particular incident!"

"Courage!" Polly was really annoyed now.

"It does not require courage, sir, only a little less regard for convention than you would usually find in me! I certainly have the fort.i.tude to accuse you of trifling with my feelings and of falling prey to Lady Bolt's blowsy charms!"

Henry was laughing now, which only added to Polly's anger. Normally she would never have spoken thus. To challenge a gentleman about his behaviour was simply not done, particularly if that behaviour involved a member of the demimonde.

"How unladylike in you to disparage a rival! I would never have thought it of you. Lady Polly!"

Polly was incensed.

"Lady Bolt is no rival of mine! She is welcome to you, sir!"

She tried to rise, but Henry caught her wrist and held her still.

"You think, then, that I had arranged to meet Lady Bolt at Richmond?"

Polly tried to sound scornful.

"I had a.s.sumed that to be the case! Or perhaps I misjudge you! Perhaps you simply seized an opportunity that presented itself to you?"

Henry was still looking amused but there was now a grim edge to his smile.

"Oh, no, you are quite correct! I did arrange to meet Lady Bolt, but perhaps not for the reason that you suspect!"

"I am sure we were all able to guess what that reason was, sir!" Polly was smarting now from having her suspicions confirmed, and in so apparently unconcerned a way. Evidently Lord Henry was dead to all sense of propriety!

"And if I were to say that I was more sinned against than sinning? More kissed against than kissing, perhaps--would you like to know how that feels.

Lady Polly?"

Their gazes locked for a heated moment, then Polly glanced instinctively towards the house, a bare twenty yards away.

"You would not dare!"

"A dangerous a.s.sumption!"

Afterwards, Polly was never quite sure how much had been duress and how far she had moved of her own volition. Certainly Henry had kissed her and when he had stopped she had been in his arms, with no indication of how she had got there or how long she had been there. Indeed, she had no memory of anything other than the delicious pleasure of being kissed by him, a pleasure it would have been foolish to deny since her body was betraying her enjoyment by pressing closer to him.

"Oh, dear. Lady Polly," Henry said with regret, 'it seems that the experience was not so repulsive for you as it was for me with Lady Bolt! " He gave her a mocking smile that made Polly want to slap him and with an unforgivable breach of good manners, abandoned her on the garden seat and strode off indoors.

"Oh!"

Polly only realised that she had spoken aloud when she saw the Dowager Countess hurrying across the lawn towards her.

"Are you unwell, my love?" her mother asked, her face creased with concern.

"You sounded quite as though you were suffering from the indigestion!

And Lord Henry implied that you are not feeling in quite plump currant.

He said that the sun had gone to your head!"

"Oh!" Polly thought that she would explode with indignation and outrage.

"Conceited, intolerable man!"

The Dowager looked concerned.

"Really, my love, I do think you might show a little more grat.i.tude!

Lord Henry has done us more than one great service! If you find you cannot like him, at least you could pretend!"

Chapter Nine.

QysQ roily was mortified when Lord Henry chose to escort his mother and sister to Dilling ham the following day. She had spent a restless night tossing and turning, reproaching herself for her hasty words to him and for giving him the opportunity to humiliate her further. It was only when she had become calmer that Polly had wondered what Lord Henry had meant by saying that his reason for arranging to meet Lady Bolt had perhaps not been what people might think. Though she puzzled over it, Polly could think of no explanation other than the obvious. It was another mystery to add to all the other riddles surrounding Henry March night.

Fortunately Polly was not required to sit in the drawing-room and make polite conversation with him. Nick Sea grave offered to show Henry the stables and the two of them went off, leaving the ladies alone.

The d.u.c.h.ess and the Dowager Countess Sea grave had never been close friends, but they quickly found common ground in mutual acquaintances and experiences, and when they were comfortably established, Laura turned to Polly with a shy smile and asked if she might see the orangery.

"I have heard that it dates from the seventeenth century and is very fine,"

she confided, as they strolled along the covered colonnade that connected the main part of the house to the conservatories.