Lady Polly Part 4

"It was only last summer that you were bowled over by her," Polly added reproachfully.

"Miss Mark ham was a different girl last summer." Peter was looking both annoyed and upset now.

"Un spoilt, 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 t.i.tled 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 cares singly 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 Sea grave which contrasted starkly with the predatory s.e.xuality 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 Sea grave looked acutely uncomfortable and his sister almost surprised herself by giggling.

Doubtless she should have felt shocked, but Lady Bolt was so superlatively over-dramatic 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 card room.

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 fl.u.s.tered. The Dowager Lady Sea- grave 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 Mar ma duke. How do you do, sir?"

Sir Mar ma duke Shipley gazed languishingly at her. An ageing roue, 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 Mar ma duke handed Polly a gla.s.s 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 Mar ma duke, found herself smiling gratefully at him instead.

"What exquisite looks you are in tonight, my lady," Sir Mar ma duke 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 Mar ma duke's dissolute gaze roved over her familiarly. Lady Polly Sea- grave 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 up swept 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 Mar ma duke's eyes lingered in lascivious appreciation. Whilst the dragonish Dowager was fully occupied, he intended to take full advantage of this unexpected teteatete.

Polly sighed again. She had far too much a.s.surance to feel threatened by Sir Mar ma duke'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 Mar ma duke 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 Mark ham'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 Mar ma duke's bait.

"I do not care for this conversation, sir."

"No?" Sir Mar ma duke's gaze moved thoughtfully to her empty gla.s.s and he summoned another full one from a pa.s.sing 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 Mar ma duke said again. There was a look of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt 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 March night..."

For a moment Polly's dark gaze met Sir Mar ma- duke's, then she looked away.

She took another mouthful of fruit punch without noticing. It was so easy to take refuge in her gla.s.s 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 a.s.serted 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 Sea- grave was still chatting, glancing across at her daughter with unusual and misplaced satisfaction. It would take a brave soul to interrupt Sir Mar ma duke 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 Mar ma duke 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 March night 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 lightheaded.

"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 marvelous.

"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 Sea graves courting scandal?" Lord Henry continued.

"First your brother sets himself up as Lady Bolt's new..." he hesitated 'new flirt, then you grant Sir Mar ma duke Shipley a tete-a-tete 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 Mar ma duke's nose. Sir Mar ma duke 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?