Lady Polly Part 89

After she had gone, Polly slid from the bed and checked the door herself.

It did not move an inch. Polly ate her breakfast slowly, puzzling over the mystery, but she could come up with no explanation and eventually gave up, choosing instead to sit by the open window and look out at the fresh, blue day. The rain had left deep, water-filled ruts in the track, and Polly was surprised to see a carriage picking its way carefully through the quagmire.

It paused at the gate, where the Dit tons' coach rattled past it with rather more speed than was wise, then turned on to the forecourt of the House of Tides.

Polly hurried down the stairs. Lord Henry March- night was just coming into the hall, his hair tousled by the fresh breeze. Polly eyed him suspiciously.

He looked remarkably wide awake for someone who had spent the best part of the night prowling around and, she suspected, up to no good.

"Good morning. Lady Polly! I hope you are recovered from the trials and tribulations of last night! Sir G.o.dfrey Or bison has just arrived--no doubt to rescue the susceptible Sea graves from the clutches of the wicked Lady Belling ham!"

Sir G.o.dfrey's stentorian tones could already be heard haranguing an impa.s.sive Gaston at the door.

"Come to find out what the deuce is going on! Only arrived at Dilling ham last night to find Cecil ia Sea- grave in receipt of a dashed odd message about the whereabouts of her family! Sea grave has been called away so I undertook to find out how everyone came to be marooned out here! Dashed lonely spot, what! Dashed odd place to live!"

"Sir G.o.dfrey!" Polly called, running across the hall and hugging her G.o.dfather.

"How are you, sir?"

"Sharp-set, miss, sharp-set!" Sir G.o.dfrey said, smiling despite himself.

"Sent out here on some outlandish wild goose chase before I even had my breakfast! What's going on, eh?"

"We were caught in a storm yesterday and had to seek shelter here,"

Polly said, catching his arm and turning him towards the drawing-room.

"Come, I must introduce you to Lady Belling ham, who was kind enough to rescue us!"

"No need, my dear. Sir G.o.dfrey and I are old acquaintances!"

The drawing-room door had been thrown open with a nourish worthy of a great melodrama. Lady Bel- ling ham, resplendent in a sapphire gown and diaphanous scarves, wafted forward.

"G.o.dfrey!" she said in throbbing accents.

"To think that we should meet again after all this time! You went away, you wicked man!"

"Bessie!" Sir G.o.dfrey had dropped Polly's arm as though thunderstruck and had hastened forward with the speed of a young man.

"My dear Bessie! You married Another!"

"Only because you had deserted me, you cruel deceiver!" Lady Belling ham said, tapping him on the arm with her peac.o.c.k fan.

"So much time lost!" Sir G.o.dfrey mourned, enthusiastically kissing her on both cheeks.

"So much to rediscover!"

Polly's jaw had dropped as she watched this tableau unfold.

"I think we are witnessing a great romance," a voice said in her ear, 'though Lady Belling ham seems uncertain whether this is to be a tragedy or a comic opera! " Polly turned to see Lord Henry grinning as he watched Lady Belling ham steer Sir G.o.dfrey towards the drawing-room, looking up at him flirtatiously as she went. The elderly baronet seemed totally enslaved.

Moreover he was willing, eager, to be swept away.

"Now that we have found each other again, G.o.d- frey," Lady Belling ham said in throbbing tones, "I insist that you sample my hospitality for a little!

The children--' she dismissed Polly and Henry with a wave of the fan '--can amuse themselves for a while! There is so much for us to talk on! " And she shut the door firmly behind them.

"Well!" Henry said, still smiling.

"It seems Lady Belling ham has found yet another way in which to scandalise the neighbour hood and Sir G.o.dfrey will be her willing dupe!"

"Their romance... It seems most unlikely..." Polly ventured.

"True..." there was a twinkle in Lord Henry's eyes 'but one must not consider romance to be the prerogative of the young! I have no doubt that those two had a most pa.s.sionate affair--' "Lord Henry!"

"Still so proper. Lady Polly?"

"Unlike you, my lord!"

Lord Henry's grin was broad now.

"Perhaps you should hurry back to your chaste maiden bower, Lady Polly!

Unfortunately, you are unlikely to have Sir G.o.dfrey's escort, and your brother and Miss Mark- ham are exchanging sweet nothings in the garden.

So..."

Polly's lips tightened at his teasing.

"Must you always make a mock of things, my lord?"

"On the contrary!" Henry's gaze was bright on her. "I consider love to be a very serious matter!"

"So I have heard! And seen! There are those who consider it to be your only preoccupation, my lord!"

"No, that's too unkind!" Henry's smile faded and his glance was a challenge now.

"But you. Lady Polly--your att.i.tude is a little different, is it not?

You always seem to behave as though there was something shameful about love, or at the least something shameful about honest emotion. I suppose it is the result of so sheltered and restrictive an upbringing!"

Polly stared at him speechlessly. It seemed at least five seconds before she managed to exclaim, "Well upon my word, my lord! Your presumption is outrageous!"

Henry's look was a provocation in itself.

"Is that so? Then tell me your own view of the matter!"

"It is true that I have had a protected upbringing, being the youngest and the only daughter--' Polly was so indignant that she needed no second invitation '--but I do not believe that I have suffered as a result either materially or emotionally! I consider myself to be a woman of sense! I do not know what type of woman you admire, Lord Henry, but if it is one full of die-away airs and affected sensibility then I must agree I do not conform to that style!"

"Yet on the surface you appear so prim and conventional," Lord Henry countered with every evidence of regret.