Lady Polly

by Nicola Cornick

  Lady Bellingham was yawning much in the manner of Horace the cat.

  “I’m for bed, then,” she announced, patting Henry on the arm. “I am too old for all this excitement!”

  Polly withdrew hastily to her room, closing the door softly as Lady Bellingham started up the stairs. She slid into bed, shivering a little.

  Not a tryst then, so…what? A business transaction? But what could be so secret as to require so clandestine a meeting in the middle of the night? And what was it that Henry had said? Polly stretched out in the warmth, still puzzling. She remembered seeing Henry poking about on the beach earlier in the day and his mention of a secret passage linking the House of Tides to the sea. But…surely he was no smuggler, and what other purpose could he have for using such a route?

  All Polly’s previous suspicions came flooding back. He had been conveniently to hand to rescue them from the riot in London. Too conveniently, perhaps? He had carried a pistol when he had apparently been returning home from a ball. He was a man who habitually concealed his sharpness of mind beneath a bland exterior. And now he was up and about on a stormy night by the sea…But Polly’s common sense was telling her that allegations of criminality were absurd, and something deeper told her fiercely that Henry was a man of integrity. Besides, there was Lady Bellingham’s part in this. As smuggler’s accomplice? The thought made Polly want to laugh.

  She was just about to drift back into sleep when there was a tiny click and the door of Polly’s room opened a crack. Through a gap in the bed curtains she saw the faint light increase as the door was pushed wider. Someone was standing in the aperture, listening. Polly froze. She leant out of bed and groped quickly and silently for something, anything to defend herself with. Her hand closed around the edge of the chamber pot. Without conscious thought, she ripped the bed curtains back and swung her arm in a wide arc. The pot made contact with something, there was a muffled gasp from the intruder, and Polly began to scream.

  There was light and people everywhere, all of them talking at once. Polly could see Hetty’s frightened face and Miss Ditton hovering behind her, avid and curious. Then Lady Bellingham came bustling forward in a monstrous bedcap and the vivid dressing-gown, and candlelight fell on the prone body of Mr Ditton, lying on the rug just inside Polly’s doorway, clutching his head and groaning.

  “Ditton!”

  “Tristan!”

  Peter Seagrave’s exclamation and Miss Ditton’s screech of horror coincided.

  His jaw set, Peter plucked the luckless Mr Ditton off the floor and started to shake him.

  “What the hell are you doing in my sister’s bedroom, you loathsome cur?”

  Miss Ditton began to cry noisily. Hetty rushed forward anxiously to ask if Polly was hurt. Polly sat down rather heavily on the edge of the bed, supported by Lady Bellingham’s arm.

  “I am quite well, I thank you, just a little shaken…”

  Hetty was now trying to persuade Peter to let Tristan Ditton go, whilst Thalia was clinging to her brother’s arm and pulling him in an opposite direction from Peter. Polly felt they might almost pull him apart between them.

  “Oh, please let him go—” she started to say, only to find that control of the situation had been grasped firmly by Lord Henry Marchnight.

  “A simple misunderstanding, I feel sure, Seagrave. I am persuaded that you would not wish to inflict any further injuries to Ditton’s person! Why, his elegant night attire is quite ruined, I fancy!”

  No one except Polly seemed to find it odd that Lord Henry’s major concern should be for Mr Ditton’s clothing, for they were all quite used to his preoccupation with sartorial matters. Ditton, released from Peter’s cruel grip, drew himself up and exclaimed that the state of his silk dressing-gown was truly disgraceful, but not so shocking as the state of his nerves after an unwarranted attack.

  Henry’s ironic gaze then fell on Polly, still clasped within Lady Bellingham’s protective arm.

  “Not really unwarranted, Ditton,” he drawled. “Seagrave did what any right-minded brother would do under the circumstances! Have you forgotten the agitation occasioned to Lady Polly at finding you in her room? An apology at least, dear fellow…”

  Ditton, recalled to the demands of good behaviour, gulped a little, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Dear Lady Polly…of course…such a terrible mistake. I was looking for the closet and became quite lost in the dark…oh, dear, I am most abjectly sorry…”

  “No harm done, eh, Ditton?” Henry observed, mercifully putting an end to this miserable monologue. “Except perhaps, to your head!”

  The tension began to dissolve. Miss Ditton gulped noisily.

  “Oh, Tristan, how could you be so foolish…?”

  “Lady Polly…terrible mistake…abject apologies…” Mr Ditton was still stuttering. He was still looking a little stunned from Peter’s treatment, his thin, foxy face a sickly pale colour and his grey eyes darting fearfully. He put a hand to his head. “Excuse me…Must retire…”

  He wandered off along the landing, silk dressing-gown flapping, and Lady Bellingham started to shoo the others out of the room with a mixture of clucking and scolding.

  “Come along, now! Back to your beds, all of you! Conchita!” She clapped her hands and the maid appeared apparently from nowhere, “Show these ladies back to their rooms! Good night!”

  Peter and Hetty were disposed to linger until Polly reassured them with a pale smile.

  “Truly, I am not hurt, only a little shocked. Oh, thank you, ma’am—” She accepted a glass of brandy from Lady Bellingham, then looked at it dubiously. “Must I indeed drink this?”

  “For the shock, my dear,” Lady Bellingham counselled. “It will help you sleep.”

  The grandfather clock chimed two.

  The drink was very pungent and burned its way down Polly’s throat.

  “Poor Mr Ditton!” She started to laugh. “I imagine I gave him far more of a fright than he did me!”

  “You were remarkably accurate with that chamber pot, my dear,” Lady Bellingham observed. “One scarce knows whether to be grateful or otherwise that it was empty!”

  It was only later, when Lady Bellingham had left her and the house had settled down once more into quiet, that Polly curled up and wondered how Lord Henry had managed to appear in his night attire. Only minutes earlier she had seen him in the hall, fully dressed.

  She was about to fall asleep for a third time that evening when she remembered the corner door. Some instinct prompted her to check that it was locked, although she had no reason to suppose otherwise. She dragged herself out of the bed again into the cold room. She shivered as she crossed the floor and turned the knob. The door swung smoothly open without a sound and the dark stair gaped below.

  Chapter Twelve

  All sleepiness fled from Polly’s mind. The door, which had been locked when she went to bed, was now standing open. A faint draught, scented with sea salt, wafted into the room and the darkness yawned below. For a moment she stared, unbelieving, down the dark stair, then she slammed the door shut as though she almost expected an intruder to appear before her eyes. There was a heavy oak armchair in a corner of the room, and Polly made haste to drag it across in front of the turret door, barricading herself in as best she could. The silence of the House of Tides seemed to spread around her. There was no step on the stair, no turning of the knob, but it was a long time before Polly returned to bed and even longer before she slept.

  “You look fagged to death, poor child,” Lady Bellingham said next morning, “and no wonder! What a night of alarums and excursions!”

  She had brought Polly’s breakfast tray herself and now moved forward to draw back the curtains, letting in the bright sunlight and swathe of blue, rainwashed sky. Her dark, thoughtful gaze lingered on the heavy wooden chair which was still in place squarely against the door.

  “Lady Bellingham,” Polly said directly, “do you know where the key is for that door?”

  For a moment she thought that he
r ladyship looked distinctly furtive. “The key? Is it not in the door, my love? I must confess I have not seen it this age, for we seldom use this room.”

  “The door was locked when I went to bed,” Polly said, feeling a little foolish at airing her suspicions in the bright light of day, “but it was open in the middle of the night! I cannot understand it!”

  Lady Bellingham’s eyes seemed to hold a secret amusement. “Oh, no, my dear, I am sure you must be mistaken! The door is always kept locked!” And to illustrate her point, she turned the knob and gave the door a hearty push. It did not move.

  “There now,” Lady Bellingham said comfortably. “I am persuaded that you must have dreamed it, my dear, and no wonder with all the shocks there were during the night! Mr Ditton and his sister seem in an unaccountable hurry to leave this morning! But at least Miss Ditton will be unable to gossip about last night’s rodomontade, since her own brother was the villain of the piece! Now, here is your dress, freshly laundered by Conchita, and you must join us downstairs only when you are ready!”

  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 Dittons’ 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 Marchnight 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 Godfrey Orbison has just arrived—no doubt to rescue the susceptible Seagraves from the clutches of the wicked Lady Bellingham!”

  Sir Godfrey’s stentorian tones could already be heard haranguing an impassive Gaston at the door.

  “Come to find out what the deuce is going on! Only arrived at Dillingham last night to find Cecilia Seagrave in receipt of a dashed odd message about the whereabouts of her family! Seagrave 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 Godfrey!” Polly called, running across the hall and hugging her godfather. “How are you, sir?”

  “Sharp-set, miss, sharp-set!” Sir Godfrey 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 Bellingham, who was kind enough to rescue us!”

  “No need, my dear. Sir Godfrey and I are old acquaintances!”

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

  “Godfrey!” she said in throbbing accents. “To think that we should meet again after all this time! You went away, you wicked man!”

  “Bessie!” Sir Godfrey 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 Bellingham said, tapping him on the arm with her peacock fan.

  “So much time lost!” Sir Godfrey 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 Bellingham seems uncertain whether this is to be a tragedy or a comic opera!”

  Polly turned to see Lord Henry grinning as he watched Lady Bellingham steer Sir Godfrey 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, Godfrey,” Lady Bellingham 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 Bellingham has found yet another way in which to scandalise the neighbourhood and Sir Godfrey 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 passionate 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 Godfrey’s escort, and your brother and Miss Markham 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 attitude 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. “One has the impression that any suggestion of strong emotion would have you recoiling with the vapours!”

  “Indeed!” Polly was now more cross than indignant. “I do not know how you have the effrontery to accuse me of a want of feeling! When we met in London you behaved like the greatest rake imaginable, and I did not hear you complaining that I was lacking in my response to you then!” She broke off and clapped her hand to her mouth, but it was too late. The words could not be unsaid.

  The expression on Henry’s face would have silenced her anyway. There was amusement there and a dawning warmth, melting into a tenderness that made her catch her breath.

  “You tricked me,” she said, and it came out as a whisper. “I should never have said that…”

  “Yes,” Henry also spoke softly, “I’ll admit I gave in to a perverse impulse to provoke you, for you sometimes seem so prim and yet I know you to be different…”

  The hot colour flooded Polly’s face. She took an instinctive step towards him, knowing that in a moment she wo
uld be in his arms.

  There was a blast of fresh, salty air, then the main door banged in the breeze and Gaston came forward, clucking with disapproval.

  “Morning, Polly! Morning, Marchnight!” Peter, smiling with genial cheer, ushered Hetty into the hall, where Gaston fussed about taking her scarf and coat. Peter was chatting easily to the butler and seemed completely oblivious to the scene before him. Hetty, her face flushed pink from the cold air, looked from Polly to Henry and raised her brows very slightly.

  Polly tore her gaze away from Henry’s with an effort of will.

  “I was just waiting for Sir Godfrey,” she said, slightly at random and to no one in particular. “He has come to escort us back to Dillingham, but it seems he is already acquainted with Lady Bellingham…” She gestured vaguely towards the drawing-room door.

  Henry was laughing openly at her obvious confusion and she was both charmed and annoyed by his teasing. He seemed suddenly so sure of his power to disturb her and with masculine arrogance was enjoying it. Despite Peter and Hetty’s arrival, Polly still felt deliciously flustered and excited. She knew that Henry would have kissed her if the others had not come in and she felt out-of-proportion disappointed to have been denied the experience.

  “Are you quite well, Lady Polly? You are looking rather flushed. Perhaps your experiences last night have overset you?” Henry had taken her hand, a wicked smile on his face, eyes dancing. “I hope you are quite well, for it is the Deben yacht race tomorrow morning and I quite count on your support to help me wrest the cup from Marcus Fitzgerald!”

  “Oh, a race!” Hetty clapped her hands, eyes shining. “We shall all be there to cheer you on, Lord Henry!”

  “There is a luncheon afterwards at the Queen’s Head,” Henry continued, “and, of course, in the evening there is your mother’s impromptu ball. A day of uninterrupted pleasure, which is what I like best!”