Nicola Cornick - Lady Polly

The terrace was deeply shadowed and Polly purposefully made for the furthest corner, only turning back to Lord Henry when she had gained its seclusion. The cool evening air had helped to sober her a little, but she still felt remarkably buoyant and determined. Yet as soon as she opened her mouth the words seemed to desert her.

“I hoped…I wished…I wanted to say…” Suddenly it seemed incredibly difficult to frame the appropriate phrases. She had wanted to be so gracious, easily putting an end to five years’ embarrassment. At this rate she would cause five years’ more! And Lord Henry was not helping her, lounging against the parapet and watching her with the same thoughtful consideration he had already shown.

“Yes, ma’am? You have already implied that you had something of importance to impart to me. I should not be here else.”

Polly’s cheeks, already flushed with unaccustomed high colour from the punch, became even rosier. “Oh, you are the most odious man! I only wished to say that I wanted us to be friends!” Memory came to her aid. “I want us to be friends in future and I want us to be comfortable together!” she brought out, triumphantly. It had a reassuring sound, although comfortable was about the last thing Lord Henry made her feel. “And if you wish it too, then there is no bar—”

“Ah, but perhaps I do not.” Lord Henry was smiling a little now, for he knew that certain suspicions he had harboured about Lady Polly’s lack of sobriety had been confirmed. She was not drunk, precisely, he thought, but she was not perfectly sober. And she was evidently too innocent to have realised her state. Or her danger.

“Oh!” Polly had anticipated his compliance and there was no doubt that this refusal to conform had thrown her plans. Lord Henry watched in amusement as she tried to puzzle it out. With her tumbled curls, pink cheeks and bright eyes, she looked wholly enchanting. He felt a certain impulse stir in him and tried half-heartedly to stifle it. He straightened up and took a step closer to her. Polly did not appear to notice.

“Well, if you do not care to be comfortable with me—”

“No, ma’am.” Lord Henry was still immaculately polite, even as he calculated, quite coldly, what he was about to do. “Comfortable is not a word I could ever apply to our situation.”

“Then—” Polly was at a loss. “If you do not wish us to be friends, what…?”

Lord Henry made a slight, dismissive gesture. “What could a rake wish for from a lady on a providentially empty terrace?”

“Oh!”

Understanding came to Polly at the very last moment, but her head still felt as though it was stuffed with wool. Time seemed to pass very slowly. Indeed, she had time to reflect that she had never been kissed by a man, since she had always been exceptionally careful to avoid being alone with any gentleman who was not a relative. Then she remembered that when she had been in the throes of her infatuation, she had quite ached for Lord Henry to kiss her as long as it had been in a completely undemanding fashion. Some chaste but impassioned salutation had been the height of her aspirations.

This kiss might have been impassioned, but in no way could it be described as chaste. Lord Henry’s arm slid about Polly’s waist and brought her into sudden, shocking contact with his body. His mouth captured hers with the ruthless skill of the expert, parting her lips so that her gasp of outrage was lost. For several long, spellbinding seconds, Polly was swept up in a passion too complex and demanding for her even to begin to resist.

Lord Henry let her go very gently and Polly stared at him in silence. The combined effects of unaccustomed drink and strong emotion made her feel quite shaken and she put a hand onto the parapet to steady herself. The stone was cool beneath her fingers, already damp with the night’s dew. Polly frowned a little, confused. How could this have happened when she had intended so different an outcome? Then, utterly unexpectedly, Lord Henry took her hand and pressed a kiss on the palm.

“Do not look at me so reproachfully, Lady Polly,” he said quietly. “Remember that you took your part in making me what I am.”

He turned to go and was confronted once again by the Dowager Countess of Seagrave, rushing precipitately to the rescue. He gave her a most flawless, ironic bow.

“Lady Seagrave! How do you do, ma’am? I remember once telling you that I would never approach your daughter again. Alas that I am forced to contradict myself, for I find I have a most urgent need to make her reacquaintance! Your servant, ma’am!”

And he left the outraged Dowager spluttering for words.

Polly woke up with the conviction that something was terribly wrong. Her head ached with an unaccustomed thick throbbing and her tongue felt furry. She rolled on to her back. The sun was streaming through the curtains and she could hear the sound of wheels in the street outside. It was late.

Through the woolly feeling in her head, Polly remembered the fruit punch, so apparently innocuous and yet so dangerous. Oh, how could she have been such a fool, she who had been out for five years! Drinking spirits, becoming flirtatious, crowning her folly with a drunken encounter on the terrace with Lord Henry Marchnight! No doubt he thought her the most unutterable fool! She squirmed, turning her hot face into the cool linen pillow in an attempt to wipe out the vivid memories which were flooding back.

“I’ve tried to wake her once already, my lady,” a voice was saying, and Polly shot bolt upright, suddenly terrified that her mother was at the door. But it was only Lucille, who came into the room and pulled back the bedcurtains with a resounding rasp that echoed through Polly’s head.

“Oh! Do not!” Polly’s groan was heartfelt. She slumped back on the pillows, feeling dizzy. Her sister-in-law paused in surprise.

“Polly? Are you ill? I thought that you were coming with me to Lady Routledge’s picnic?”

The light was making Polly’s eyes stream. She squinted at Lucille through the brightness. There was a rhythmic pounding in her ears although she had no recollection of any major building works currently taking place on the house. “Oh dear…I think I may be sick…”

“If I did not know better, I should say that you were foxed,” Lucille was saying severely, eyeing her sister-in-law closely. “I had no idea that Lady Phillips’s ridotto had been such a hotbed of iniquity! Or was it the prawn patties you ate, perhaps? Yes, so much better for it to be the prawns, I think…That is what I shall tell your Mama. I will come and see you later…”

Polly was beyond replying. She turned over and was asleep again at once.

It was the afternoon when she awoke again, feeling marginally better.

“Lady Seagrave said that I wasn’t to disturb you on account of you being so sick, ma’am,” Polly’s maid said sympathetically, when summoned at last by the bell. “Can I fetch you anything, ma’am? Some food?”

A spasm of distaste crossed Polly’s face. “I think not, Jessie. Just a very large glass of water, if you please. I have seldom been so thirsty! And I shall get up now, I think.”

Jessie looked dubious. “Well, ma’am, if you’re sure you’re ready! My brother usually takes a day to sleep off his excesses…” She caught Polly’s outraged expression and dropped a submissive curtsy. A country girl from the Seagraves’ Suffolk estate, Jessie had a kind heart but no tact. “As you wish, ma’am!” she finished hastily. “Shall you be going out?”

“Yes!” Polly snapped, suddenly anxious to refute the suggestion that she was a drunkard to rival Jessie’s brother. “We shall go to the circulating library! My lilac walking dress, please!”