“Oh, I collect that it is acceptable for a gentleman to have such a thing, but not for ladies to refer to her?” Polly frowned at her brother. “And if you try to tell me that Lady Bolt has become respectable since her marriage I will count you a greater fool than I already do! What of Hetty, Peter?”
The amusement went out of Peter Seagrave’s face like a candle blown out. He studied the dancers with sudden intentness. “Miss Markham and I are no longer…That is, we have agreed that we would not suit.”
“Oh, Peter!” Polly looked up at him, genuinely shocked. Peter swung gently back on his rout chair, feigning nonchalance.
“It was only last summer that you were bowled over by her,” Polly added reproachfully.
“Miss Markham was a different girl last summer.” Peter was looking both annoyed and upset now. “Unspoilt, 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 titled 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 caressingly 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 Seagrave which contrasted starkly with the predatory sexuality 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 Seagrave looked acutely uncomfortable and his sister almost surprised herself by giggling. Doubtless she should have felt shocked, but Lady Bolt was so superlatively overdramatic 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 cardroom.
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 flustered. The Dowager Lady Seagrave 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 Marmaduke. How do you do, sir?”
Sir Marmaduke Shipley gazed languishingly at her. An ageing roué, 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 Marmaduke handed Polly a glass 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 Marmaduke, found herself smiling gratefully at him instead.
“What exquisite looks you are in tonight, my lady,” Sir Marmaduke 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 Marmaduke’s dissolute gaze roved over her familiarly. Lady Polly Seagrave 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 upswept 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 Marmaduke’s eyes lingered in lascivious appreciation. Whilst the dragonish Dowager was fully occupied, he intended to take full advantage of this unexpected tête-à-tête.
Polly sighed again. She had far too much assurance to feel threatened by Sir Marmaduke’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 Marmaduke 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 Markham’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 Marmaduke’s bait. “I do not care for this conversation, sir.”
“No?” Sir Marmaduke’s gaze moved thoughtfully to her empty glass and he summoned another full one from a passing 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 Marmaduke said again. There was a look of malicious amusement 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 Marchnight…”
For a moment Polly’s dark gaze met Sir Marmaduke’s, then she looked away. She took another mouthful of fruit punch without noticing. It was so easy to take refuge in her glass 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 asserted 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 Seagrave was still chatting, glancing across at her daughter with unusual and misplaced satisfaction. It would take a brave soul to interrupt Sir Marmaduke 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 Marmaduke murmured. “When my sole intention is your delight, beauteous lady—”