The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

recognise him under the grime. Heat rushed through her at the memory of him so utterly male and yet so endearingly boyish in all his dirt. That hot bolt of what must be carnal desire unnerved her.

      She’d spent years thinking herself a freak for not feeling the wanton urges some women seemed to be brought so low by. Now she was yearning like a schoolgirl for a man who very likely wished she didn’t exist. Horrified to catch herself sitting among her friends, a dreamy smile on her face, she tried to make sense of the various strands of conversation and join in, but it was like trying to weave cloth out of cobwebs and the chatter faded into the background again as sorting out her feelings towards the lord of Dayspring Castle took centre stage once more.

      The man was a walking conundrum, she concluded, frowning at the empty fireplace. If she understood him a little better, maybe she could put him out of her head and get on with her life. At first sight he’d looked almost too perfect, like a hero out of a myth rather than a real man. She supposed she’d been as taken in by his surface polish and glamour as everyone else after that first bolt of heady shock that here was the man she’d never let herself dream of, standing there watching her with whole worlds of promise in his blue eyes. Something told her that shield was part of a game he played with his fellow man even then and perhaps that accounted for her irritation with him as soon as she realised he wasn’t put on this earth to make her feel unique and feminine and found.

      Could such a self-contained man let anyone see him as he really was? She doubted it, but if he did she hoped she wasn’t here to see it. There, she had admitted it, even if only in her thoughts. She wanted to be his special female, the one to unlock his guarded heart and make herself uniquely at home in his arms. Well, she could want as much as she liked, it would never happen. How could it when she was herself and he was Marquis of Mantaigne?

      ‘Woolgathering again, my dear?’ Lady Wakebourne asked softly.

      Polly realised the others had said goodnight and gone to their own quarters without her even noticing. ‘Apparently,’ she admitted, finding her gaze hard to meet.

      ‘High time you got some sleep if you’re planning more relentless toil in the morning, my dear,’ her ladyship told her, and Polly meekly got to her feet and took a last look round the now shadowy parlour.

      How much longer would they be able to sit together so sociably at the end of a day’s work like this? The question added another layer to her discomfort as she followed her ladyship down the grand stone stairway and outside into the twilight. So much was changing here and Polly knew her driven urge to work hard stemmed from a need to fight those changes and pretend all would be well again. That was obviously impossible; they lived in a different place and time now and she should accept it and plan her next move.

      ‘Did Lord Mantaigne really find that lovely cloth for my new habit in an attic we managed not to discover somehow?’ she asked as they made their way across the courtyard and she did her best to curb her long stride to her ladyship’s shorter pace.

      ‘Yes, he thinks the box must have been thrown in a dark corner when his grandmother died and the fabrics she planned to have her London dressmaker make up for her were forgotten. Lucky for us, since if they had been turned into clothes we’d have had to look at you dressed like a scarecrow for evermore.’

      ‘I shall ignore that comment as best I can, but it must have taken a deal of work to make it up so beautifully.’

      ‘We love you, my dear,’ the lady said simply, and Polly battled tears.

      ‘It’s so long since anyone said so,’ she admitted huskily, ‘and I love you too.’

      ‘Thank you. After Greville shot himself I thought I was too bitter and twisted up with fury and grief to love anyone again, but you and your brothers and the unlikely friends we’ve gathered along the way taught me otherwise. You have made a lot of difference to a good many lives, Polly. I hope you’ll see how special you are one day and how very lucky those boys of yours are to have such a sister.’

      ‘I only did what any sister would,’ Polly protested uncomfortably.

      ‘Most would have sent their brothers to a charitable institution and done whatever they had to in order to make their own way in the world. Not many would put their half-brothers before their reputations and any prospect of a decent marriage. I would not have done what you did at seventeen; I was far too selfish and pleased with myself for such a sacrifice back then.’

      ‘You would have done exactly as I did. The boys had done nothing to deserve what happened to us and I couldn’t let Papa’s folly cost them a future.’

      ‘At the price of your own,’ her friend pointed out gently.

      Polly paused before she spoke, wondering why they’d never talked this freely in all the years they had known each other. ‘I was too young to see that then and now my brothers’ needs outweigh mine.’

      ‘You are still human, child—you can’t rule passions and emotions out of your life because your father seems to have indulged in far too many of them. If you ever need a listener, I’m an older and wiser woman than I was once,’ Lady Wakebourne offered as if she thought Polly might stand in need of a confidante before too long.

      ‘Finding a new home and some sort of future for Toby and Henry and Josh is more important than my little worries,’ she said as if that was all that mattered in her life, as indeed it had to be.

      ‘You’re still too young to shoulder such responsibility. I really hope your father was properly ashamed of himself for leaving you in such dire straits.’

      ‘He always thought we would come about.’

      ‘When that last ill-considered venture took every penny he had?’

      ‘It could have worked,’ Polly defended her feckless father.

      ‘And you should have had a life of your own, instead of being provider and protector to those heedless boys before you were out of the schoolroom.’

      ‘They’re not heedless, and I’m happy here—or I was until we were found out,’ Polly argued. ‘Anyway, I would never have taken in polite society.’

      ‘Nonsense, you may be taller than the average, but the polite world would be well pleased by the sight of you if you’d ever had a Season in town.’

      ‘There we must differ, so shall we forget building castles in Spain and go to bed, my lady?’

      ‘Aye, although whether you’ll sleep when you get there is a very different matter,’ Lady Wakebourne said as if she knew a little bit too much about Polly’s restless nights and disturbing dreams for comfort.

       Chapter Eleven

      ‘Someone was skulking about the castle again last night, my lord,’ Partridge the gatekeeper informed Tom about a week after Peters left for London and Miss Trethayne resumed her petticoats.

      The idea he measured out his days by her actions disturbed him more than any rogues ambling about the disused wings of the castle in the dark. Unluckily for him, she looked even more magnificent in skirts than she did in breeches. Lady Wakebourne was obviously intent on torturing him, since each garment produced out of that accurst trunk in the rafters suited her protégée better than the last.

      First there was that dratted habit, draped so delightfully about her long limbs and feminine curves he could hardly concentrate on staying in his own saddle whenever she was wearing it, let alone any of the places he was supposed to be taking such an interest in. Then there was a dark-crimson monstrosity, made from finest silk velvet with such a sneakily modest bodice he was certain its wearer had no idea how immodest it truly was. The colour suited her and the fine stuff clung to every sleek and lovely line of her and when she moved he badly wanted to know how it felt between his touch and the warm woman underneath.

      He only just suppressed a groan at the very thought of her hips swaying gracefully in