Lady Belling ham smiled fondly at Horace the cat, who was moving more swiftly than anyone had ever seen in his attempt to get away from under Mr Dit ton.
"Dear Horace," Lady Belling ham said sweetly. "Such a good judge of character! You are sitting in his place, I fear, Mr Dit ton. He will not be quick to forgive!"
Fortunately a loud thunderclap interrupted this exchange and the ladies all exclaimed in dismay. The rain was still tumbling from a leaden sky.
Lady Bel- ling ham prosaically ordered tea and Henry sensibly suggested that Tristan Dit ton and Peter join him in a game of billiards to while away the time.
The rain ceased for a while at about five, but Gas- ton gloomily reported that the road was still impa.s.sable by carriage. Henry suggested sending a messenger to Dilling ham, Fen church and Westwardine to explain that they were marooned for the night, and the Dit tons reluctantly agreed.
"I suppose staying here for the night is preferable to being set upon in the forest in the dark," Miss Dit- ton said discontentedly, staring out at the drenched garden.
"Preferable for you at least," Henry agreed blandly, smiling at her.
Polly stifled a giggle. She had noticed how Henry"s personality had undergone a subtle shift again as soon as they had company. He was still perfectly pleasant but the incisive edge had gone. Once again, Polly puzzled over the curious insipidity he could apparently a.s.sume at will.
"Perhaps, Miss Dit ton, if you are very fortunate, Lady Belling ham will lend you one of her night dresses," she said politely.
"Oh, my maid, Conchita, has just the thing for Miss Dit ton!" Lady Belling ham said cheerfully, ignoring Thalia Dit ton"s look of horror at being obliged to wear a maid"s night garments.
Lady Belling ham, revelling in her unexpected dinner party, did them proud with a meal of quail"s eggs, honey-roasted duckling and strawberries with cream. Even Miss Dit ton could not find fault with the hospitality. In the nickering candlelight they looked a motley crowd. Peter had become soaked looking for Polly earlier and had borrowed one of the late Lord Belling ham"s outfits. Unfortunately his lordship, like his spouse, had been built on ample lines and had also been several inches shorter than Peter. Polly felt like a small girl who had been rummaging in the dressing- up box and there was something distinctly raffish about Henry March night"s appearance, with no neck cloth and his tumbled faif hair.
Polly thought he looked most attractive but rather as though he had spent a long night at the gaming tables.
It was, in fact, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the evening that Henry spent so much time in her company. The others played a few desultory hands of whist and Miss Dit ton insisted in entertaining them at the pianoforte, but Henry gently monopolised Polly"s company and talked to her for most of the evening. Nor was it idle chitchat--they discovered and rediscovered their shared interests in music and the theatre, reading, walking and the countryside. Polly did not want the evening to end.
Miss Dit ton yawned loudly.
"Lud, how quiet it is out here in the middle of nowhere! I declare I would succ.u.mb to a fit of the meg rims if I were forced to spend any time here!
One could imagine all kinds of spectres and demons howling at the door!
" "They do say that Rendlesham Forest is haunted, Miss Dit ton," Lord Henry said idly, "so it is fortunate you were not obliged to make your way back through the dark. A broken axle, a lost wheel, and you would be at the mercy of the spirits! They say that the black shuck, a huge black spectral dog, stalks its prey on stormy nights! " Mr Dit ton gave his excitable, whinnying laugh.
"Or you would be at the mercy of more human predators! Is it true, dear Lady Belling ham, that there is a band of smugglers still at work in these parts, tapping on the window to signal the delivery of their goods, hiding brandy kegs in the churches...?"
Polly shivered as the shadows flickered. Out here, isolated on a stormy night, it was easy to believe almost anything. Hetty"s eyes were huge and frightened as she clutched Peter"s hand.
"I have never heard of it," Lady Belling ham said comfortably, leaning forward to put another log on the fire and smiling at Henry as he took it from her to place in the grate.
"The smugglers are long gone from here, Mr Dit ton. But by all means let us frighten ourselves with stories if we wish to be Gothic!"
Tristan Dit ton looked put out by such determined common sense.
"Alternatively," Lady Belling ham beamed, "we could have crumpets and hot chocolate before we retire! Gaston! " She rang the bell vigorously.
"Some refreshments, please!"
It was strange, Polly thought, how the room seemed to brighten and the atmosphere lift with Lady Bel- ling ham"s words. Her ladyship was now telling an enthralled Hetty about some of her experiences at Drury Lane Theatre.
"You should have seen me in The Country Girl, my dear, one of my greatest triumphs! Why, it was an innocent version of that old Restoration romp.
The Country Wife, but to tell the truth I always preferred the bawdier version! I was perfect for the part, so natural and un spoilt, for I was a country girl myself, you see, and only nineteen years of age at the time!
Ah, what a time it was! " Arid she shook her head reminiscently.
Polly tried to imagine Lady Belling ham as a country girl of nineteen and failed sadly. There was something so world-weary and disillusioned about Lady Belling ham, though that was not to say that she had lost her natural kindness. Polly was conscious, as she had been when speaking to Lucille, of the sheltered nature of her own upbringing, in comparison to those who had had to make their own way in the world.
There were precious few similarities between the former actress and the current Countess of Sea grave, but one was that they had made their own luck, not been born with all the privileges like Polly had. Somehow it made her feel inadequate as well as fortunate.
Polly, returning to the turret bedroom she had used earlier, found the bed neatly turned down and a small fire burning in the grate. It looked warm and welcoming, but she could hear the thunder away out at sea and shivered. As soon as she was alone, all her nervousness had returned. On such a night it was all too easy to think of the miles of thick forest that cut them off from the town, the dense, secretive trees, the storm clouds harrying the moon.
The bright beauty of the day had gone and the stark loneliness of the place created an eerie atmosphere.
There was a door in the corner of the bedroom, which Polly a.s.sumed must be the turret stair. Feeling rather foolish, she went across and checked that it was locked. There was no key on her side of the door, but the door did not move at all when she turned the k.n.o.b.
Satisfied, she climbed into the downy bed, convinced she would not sleep a wink.
Surprisingly, she fell asleep almost at once, to wake in the middle of the night with a feeling of suffocating uneasiness. The fire had gone out and the wind was pounding the corner of the house, whistling through the cracks in the windowpane. Out on the landing, a floorboard creaked. Polly stiffened, listening for footsteps. A sliver of light appeared at the bottom of the door, flickered and went out. Another board creaked.
Polly slid out of bed and opened her door a crack. She was conscious of a need to establish normality, certain that she would see nothing more than a servant tiptoeing about his or her business whilst the rest of the house slept.
There was no one on the landing. Then she heard the voices.
"Not tonight, at any rate... Yes, certain... He was looking around earlier, but... No, no question of it. They will not risk coming in and the tide is already on the turn..."
Polly edged to the bannister and peeped over. The hall was lit with dim candlelight, deeply shadowed. Lord Henry March night was standing in the drawing- room doorway, brushing cobwebs from his clothes. He was fully dressed.
Lady Belling ham, in the centre of the hall, was clad in a dressing-gown of glossy, bright hue and formidable respectability.
Polly rejected her first reaction that this was an illicit lovers"
tryst; it was ridiculous to a.s.sume an affaire between them, even given her ladyship"s preference for attractive young men. There was something too watchful in Henry"s manner and too businesslike in Lady Belling ham"s. The grandfather clock chimed one suddenly and Polly jumped. Henry, who had been turning to close the drawing room door, paused and his narrowed gaze scanned the landing.
Polly"s heart was in her throat. Would he see her in the shadows of the pillar? And what would he do? What was his business, on such a stormy night? Suddenly she did not wish to know.
Lady Belling ham 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 Belling ham 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 pa.s.sage 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 Belling ham"s part in this. As smuggler"s accomplice? The thought made Polly want to laugh.