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“What could a rake wish for from a lady on a providentially empty terrace?”
Understanding came to Polly at the very last moment. She had once 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.
.....
Polly smiled, unconvinced. It was true that not even the ton, with its penchant for intrigue, had suggested anything improper in the relationship between the two, but that did not mean that Lord Henry might not wish it so. Lucille, totally absorbed in her husband, would be the last person to realise. Polly, thinking now of the consuming passion between Lucille and Nick Seagrave, shifted slightly in her chair. They were always perfectly proper in their behaviour in company, but it only needed one look…Polly sometimes thought that if any man ever looked at her with that explicit mixture of warmth and sensual demand she would faint dead away. But perhaps Lucille was lucky. Perhaps she was the unlucky one, hidebound by a conventional upbringing in a house where preserving the surface calm had always been all important.
The problem of Lord Henry Marchnight twitched at the corner of her mind again. Lucille was right, of course. Polly did not delude herself that there was any chance of re-establishing a rapport with Lord Henry, and under the circumstances, it was both foolish and pointless to be forever dwelling on the past. Perhaps she could at least try to put matters to rights. If she could find the right words to convey a genteel acceptance that they had both been young and foolish…It might suffice and put an end to awkwardness.
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