The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер
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her work clothes, sparing a cursory glance as she brushed, then plaited, her hair. Once she was as ready to face the day as she would ever be she looked round her cosy room in the eaves, just in case this was the last time it was her home and not an old attic most would think old-fashioned and inconvenient. If they had to leave here, she would miss it more than her childhood home, but there was so much about Dayspring she had learnt to love and its owner obviously hated. This wasn’t a significant part of the castle, but there was a wonderful view of orchards and parkland and a glimpse of the sea even from this side of the castle.
Going downstairs, Polly could almost sense the people she knew falling into places none of them had taken any notice of for years. A gap was yawning between those who had lived here as equals until yesterday. Soon she would have to don petticoats and whatever jumble of skirts they could put together out of the attics as a matter of course. She tried to picture herself looking clumsy and overgrown in the narrow skirts and high waist of the current mode and had to smile wryly at the very idea. Put ostrich feathers on any bonnet of hers and she’d make a sight to frighten small children and skittish horses.
Not that she could afford fashion, she reminded herself, and batted away the thought of Lord Mantaigne stunned speechless as she swept into the room dressed in a gown designed to make the best of her queenly height instead of the shabby and ill-fitting monstrosity of last night. Nonsense, of course. The most dazzling beauties of fashionable society must fawn on him like bees round honey and Miss Trethayne of nowhere at all still had too much pride to join in even if she could.
* * *
‘Good morning, Miss Trethayne.’ Mr Peters rose politely from the breakfast table to greet her, then looked significantly at her brothers until they stood as well.
‘Good morning, sir, and a very fine morning it is too, but who are these polite young gentlemen? I can’t say I recognise them.’
‘It’s us, Poll,’ Henry told her wearily, as if wondering about her eyesight.
‘May we sit down now, Sis? I’m hungry as a horse,’ Toby asked.
‘Of course you are, love, please carry on before you fade away in front of me,’ she said, exchanging a rueful glance with Mr Peters that probably looked intimate to Lord Mantaigne when he strolled into the room.
‘Good morning,’ he said coolly, and she had to have imagined a flash of anger in his lazy gaze before it went unreadable again.
‘It’s going to be a lovely day,’ she offered because she didn’t want the boys to pick up on her worries about the future, or her jumbled feelings towards the marquis.
‘Indeed, but the sea is still cold,’ he said, helping himself from the pot of porridge set by the fire to keep warm.
‘Don’t say you’ve been for a swim, Mantaigne?’ Mr Peters asked, seeming as startled as Polly that his employer would indulge in such bracing activity.
‘I believe it’s allowed if you have skill enough not to drown,’ he said as if there was nothing unusual about a fashionable beau battling the full force of nature on such a bracing morning. Although the sun shone there was a lively breeze and taking on the waves must have been hard going.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ his secretary said with a shudder, ‘I can only imagine the fuss if you drown when I’m supposed to guard your back.’
‘A task that should never have been set to you, my friend,’ Lord Mantaigne drawled, but there was steel under all that careless élan.
Polly had spent years picturing the Marquis of Mantaigne as a spineless fool, ready to whistle his magnificent heritage down the wind on a whim. Under the expensive clothes and effortless elegance was a dangerous man, and last night proved how seductively the real Marquis of Mantaigne called to a wildness in Miss Paulina Trethayne she’d thought long gone. It would be as well if she avoided him as often as she could when this morning’s ride about the estate was over.
‘Prinny would take your land and fortune and give your title to one of his cronies,’ Mr Peters mused. ‘I’d have to tell the Winterleys how you met your end, though, so I’d really rather you didn’t perish at sea during my time here.’
‘Should your brothers need a schoolmaster I can recommend Peters as perfect for the role, when he’s not too busy lecturing a fool of eight and twenty who’s been going his own way far too long to listen.’
‘About eight and twenty years of his life, by my reckoning,’ Mr Peters murmured into his porridge, and Polly chuckled, then squirmed self-consciously under Lord Mantaigne’s impassive scrutiny. She only just resisted the urge to put out her tongue and set the worst sort of example to her brothers.
‘Thank you, but the vicar teaches Tobias, Henry and Jago. Josh and the younger boys have lessons with some of us here and I suspect Mr Peters has far too much to do already to join in with that thankless task,’ she said to fill the silence.
‘D’you think Mr Barker will tell us how he lost his leg today, Poll? He told Toby and I’ll soon be as old as he is.’
‘You’re five years younger than your eldest brother, Joshua Trethayne, and some things have to wait until I say so,’ Polly intervened before Toby and Henry could. ‘And don’t argue,’ she added firmly.
‘Why not? You’re only a girl,’ Josh muttered darkly.
‘No, she’s not, you ungrateful little toad,’ Toby told him.
‘No, for Miss Trethayne is your sister and for some odd reason she seems to like you,’ Mr Peters said solemnly, and Josh grinned delightedly at the implication it took a doting gaze to see past his worst traits. Polly wondered why she couldn’t be attracted to the man instead of his employer.
Oh, no, that was it, wasn’t it? She was conscious of Lord Mantaigne on too many levels. Why did she have to feel a warm shiver of perhaps run over her skin at the very idea of being alone with a nobleman’s secretary instead of the nobleman himself? Because she was a Trethayne, she supposed fatalistically, and they never did anything by halves. Falling headlong for the most unattainable man she’d ever come across would be a disaster bigger than any that had befallen her so far. There must be no more midnight adventures with him then and, after today, no daytime ones either.
‘Still here, boys?’ Lady Wakebourne asked from the doorway. ‘Jago and Joe and Ben have already got their boots on.’
‘And I expect Mr Partridge is waiting,’ Polly prompted.
Some of the squatters had found work in the village of Little Spring, but Partridge had insisted on walking there and back with the boys ever since lights were first seen in the cove below Dayspring. Toby and Henry bolted the last of their breakfast and ran off to join their friends at a nod from Polly, and Josh dashed after them. Wishing she could do the same, she made herself eat in a suitably ladylike manner despite the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Better to walk in Lady Wakebourne’s shoes this morning, but the lady was so determined not to trade on her title that Polly was careful not to impinge on her self-imposed tasks.
‘Shall we meet in the stable yard in half an hour for our tour of the estate, Miss Trethayne?’ Lord Mantaigne asked.
‘I’m ready now,’ she said, because it seemed better to get it over with.
‘Which of the spoilt beasts in your stable would you like saddled, then?’
‘I always ride the black cob, but he won’t let a stranger near him.’
‘He must be a hard ride, and I dare say he’s headstrong as the devil,’ he remarked, trying not to call Beelzebub an unsuitable ride for a lady.
‘He refuses to plough and I couldn’t endure the thought of him being abused as a carriage horse.’
‘Not to a coaching company or the mails, but I know a man who would treat him well and give you a good price. Can he be handled by anyone else?’
‘Once he trusts you he’s more