Polly and the Prince by Carola Dunn Page B

in spite of the occasional interruption of a rainy day, if she had concentrated instead of talking to him.
     

Chapter 8
     
    Kolya arrived late at the Howards’ on the morning after the dinner party. He and Ned had been at the far end of the Loxwood estate, talking to the gamekeeper at his cottage in the woods. The English custom of taking pains to protect the pheasants, even providing special breeding grounds, just so as to be able to go out and shoot them later, amused Kolya. In Russia, wild game was wild, and one did not shoot domestic fowl.
    When he reached the gate from the meadow into the Howards’ garden, he saw that Polly had already set up her easel in the usual place. She was sitting on the bench where he always posed, on a white carpet of cherry blossom petals, but she was not precisely waiting for him.
    Beside her sat Mr. Bevan, and Lord Fitzsimmons lounged against the nearest tree. She was laughing.
    Kolya turned his horse loose to graze. Leaning with folded arms on the top of the gate, he thoughtfully regarded the merry group. He had delighted to watch Polly enjoying herself in company last night, but somehow he was less content to see her in such high spirits today. This was his time, the time he looked forward to every morning and recalled with pleasure every evening.
    He shrugged his shoulders and opened the gate. The portrait was nearly done. One morning’s delay would give him more time to invent a good reason for continuing to visit Polly regularly once the painting was finished. No doubt the gentlemen would soon be on their way back to London and the delights of the Season.
    As he approached, unnoticed, he saw that Mr. Bevan wore a frown of intense concentration.
    “I’ll give my oath there’s a bit of verse with Polly in it,” he was saying. “Dashed if I can recall it though.”
    Lord Fitzsimmons and Polly exchanged a glance and launched into a ragged chorus in two different keys.
    “Polly, put the kettle on; Polly, put the kettle on…”
    “No, no, can’t be the one I was thinking of,” protested the discomfitted Corinthian.
           “Indeed, sir, I know how to boil a kettle,” Polly assured him, laughing again, “and even how to make tea, though my cooking leaves somewhat to be desired.”
           “Volkov!” Lord Fitzsimmons had spotted him. “Dashed fine picture Miss Howard’s painted. Caught you to the life.”
            “Thank you, my lord,” Polly said, but Kolya decided she looked sceptical of his lordship’s credentials as an art critic. She stood up and went to contemplate the canvas on the easel.
           “M’sister never could get noses quite right,” Fitz went on.  “Always seemed to come out looking like Bev’s beak.”
           “I say, don’t insult my phiz or I’ll rearrange yours to match,” said Mr. Bevan with mock bellicosity.  “Tell you what, ma’am, I’ll commission a portrait from you if you promise to straighten my nose.”
           “Oh no, I could not do that,” Polly said absently. “It gives your face character.”
           “Yes, but what sort of character?” enquired Fitz, grinning.  “Positively villainous, wouldn’t you say, ma’am?”
           Not for the first time, Kolya wondered at the English sense of humour.  If a Russian gentleman had issued such insults, he would have found himself facing pistols at dawn.  In their peculiar way, the English were much saner.
           He stopped beside Polly.  Now that Bev and Fitz had seen his portrait, it was difficult to obey her oft-repeated injunction not to look.  Instead, he watched her face as she studied it with the faraway gaze he knew so well.
           “The hands,” she said.  “Today I want to work on the hands.”  She looked up at him, a smile on her delectable lips.
    “You are occupied today. You will not want to paint.”
    “But I do. Pray take your place while I fetch my smock.”
    “A long-standing