Pretty Polly

  “I am glad you are not going to be her bridesmaid,” he said cheerfully.

  “Am I so very stupid?” Verity said in a low voice.

  “Not about me.”

  He drove into the park and then across the grass and under the trees, well out of sight of the fashionable people.

  He reined in and looked around. There was no one in sight. He tilted up her chin. “This is all you need,” he said, and began to kiss her while one of his horses looked over its shoulder at them in surprise.

  The Countess of Wythe faced the happy couple an hour later. She noticed that Verity’s lips were swollen and bruised and that her eyes had a dazed look.

  “Of course you have my permission, Denbigh,” said the dowager crossly. “I must admit I am very surprised. Poor Mr. Sutcliffe. So suitable. Such a waste. But promise me you have behaved as a gentleman should behave with a virgin, Denbigh.”

  The duke gave her a limpid look. “Of course.”

  After he had left and Verity had floated up the stairs on a cloud of love, the countess paced up and down the drawing room. She noticed the parrot fiddling with the door of its cage and went to let it out. “Go to your mistress,” she said, standing with her hand on the latch. “Oh, dear, I hope Denbigh did not do anything he should not. I shall have to act as her parent until her father arrives. But he gave me his word. Men. Bloody men!”

  “Pretty Polly,” said the parrot, and then in the duke’s voice, “Oh, Verity, my angel, your breasts are like—”

  But that was as far as the parrot got. The appalled countess swung her shawl from her shoulders and covered the cage.