Polly and the Prince by Carola Dunn Page A

mind?”
    “No,” she said dully. “Take what you want.” She realised that her hands were tightly clenched together, and made a deliberate effort to relax them. She wished she had not—they seemed to have been holding her together, and suddenly she felt limp all over. Reaching behind her for her stool, she sat down and stared blindly at her toes.
    He did not speak as he sorted through the crates of paintings, and she did not ask which he wanted. She did not even care how many he took.
    His firm tread returned across the room and stopped before her. “Thank you, Miss Howard.”
    “You are welcome, sir.” Raising her head, she looked into his face.
    Did the regret in his hazel eyes rival her own? No, she must have imagined it, she thought, remembering Lady John’s warning, but at least he was not laughing at her. She could not have borne that.
    He bowed, awkwardly because of the canvases under his arm, and in a few swift strides he was gone. No word of sorrow at parting, no promise to meet again—the door clicked shut behind him and he was gone. All she meant to him was a light flirtation, a pleasant way to pass the time while he was stuck in the country with no better entertainment. He even expected to forget her without her paintings to remind him.
    Polly sat quite still until she heard the crunch of his horse’s hooves on the gravel. Then she picked up her paints and lost herself in a fiery sunset of angry reds and blazing oranges.

* * * *
    Three days passed before she checked to see what Kolya had chosen. The picture of Five Oaks was gone, with the apple blossom and another landscape. He had taken a painting of a small boy who had been so fascinated by her one day at the Pantiles that he had stood and stared for a good half hour, until his scolding nursemaid came and removed him. And he had taken his own portrait.
    “I wish he had left me his portrait,” she said sadly to Ned when he came into the studio after stabling Chipper that evening. She had all her sketches of Kolya spread on the table.
    He was shocked. Though Mrs. Howard had told him Polly was pining for the Russian, he had thought it just another of his mother’s unwarranted worries. He was always out most of the day, and though he had noticed his sister’s quietness in the evenings, he had set it down to her usual abstraction while planning a new painting.
    “You put a great deal of effort into painting Volkov,” he said with attempted casualness. “It must always be a wrench to part with your best work. Are you coming in now to dress for dinner?”
    “No, I have to clean up here first. Don’t worry, I shall not forget the time.” Her smile was a pitiful travesty of her usual cheerfulness.
    Hurrying into the house, Ned found Mrs. Howard in the sitting room, folding her sewing. “Mother, you are right, Polly is in the mopes. I fear she is too fond by far of Mr. Volkov.”
    “Did I not say so? I was glad when he left, but she continues to fret herself into a decline.”
    “Is it as bad as that? My poor sister! No wonder you are worried.”
    However, his mother’s anxiety was by no means all for her daughter’s health. “The worst of it is that when Lord Fitzsimmons and Mr. Bevan are here she sits in a corner like a mouse and makes no effort to attract them. She will lose them both, mark my words.”
    “Surely you would not have our Polly setting her cap at those gentlemen! I hope she has better principles than to do any such thing.”
    “Of course she is not to set her cap—such a vulgar phrase, Ned. I meant only that they were both enchanted with her sunny nature and now the sun is hidden in clouds of gloom.”
    Ned was unimpressed by his mother’s fanciful eloquence. “You cannot expect Polly to put on a show of gaiety when she is unhappy.”
    “Men are so very impractical,” bemoaned Mrs. Howard. “Think how wonderful it would be to see our girl a baroness. Of course Mr. Bevan has no title, but he is related to the best