Venus (24 page)

“Fool’s paradise!” scoffed Nick. “There’ll be no help from the Spanish or the French. France has no need for gratuitous enemies, and Spain is too weak.”

The conversation seemed to have veered off course as far as Polly was concerned. She sat up urgently. “I do not understand how anyone could know about me … Oh.” A thought seemed to strike her. “That is, if I am the surprise of which you speak?” Receiving a reassuring nod, she went on. “If Thomas did not intend that anyone at court should know about tomorrow’s performance, how is it that they do?”

“I expect he told them,” said Nick easily, stretching his legs beneath her? “In a roundabout fashion. He is a devious man, our Master Killigrew.”

“But why would he?” Polly resisted the arm that made to draw her back against his shoulder.

Nick was not about to add to her anxieties by telling her Killigrew’s reason, so he shrugged, saying lightly, “I expect you have made more improvement than he expected in such
a short time, and he considers you ready to face the world informally.”

“Think you that the Duke of Buckingham will recognize me?” She stood up, drawing her gown tightly around her as if a finger of cold had penetrated the coziness of candlelight and fire-glow.

“Why should it be a matter of concern if he does?” asked Richard, deceptively casual. “You cannot expect to win the king’s favor if you do not also win Villiers’s.”

“I had as lief not meet him again,” she said simply, staring into the fire, where wraiths of blue and green spun in the red glow, and that cold, dissolute countenance seemed to take form, then dissolve. She turned back to the room. “I am being fanciful. I expect it is because I am wearied.”

Nick stood up. “Get you to bed, sweetheart. I will ask Goodwife Benson to prepare you a sack-posset. It will help you sleep.” Cupping her face, he stroked the high cheekbones with his thumbs.

“You will stay tonight?” The question was whispered, not out of deference to Richard, who was gazing into his wine as if nothing else could interest him, but because speaking out loud seemed to require more energy than she possessed.

“Aye, flower, I’ll stay. Bid Richard good night now. I will bring you the posset in a little while.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then turned her with a little pat in the direction of the bedchamber.

“Rest easy,” Richard said, taking her hand as she came over to him, raising it to his lips. “You will be the cynosure of the play, I can safely promise you. You are about to storm the theatre, carrying all before you.” Polly shook her head, blushing in sudden embarrassment, more at the caressing tone and the elegant salute from one who habitually used her with a brisk, almost avuncular friendliness than at his words. “Well, perhaps you will not, if you do not sleep away the rings under your eyes,” he said, reverting to the norm with instant comprehension. “Do as you are bid and get you gone. You look positively hagged.”

The door closed behind her. Nick pulled the bell rope,
throwing a mocking smile at Richard. “Such softness, friend! Have a care lest you lose sight of the goal.”

“That is a piece of advice I would give you,” Richard replied soberly. “Having reached this point, it were foolish to throw away the prize for scruple.”

The arrival of the goodwife in answer to the bell put an end to this conversation, but once she had left, Nick strode over to the hearth, kicking a fallen log, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. “’Tis a damnable dilemma.”

“I do understand that the situation has changed somewhat,” Richard observed, shrugging. “It would take a blind man to miss what has happened between you. But it need not make too much difference, I think. I understand that you would not now be comfortable using Polly as a spy without her knowledge—even supposing that, feeling as she does about you, she would be open to offers from Buckingham. So why do you not draw her in with the truth, involve her openly in our conspiracy? Ask for her help. She will not deny you.” This last was said with complete confidence, and a considering silence fell between them.

Goodwife Benson reappeared with a steaming pewter tankard of spiced hot milk liberally laced with sack. “The posset, sir. ’Twill put the young lady to sleep in no time.”

“In which case it will have served its purpose. I thank you.” Nick took the tankard and smiled the goodwife from the room. “I will take this to Polly. If you are not anxious to be gone, I would have further speech with you.” Richard bowing his assent, Nick took the drink next door.

Polly was propped upon the pillows, looking wan and fragile and much in need of nursery comfortings. Nick sat beside her on the bed as she sipped the fragrant, steaming milk. “If I am going to feel so frightened every time I must perform, I do not think I will make at all a satisfactory actor,” she confided eventually into the undemanding silence.

“Why do you not wait and see how you feel the next time before you judge yourself?” Nick advised calmly. “This first performance is, after all, an unknown experience. Familiarity with it may well bring you ease.”

“It is to be hoped so,” she said fervently, “else I will die of the anxiety. Can one die of anxiety?”

“I doubt it.” He took her empty tankard and bent to kiss her. “Sleep now, moppet.”

“I wish you will tell Richard to go to his own bed,” she grumbled, reaching her arms around his neck. “I would be held in your arms until I sleep, love, not put to bed like an overtired babe.” She buried her nose in his neck, inhaling the warm, earthy scent of his skin, the rosewater freshness of his linen, running her fingers through the luxuriant auburn curls.

He caught her hands at the wrists behind his neck. “Sweet love, I must have speech with Richard. I will come to you as soon as may be. In the meantime, you will sleep like the overtired babe that you say you are not.” He laughed as a monstrous yawn swallowed her attempt at indignant protest, and her eyelids drooped.

Polly felt the brush of his lips against her mouth, thought: What is so important that you must discuss it with Richard at this hour? Thought but could not articulate, as she dipped into the sleep of emotional exhaustion.

Nick picked up the bedside candle, shielding its flame with a cupped hand, carrying it over to the hearth, where its light would not fall upon the sleeper. Then he went back to the parlor to examine Richard’s proposition.

“How can I ask her to become intimate with a man whom she appears to loathe?” He closed the door behind him, speaking in a low voice.

“She does not know him yet beyond an unfortunate encounter when he alarmed her with the scope and intensity of his power. You know as well as anyone, Nick, the extent of his charm when he chooses to exert it. If she catches his eye—and it appears that she has already done so—he will exert it. She will lose her loathing, and if you ask for her assistance, I am convinced she will not deny you.” De Winter spoke also in an undertone. “Your relationship with her need not be altered fundamentally if she amuses Buckingham at your request and for a definite purpose. She has wit
enough to understand and fulfill that purpose, to see her task for the practical solution to the problem that it is.” He shrugged easily.

Nick walked over to the window, looking out into the night. Two short months ago he had been as cynical as Richard, would have believed such a thing as readily as his friend did. Why should lovemaking with one’s mistress lose anything by the knowledge that she shared other beds? To suggest such a thing would bring ridicule upon one’s head. Women at all levels of society used their bodies for their advancement—it was, after all, the only currency they possessed. No sophisticate would be troubled by such an unfashionable notion as infidelity, in many cases not even when applied to the marriage bed.

Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine, showed no constraint with his wife; indeed, they lived in perfect amity together. Nick could think of half a dozen other men who accepted a cuckold’s horns quite cheerfully, while going about their own adventures, and they were certainly not made the butt of society’s malice or mirth by this graceful discretion. In fact, the reverse was in general true. A wife’s fidelity was no longer necessarily a matter of honor, although duels were occasionally fought, and the seducer of a man’s wife was honor-bound to meet the challenge of a wronged husband. But in the present climate, there was more scandal attached to the duel than to its cause.

So why should the idea of his Polly—a Newgate-born, tavern-bred bastard with few fanciful delusions—subjecting herself to the sexual attentions of George Villiers, or indeed, anyone else, fill him with such overpowering revulsion?

“I pledged myself to this matter, and I will not fail you,” he said, the only thing it was possible to say. “But I must repeat: I will not expect her to do anything she finds repugnant.”

“But you
will
encourage her to find Buckingham less repugnant?” De Winter watched him over the lip of his glass. “You have all the influence of the trusted mentor—as well as
of the lover. You may easily persuade her out of her dislike before asking for her help.”

Such calculating cynicism! To use the influence of love for such a purpose. And yet, what choice did he have? At least he would not be guilty of deception. But it was hollow comfort for one who would be guilty of the blatant manipulation of a trusting innocent.

“I will do what is necessary,” he said.

De Winter took his leave soon after. Nick snuffed the candles in the parlor before going into the bedchamber. Polly was sleeping the restorative sleep of youth and health, her hair spread across the pillow, her hands curled open above her head, lips slightly parted, presenting a picture as guileless and ingenuous as the flower of which she so often reminded him. That she was not as guileless and ingenuous as she looked, Nick was all too well aware, but the awareness did little to rid him of the sour taste in his mouth, the acrid roiling in his gut, as he thought of what he must persuade her to do.

He slipped into bed beside her, and she cuddled instantly into his arms, warm and pliant. “Nick?” Her mumble was sleepily questioning.

“Who else would it be?” A teasing response that rang in his ears as hollow as a beggar’s bowl.

Polly giggled, wriggling closer before sliding back into sleep.

When she awoke, last night’s rain had vanished. Early morning sun was pouring through the window. A blackbird trilled in insistent joy from the gnarled gray branch of an old apple tree in the garden. It was the first intimation of the closeness of spring, and she lay, snug in the deep feather bed, under the heavy quilt, feeling Nick’s warmth and strength beside her. Contentment washed through her, bringing in its wake such a resurgence of confidence that she could barely believe her miserable panic of the preceding day. Remorse prickled as she remembered how sorely she had tried Nick’s patience.

Propping herself on one elbow, Polly leant over Nick’s
recumbent form, beginning with great deliberation to kiss him into awareness. His eyes stayed shut, but his skin rippled as her lips pressed into the hollow of his throat and she stroked him with her body, moving sinuously against him.

Nick yielded to the glorious languour as sleep gave way to wakefulness and his body stirred beneath the sensuous caress of her skin. Indulging a wicked impulse, he kept himself as immobile as control over his voluntary reactions would allow, his eyes tight shut as if sleep still claimed him. Polly’s tongue fluttered against his nipples; still he did not move. She raised her head to look at him, puzzlement clear on her face. If this was a game, it was not one they had played before. Then, with a little smile, she twisted, burrowing headfirst under the quilt.

It was too much. Nick groaned with pleasure, running his hands down her back beneath the quilt, his thumbs pressing into her spine, which arched and curved in catlike response. “Stop now,” he whispered huskily as the edge of bliss drew inexorably closer. Polly, indulging her own devilish impulse, ignored the request, merely increasing her attentions. Nick groaned again. He smacked her bottom imperatively. “Wicked one!” Catching her around the waist, he hauled her up. “Don’t you know what you are doing to me?”

She emerged laughing from the warm darkness of the covers, tossing her hair back. “Of course I know. Would I do it, else? I had to find some way to waken you.” She leaned down to kiss his mouth, swinging one leg astride the narrow waist. He ran his hands over the curve of her hips, along the smooth planes of her thighs as she knelt astride him, stroked the softness of her belly, reached up to cup her breasts, holding them in the palms of his hands.

“I want you,” she said with fierce and unashamed candor, leaning backward against his updrawn knees, offering the essence of herself to his touch. He slipped one hand beneath her to hold her buttocks, lifting her for the touch of his free hand; she exhaled on a soft whisper of pleasure. With a leisurely twist of his hips he drove upward, and Polly gasped at the pulsing fire of his penetration.

“And now you have me,” he said, gently taunting, catching her hair to draw her head down to his. “What will you do with your possession my flower?”

“There seems but one thing I can do,” she murmured against the corner of his mouth, answering his teasing with her own brand.

“Then let us make the earth move,” he said, taking a firm grip of her hips, liquid fire alive in the jewels of his eyes.

“Yes, let us,” Polly agreed, her own gaze drowning in his, her body seeming to become one with his, consumed by the same fire. The blackbird’s invitation became almost frantic as he called for his own mate on this first springlike day of the year; and withindoors the earth moved.

It moved again that afternoon in a different way, and for more than just lovers. Polly had one moment of near-paralyzing panic, standing in the wings waiting for her cue; her ears buzzed, sweat dripped between her breasts, black spots danced before her eyes. She looked around frantically.

“I am here.” It was Thomas, quiet, calm, at her shoulder. “’Tis all right to be afeard now. It will go as soon as you walk onto the stage.”

“How do you know?” Her voice rasped through a throat as stiff as dried leather. Her eyes held the desperate need to believe him.