Venus

by Jane Feather

  “Why do you not hazard it? The chair will not bite you.” Thomas broke into her cogitations, and she turned to him with a laugh, her earlier contrariness forgotten.

  “I was wondering if it would stay still.”

  “I will show you how to do it.” Killigrew came across to her. “Take your skirt at the back in one hand … like so … Now swish the train to the side as you push your right foot forward, kicking away the skirt. That’s it. Now lower yourself onto the seat. There.” He smiled in satisfaction. “That was not so very difficult, was it?”

  “It is not very restful,” Polly observed, sitting at the very edge of the chair. “If I lean forward or backward, those dreadful bones poke into me.”

  “But then, it is not at all becoming to slouch,” Killigrew told her. “Flora may be a high-spirited, sharp-tongued young lady, but she is a lady and would never sit slumped upon her chair, as you are aware.”

  Nick was frowning. “Are you sure that a sennight will be sufficient time for Polly to learn as much as she must?”

  “Indeed it will!” Polly spoke up vigorously. “I will practice all night, if necessary, but I am determined that I shall not stay in this backwater for any length of time.”

  “I think there is little fear of that,” Killigrew said with a wry smile. “Moorfields will not be able to contain you for very long.”

  It became abundantly clear to Nick during the next seven days that Polly was as good as her word. Killigrew was a hard taskmaster, but there was nothing he expected of her that she did not expect of herself, and more. She had no difficulty learning the part of Flora, pressing Nick into service to read with her during the evenings, when he could think of many more exciting occupations. And with grim fortitude she gritted her teeth and wore the detested corset constantly until it felt like a second skin.

  “I am most deeply apprehensive,” Killigrew said with surprising gloom to Nicholas on the sixth day, as they both watched the rehearsal from the pit.

  Nick looked startled. “How so?”

  “Beside her, the rest of the cast appear as inept and as unappealing as wooden dummies. This audience will not know how to react. I doubt they have been treated to such talent or such beauty before. If they do not recognize the quality, but only that she is different both from what they are accustomed to and from her fellows, they may well hiss her off the stage.”

  “If there is any danger of that happening, Thomas, I’ll not permit her to perform tomorrow.” Nick spoke with finality. Polly was not going to be hurt in any way while he had a say in the matter.

  Thomas smiled lazily. “How would you prevent her, my friend? I should dearly love to see you try.” Rising to his feet, he strolled to the foot of the stage. “Polly, you are playing that fan as if ’tis a wet fish! It is a part of you, to be used as expressively as you use your eyes or your voice. In this instance, you are expressing annoyance. Flick your wrist so that it falls open and then closed. Just so. Do it several times, each time sharper than the last.”

  How would he prevent her? Nick shook his head ruefully, watching her as she discovered rapidly what Killigrew wanted, beginning, with obvious enjoyment, to add her own little touches. Of course he could not, short of locking her in her chamber. No, the performance must take place on the morrow. There would be some members of the audience who would know what they were seeing. Richard De Winter, Sir Peter, and Major Conway would be there, all as anxious as he to see how their protégée performed. Only then would they be truly able to judge whether their plan could succeed.

  Nicholas knew that it could. He also knew that he did not want it to. What he did not know was how to reconcile those two facts with the promise he had made to his friends—a promise he was in honor bound to fulfill.

  However, he had little time to dwell on his dilemma over the next twenty-four hours. Polly’s moods fluctuated wildly and without warning as the hour of her testing drew nearer. She progressed through snappish irritability to unbridled temper to complete withdrawal. Nick struggled for patience, even as he wondered how such an extraordinary change could have been wrought in his sunny-tempered, equable, mischievous mistress. She was as impervious to his caresses as she was to his annoyance. It was not until, in complete exasperation, his patience finally shredded, he strode to the door of the parlor saying that he would leave her to enjoy her bad temper in solitude that she returned to her senses.

  “Nay, do not leave me alone, please, Nick!” She ran to him, seizing his arm. “I beg your pardon for being so horrid, but I am so dreadfully afeard! I am certain I will forget what to say, or trip over my skirt, or sit on the floor instead of the chair! And they will laugh and throw oranges at me!”

  “No one will throw oranges at you,” he said in perfect truth. In Moorfields they favored tomatoes, but he did not add that. “Besides, you will have friends in the audience. You know that De Winter is promised, and Sir Peter, and the major. And I will be there—” He stopped, frowning, as the street knocker sounded from belowstairs. “Lord of hell! Who could that be at this hour?”

  Polly ran to the window, peering down at the dark, rainy street. A lad with a lantern held a horse, which she immediately recognized as Richard’s. “Why, Lord De Winter is come.”

  “A late visitor, I know.” Richard spoke from the doorway, shaking free his russet frieze riding cloak in a shower of raindrops. “But I have some news that I thought might be of sufficient interest to excuse my intrusion.”

  “Come to the fire, Richard, and take some wine. No visit from you could be termed intrusion.” Nicholas gestured hospitably as Polly took their guest’s coat and hat.

  Richard smiled his thanks, while casting an appraising look at his hostess. He raised an interrogative eyebrow at Nicholas, whose returning grimace explained all. “You are not in best looks, Polly,” Richard said with customary directness. “You are perhaps apprehensive about the morrow?”

  Polly turned from the table where she had been filling a goblet of Malaga for him. “Do you find it surprising, my lord, that I should be?” She was completely at her ease with De Winter, accepting him as Nick’s closest friend with a natural warmth and confidence.

  He took the glass from her and shook his head. “On the contrary. But what I have to tell you may well ease your trepidation.” He paused. “Then again, it might worsen it. You shall be the judge.” He sipped his wine. “This is a good Malaga, Nick. My compliments.”

  He reposed his long, elegant length in a carved oak chair and sipped his wine again. Polly clasped her hands in front of her, compressed her lips, and stood, a veritable monument of patience, until De Winter was quite overcome and could persist in his teasing no longer. “I was at court this evening. There was a dance in the queen’s apartments. A somewhat insipid affair,” he added, as if his audience would be interested in the judgment.

  Nicholas smiled, throwing another log on the fire. “Polly, come here.” He patted his lap in invitation. “You look as taut as if you have received the attentions of a clock winder!”

  De Winter waited until she was settled upon Nick’s knee, her head resting on his shoulder, his fingers twisting in the hair spilling over the warm mulberry wool of her nightgown. “The talk was mostly of some surprise that Master Killigrew is keeping up his sleeve. It is said that if one were to venture to the Nursery at Moorfields tomorrow afternoon—should one be prepared to mingle with such playgoers as one might find there—” Richard waved his cambric handkerchief through the air as if to dispel whatever noxious attributes might be found amongst such an audience”—one might discover the surprise a little earlier than Thomas had intended.”

  “Clever,” murmured Nick, mindful of the discussion when Killigrew had been afraid that a Moorfields audience would find Polly too rare a flower for their taste. If the theatre was filled with intrigued courtiers, who would most certainly respond with approval, those in the pit would either follow the courtiers’ lead, or their disapproval would be drowned. “And is there a move to discover this s
ecret?”

  “It appears so.” Richard smiled over his glass. “Even Davenant is anxious to see what is making his rival so smug. Buckingham has sworn to attend, and where the duke goes—”

  “The world follows,” Nick concluded, swallowing his unease before it could raise more than a prickle on his spine. “The king also?”

  “He cannot. The French ambassador has requested an audience, and Clarendon is being most persuasive that it should be granted. There is still hope for an alliance in the question of this damned Dutch war.”

  “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 soci
ety 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.”