Venus

by Jane Feather

  “Are not conducted,” Polly corrected with raised eyebrow.

  “Exactly so.” He permitted himself a small smile. “You understand, then, where Nick and I stand in this?”

  “That you consider the king ill advised,” Polly said. “That the Cabal under Buckingham’s leadership is to a large extent responsible for this, and you would bolster the position of the chancellor at this time, because he is a more reliable minister than the Earl of Arlington, for instance.”

  “I will tell you now, Polly, that myself, Nick, Sir Peter, and Major Conway have pledged ourselves to circumvent Buckingham’s destructive influence.” He picked up his sherry glass again, sipping slowly, gathering his thoughts.

  “To set yourselves up in opposition to Buckingham can only be dangerous.” Polly frowned uneasily. “You and Nick both said that only a fool would make an enemy of the duke.”

  Richard nodded. “We do not make our opposition obvious, Polly.”

  “So how would you do this thing?” she asked as the flicker of unease blossomed into flame, and she still did not know why.

  “We need someone who has access to Buckingham’s intimate circle,” De Winter said, deciding that directness was his best policy. “Someone whose presence would be so accepted that conversation would go on around her without thought. Someone who could be in privy places where documents might be left lying around—”

  “Her?” Polly managed to get the one word out, the word that penetrated her confusion with the blinding speed of a rapier thrust.

  “You,” affirmed Richard quietly.

  “But … but how should I gain access to—” Then she saw Buckingham’s cynical, dissolute countenance bent upon her, the eyes afire with that lusting hunger; and she knew.

  She sprang to her feet in a swish of satin petticoats and lace-edged gown. “You say Nick would have me do this? He knows that I cannot abide Buckingham.”

  “Which is why I am deputed to present the case, Polly,” Richard said quietly. “Nick would not ask this of you himself. It is not a lover’s request, you must understand, but the request of a political faction of which Nick is a leading member. We have need of your services. England has need of your services, Mistress Wyat. Will you deny them?”

  “I have little interest in politics,” Polly muttered, pacing the chamber. “Why should I sacrifice myself in this way? If it were necessary for Nick himself, then … then, maybe, I could—No, not maybe,” she added with a flash of impatience. “Of course I would … but—”

  “This is for Nick,” De Winter interrupted. “He has pledged himself to this cause. The specter of civil war still hangs over the land, Polly. If the king sets himself up against the people, as his father did before him, then the specter will take substance. Buckingham does not see this danger. He cares only for the acquisition of power—power he will hold by ruling the king. You say you have no interest in politics. But surely you cannot view such a prospect with equanimity

  “Nay.” Polly crossed her arms, hugging her breasts as if she were cold. “Of course I cannot. But is there no other way, Richard?”

  “Villiers wants you,” Richard said bluntly. “That fact gives you the passport into his intimate circle. He will not suspect you of spying because he will see only what he thinks is there—a female actor with her bread to earn and one way in which to earn it. Such liaisons are common enough, and he is not known for his lack of generosity in these matters.”

  Polly shuddered. “I do not see myself as a member of the duke’s harem, my Lord De Winter.”

  Richard chewed his lip thoughtfully. It was not as if he had not expected resistance. “Why must you be a member of his harem?” he asked, apparently casual. “Are you not special enough to hold your own place? And in the holding, you will provide us with the eyes and ears we must have.”

  Polly poured herself a glass of sherry, belatedly offering the decanter to Richard. He accepted with a slight inclination of his head, refilled his glass, and waited for the result of her cogitations.

  “Special,” she murmured after a few minutes, seeming to savor the word with the idea that had dropped suddenly into her head. There was one way to become special for George Villiers—the rich, ungovernable, never-thwarted duke.

  “Think you that perhaps His Grace might be piqued to good purpose, Richard?” Her eyes glowed suddenly, lit with a speculation based on relief as she saw a way around this untenable dilemma.

  “Pray continue,” he invited, unable to resist that infectious smile. “I am open to any modification.”

  “Well …” She tapped pearly teeth with a slender forefinger. “His Grace is accustomed to his own way, is he not?” A nod answered her. “Suppose he should find me elusive? Sometimes offering, sometimes withdrawing, but always willing for the pursuit?”

  “If he wants you badly enough, you will snare him with such tactics,” De Winter declared.

  “And he wants me badly enough,” Polly stated quietly, quite without vanity or artifice. It was hardly a fact that gave her satisfaction, but in this instance, it could be put to good use. “I can play that part, Richard. I will spin a web that will intrigue him, that will ensure that he is constantly desirous of my company, always waiting for the moment of surrender—a moment that he is convinced is not far away. If I can achieve entry into his intimate circles with such tactics, that will suffice, will it not? I have only to be accepted as a presence.”

  “I see no reason why it should not work,” Richard said thoughtfully, recognizing with relief that he was no longer engaged in the recruitment of an unwilling accomplice, but in shared planning with a partner. “We are interested only in whatever impressions, whispers, plans, you can bring us, not in the methods you use to garner them.”

  “And Nick?” Polly asked, her enthusiasm fading abruptly. When had the idea first come to him and his friends? she wondered dully. Since it had become clear that Buckingham had his eye upon her? And whose idea had it been? “Will it be important to him, do you think, that I can manage to extract the information without surrendering to the duke? Or does he view such a matter with indifference?”

  “I do not think you need me to supply you with the answer to that,” Richard said gently. “He will be here soon. Why do you not ask him yourself? If you really need to know his answer.”

  Polly sat down under a wash of fatigue. She did not think she needed to ask Nick the question, but she still wished he had had the courage to involve her in this conspiracy himself. In her naïveté, she thought that it would have come easier from him.

  Richard looked at her, compassion in his eyes. Maturity was a painful process, and the school in which Polly must grow was harder than many. Somehow she had managed to scramble unsullied through a life that should have destroyed all illusions. Then she had met Nicholas Kincaid—a man who, loving her, would foster her illusions rather than destroy them. Now she must face a harsh reality where even love failed as shield, where love asked more of her than she could easily give.

  “You need your bed,” he said after a while. “It has been an evening to try the strength of Atlas. Get you gone, now. I will remain until Nick returns.”

  She smiled wearily, rising to her feet. “’Tis kind in you, Richard, but I’ll not trespass further on your time. I am not uncomfortable with my own company.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ll stay nevertheless.” He spoke now with familiar briskness. “You’ve had no supper. I’ll ask Goodwife Benson to prepare ye a caudle. Get you to bed.”

  “I do not need a nursemaid, Richard,” she protested. He merely smiled and pulled the bell rope. With a defeated shrug, Polly went into the bedchamber to struggle alone with the ribbons, buttons, and laces of her complicated attire. The days of smock, petticoat, and kirtle were long gone, and she swore with Dog tavern vigor as she wrestled with the recalcitrant knots of her corset.

  “I told you you have need of a lady’s maid.”

  Polly whirled, pink-cheeked with her exertions, to the suddenly opened d
oor of the bedchamber. “Nick! I did not hear you come in.”

  “You were cursing like a Billingsgate fishwife,” he observed, shrugging out of his coat, crossing the room in his shirt sleeves toward her. “You could not possibly have heard anything but the sounds of your own voice.” Setting his hands upon her shoulders, he spun her around and tackled the laces with experienced fingers.

  “Ahh! My thanks.” Polly breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing the life back into the constricted flesh beneath her smock. “I do not know why I ever consented to wear that instrument of torture!” She kicked the offending garment across the room.

  “I think you do know why,” he said with quiet gravity. “Do you also know exactly why you have consented to this other matter—one considerably more distasteful than the wearing of a corset? I would have you certain sure of your own mind.”

  “What did Richard tell you?” She walked over to the window and stood gazing out into the evening gloom, for the moment unwilling to look at him.

  “Only that you had consented to participate in our plan; that you were fatigued and he had sent you to bed; and that since you had had no supper, he had bidden the goodwife prepare you a peppermint caudle.”

  Polly could not help smiling at what she knew had to be a faithful rendition of Richard’s farewell speech to Nicholas. She could almost hear his voice delivering it.

  There was a knock at the door. The goodwife bustled in with the bowl of spiced gruel mixed with wine. “This’ll put the heart in you,” she announced cheerfully, setting the bowl on the tiring table. She examined Polly shrewdly. “Ye look as if ye need it, too, m’dear. They’re workin’ ye too hard, I’ll be bound.” An accusatory glance at Kincaid accompanied this statement. “Every afternoon on that stage. It’s not right, m’lord. Indeed, ’tis not. Barely a child, she is.”

  Nicholas scratched his head, murmuring something vaguely conciliatory that seemed to satisfy the landlady, who gathered up Polly’s discarded clothes, taking them away with her. “If you had a maid, the goodwife would not be obliged to care for your wardrobe,” Nicholas observed, turning back the cover on the bed. “Get between the sheets, now. I do not think I can face further accusations of neglect and exploitation.”

  “You do not neglect me, love. Or exploit me,” she said softly, clambering into bed. “I do only what I choose to do.”

  “Is that truly so?” He handed her the peppermint caudle, then sat upon the bed beside her.

  “Yes. But I could wish you had asked me yourself to engage in this spying.” Polly kept her eyes on the gently steaming mixture on her knees, stirring it thoughtfully with a pewter spoon. “It was cowardly to ask Richard to do it.”

  Nick winced. “It was not through cowardice, moppet. I did not wish you to feel pressured. Perhaps it was conceit on my part, but I had thought you might find it harder to refuse me than Richard.”

  “But you wish me to do this thing?” She looked at him directly for the first time.

  Nicholas shook his head. “No, I do not. But on occasion there are greater purposes that have to be served, and one must make sacrifices. This is one of those occasions.”

  It is possible we may be of service to each other. Where had those words come from? They had been spoken when she had been sitting in another bed in another chamber in the company of Nicholas, Lord Kincaid. Did this go back to that time, then?

  “I am only a Newgate-born, tavern-bred whore, after all,” Polly heard herself say, casually taking a mouthful of gruel. “It is hardly a great matter to sacrifice such a one to another’s bed.” Why must she test him? Did she want to know the answer? There was a sudden, devastating silence.

  Nick was for an instant bewildered by the words. She could not possibly believe he saw the matter in that light. But once upon a time he had done so. He had seen in a hard-schooled, ambitious wench the possibility of mutual benefit. He would put the means of achieving her ambition in her hands; she would be encouraged to do no more than accept an offer that any woman in search of material benefit would seize eagerly.

  But it had been a long time since he had thought in those terms. Polly was not in search of benefit of any kind. She had all she wanted now that she had proved herself capable of fulfilling the talent she had harbored with such dedication. And she loved, and was loved in return.

  The thought that she might doubt him brought a surge of wrath, fueled by a guilty knowledge that her implicit accusation had its roots in a sad past truth, one that he would now deny to his last breath.

  Polly looked up at him, and the spoon in her hand clattered into the bowl. Such stark anger stood out on his features, ignited the emerald eyes so that they flamed in his whitened face.

  “Give me the bowl!” His voice was a lash as he snatched the porringer from her. “Now, get out of bed!”

  Polly’s knees began to tremble. She had had no idea that the humorous, easygoing Nicholas could look like this, could evince such a towering height of black fury.

  “I said, stand up!”

  With a little moan of fear, she stumbled to obey, although a small voice told her that she would be safer in bed. But resistance at this moment was unimaginable.

  His hands gripped her shoulders through the thin cotton of her shift. “Do you dare repeat that?”

  Polly shook her head, struggling to persuade her vocal chords into working order again, since a verbal response was clearly demanded. “N-no … please,” she stuttered. “I did not really mean it … ’Twas just … just—”

  “Just what?” he rasped as her voice faded. “Answer me!”

  “I wanted to see what you would say,” Polly whimpered miserably, hearing how lame the half-truth sounded, yet quite unable, under the piercing glare of those livid eyes, to attack by making explicit that moment of lost trust. She had needed reassurance, and she was getting it; but she had never imagined it coming in this shape.

  “Now you are going to hear what I would say,” he said, bringing his face very close to hers, his hands on her shoulders jerking her against him. “If you ever so much as think such a thing again, let alone articulate it, I promise that you will wish your parents had never met! Do you hear me?” Polly nodded dumbly. “You had better,” he said with no diminution in ferocity, still holding her close. “Because I mean it. You will look back on Josh and his belt with nostalgia! I swear it!”

  Polly swallowed, attempting to lubricate her throat, to lick dry lips. Why on earth had she expected him to enfold her in his arms, to whisper loving reassurances and sorrow for having to ask this of her, to kiss away the hurt and whisper his gratitude and admiration for her courage? Why hadn’t she expected to be bullied and threatened in this savage fashion for having had such stupid, childish doubts?

  “Get back into bed,” Nick directed in his normal voice. “And finish your supper.”

  Meekly, Polly did as she was told, although her appetite for the rapidly cooling contents of the porringer had rather diminished. She took a spoonful, watching Nick warily as he began to get out of his clothes. Had Richard told him of her own modification of their plan? Presumably not, or he would have mentioned it at the beginning. She cleared her throat and put the spoon back in the bowl, waiting for him to turn ’round in response to the signal.

  “Do you have something to say?” Nick approached the bed, unbuttoning the lace cuffs of his shirt. His expression was still distinctly forbidding. “I suggest you reflect well before you open your mouth.”

  Polly could bear it no longer. “I have said I am sorry. It is most ungenerous of you to continue to be so unforgiving.”

  Nick regarded her gravely, then sighed. “Sweetheart, I am torn asunder by this business. Only desperation would force me to lend my countenance to it, but the situation is desperate. However, I will not oblige you to play this part. Do you understand that?”

  Polly nodded, and the candlelight caught the burnished golden tones in the hair tumbling across her shoulders, deepened the green and topaz brilliance of her eyes. “Ric
hard did not tell you of my own suggestion, then?”

  Nick looked startled. “What suggestion?” He took off his shirt, tossing it onto a stool, the gesture setting the muscles to ripple in his back.

  Polly averted her eyes from the distracting sight. It didn’t seem reasonable that at such a moment of intensity, lust should intrude with its insouciant, all-absorbing power.

  Nick continued with his undressing while she told him of her discussion with Richard. When she had finished, he said nothing for a minute or two, but poured water from the ewer into the basin and splashed his face vigorously. Then he turned back to the bed. “There is more risk for you in such a ploy than in simply answering the call to Buckingham’s bed. If he does not care for the game, he will do all in his power to injure you. He is a powerful enemy, moppet. You would do best to have him as your friend.”

  “As lover, you mean,” she said, plucking at the coverlet with restless fingers. “I prefer to hazard his enmity.”

  “I do not want you to take such a risk,” he said bluntly. “We will forget the matter in its entirety. I will tell De Winter and the rest that we must come up with another solution.”

  “Nay!” Polly pushed aside the covers and knelt on the bed, urgent in her determination. “If it is important to you, love, then it is important to me. I have said I will do it, and I will. It is no longer a matter over which you have any say. I will partner you in this.”

  Nicholas looked at her, a frown between his brows, but a tiny smile in his eyes. “You grow out of hand, young Polly.”

  “I grow up, my lord,” she replied, meeting his eye. “Responsible for myself.”

  “Aye,” he agreed slowly. “It was inevitable, and I will learn to like it.”

  Kneeling up, she reached her arms around his neck. “I have been full grown for many a year, love.” Her lips brushed his, her breath whispering sweet and warm. “In all essentials.”

  Nick laughed, running his fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. “Yes, indeed, a veritable crone y’are,” he scoffed. “Wrinkled and bowed down by the weight of experience—Ouch! Don’t you do that!” In mock indignation, he bore her backward onto the bed, but she moved against him with sinuous urgency, her mouth hungry against his, her hands sliding imperatively over his back, gripping his buttocks with harsh demand.