Venus

by Jane Feather

  “I do not think I should care for that at all.” Polly caught the teasing finger between her teeth, nipping with a degree of seriousness. “Respect sounds very dull. Except that I could wish you had shown me a little before pulling Tiny up short like that. I would not else have fallen.”

  “Stop worrying that bone. I had thought it buried.”

  “Indeed, it is.”

  “Then kneel up and let me wash your back. I have a certain cure for bruises of both pride and flesh …”

  Chapter 18

  “You have recovered from this morning’s mishap, I trust, Mistress Wyat.” Buckingham took snuff, smiling blandly at Polly. They were in one of the small drawing rooms that evening where card tables had been set up; voices rose around them in laughter and occasional exclamation.

  Polly looked at her interlocuter, and for a moment was deprived of the power of speech. The duke was regarding her with a look of contemptuous amusement, radiating menace. The cheerful buzz around her seemed to fade under the inescapable conviction that this man was going to hurt her. Without thought, her eyes darted in a desperate search for Nicholas, needing the certainty of his presence as shield.

  The duke’s smile grew blander as he absorbed her confusion. “I appear to have said something to upset you,” he murmured. “’Twas but a polite inquiry.”

  Polly licked her lips and found her voice. “I do beg your pardon, my lord duke. My mind was elsewhere. I am quite recovered, thank you. It was a most minor mishap.”

  “Your … uh … protector seemed not to consider it minor.”

  “I do not know what you mean, sir.” Why did she feel as if she were dancing at the end of a string being manipulated by those long, beringed fingers? Her gaze raked the room again, wildly searching for Nicholas.

  “Why, I mean simply that Kincaid appeared monstrous disturbed,” replied the duke casually. “Most flatteringly concerned for your safety.”

  “I cannot imagine why that should surprise you, Duke.” From somewhere came the strength to resist the creeping paralysis produced by those drooping, hooded eyes and the soft tones where some as yet undefined threat lurked, barely masked.

  He gave a little laugh. “Oh, it did not surprise me in the least, bud. Not in the least.” He watched her as she struggled to make sense of this. “Love is a most demanding master,” he murmured.

  Involuntarily, she gasped, her eyes widening in shock. “It is, of course, not at all a fashionable emotion,” continued the soft voice dripping its honey-coated menace. “But we shall keep it as our little secret, shall we?” Seeing Polly for the moment incapable of response, he offered a mocking bow and sauntered over to a table where an intense game of three-handed Gleeke was in progress.

  Polly stood for a minute trying to shake herself free of the enveloping dread. What was going on? What had he seen? What did he mean? She must find Nicholas.

  Gathering up her skirts, she hastened from the room, then stopped. What was the point in describing that exchange to Nicholas? It could not possibly mean anything. Why should it matter that Buckingham now knew that Polly and Nick were not simply two individuals involved to their mutual benefit in a perfectly ordinary liaison? Her own association with the duke was over, so nothing was lost by his knowledge. What did matter was that she had betrayed her fear even as she had confirmed his words with her shocked silence.

  With determination, she returned to the card room, taking her place with a laughing group around the shuffleboard.

  • • •

  “Something appears to have pleased you mightily, duke,” observed Lady Castlemaine, her eyes gleaming through the slits in her black silk mask.

  “Perhaps I, also, should adopt the fashion of the vizard,” drawled His Grace. “I’d not have my every thought broadcast upon my countenance.”

  “Only broadcast to those who have the code and can therefore read,” responded her ladyship. “You are uncommon satisfied by something. Confess it.”

  The duke smiled and reposed himself elegantly upon the scroll-ended chaise longue beside her. He straightened an imaginary wrinkle in his aquamarine hose, turning his calf for further inspection, thus offering his companion the opportunity to admire the fine shape of his leg.

  “Has Lord Kincaid’s little actor at last come to appreciate your manifold attractions?” hazarded Lady Castlemaine, her baleful gaze wandering to where the subject under discussion sat at the shuffleboard. Polly wore no vizard, her own having been removed by the king himself, on the grounds that beauty such as hers had no right to be concealed beneath a mask. Such a statement had done little to improve Lady Castlemaine’s disposition, and her mouth thinned spitefully.

  Buckingham read her expression correctly, despite the mask. He chuckled. “Do not let your ill will show, my dear. Malice is not a pretty emotion. Its manifestation wreaks havoc with the complexion; such hard lines as it produces.”

  Lady Castlemaine managed a wan smile. “I am indebted to you, my lord duke, for your advice. I will make certain to heed it. But, pray, will you not answer me? Does your present complacence have aught to do with the actor?”

  “Well,” the duke murmured, “I think you could say that I have justification for feeling satisfaction.” His eyes rested on Polly, and he nodded pleasantly to himself. “I have found both the currency and the price, my lady.”

  The countess closed her fan, tapping the ivory sticks against the palm of her hand. “Will you say no more, sir?”

  “If I may count upon your assistance,” the duke replied, “you shall be a party to the entire plan.”

  “Gladly,” the lady agreed. “I will render whatever assistance I may.”

  “I shall need you to plant a few seeds in the king’s ear,” Buckingham explained, his voice low, a smile on his lips, his eyes still upon Mistress Wyat. “Easily done in the privacy of the bed curtains.”

  “On what subject?”

  “Why, treason, my dear, and my Lord Kincaid.”

  “You talk in riddles.” Barbara momentarily forgot the need for caution, and her voice rose above an undertone. “What has Kincaid to do with treason?”

  Buckingham shrugged, smiled. “I am sure I can find a connection if I look hard enough, madame; sufficient to impeach him and lodge him in the Tower.”

  “But how would such a manufacture assist your cause with the actor? She does not appear to hold him in ill will, for all that they do not live in each other’s pockets.”

  “Ahhh, now there is the nub,” the duke said, his smile broadening. “The facade they present for public consumption is precisely that—a facade presenting the complacent protector and the kept woman with an eye to the main chance. In fact, matters run much deeper.” He shook his head in mock wonder. “So beautifully they play it, too. But I tell you, Barbara, if aught were to be amiss with my Lord Kincaid, I’ll lay any odds you choose to name that his mistress will make whatever sacrifice demanded of her to buy his safety.”

  “And you will name the price,” said Lady Castlemaine, her eyes brightening as comprehension dawned. “’Twill be a high one, I imagine.”

  “By the time I have finished with the little whore, she will never want to show that glorious countenance at court again.” The vicious words, spoken in a soft, pleasant tone, fell from smiling lips. Barbara Palmer shivered in sudden chill. “She will know herself for what she is—a slut whose place is on her back in Mother Wilkinson’s brothel.”

  Indeed, reflected Barbara with a renewed shiver, one did not refuse the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham with impunity. The wench would suffer well for such presumption; for imagining that a creature coming from nowhere, with a little talent and a moderately pretty face, could dare to play fast and loose with the most powerful man in the land.

  “When do you begin?” she asked, taking a cheese tartlet from a tray presented by a bowing page.

  “There is no time like the present.” Buckingham waved the tray away and took snuff. “You will begin to make little murmurs about Kinc
aid, which I will follow up with graver doubts. By the time we are returned to Whitehall, the crop should be ripe for harvesting.”

  It was not until after Christmas, however, that the metropolis was considered sufficiently plague-free for the court’s return. Polly did what she could to overcome her fear of Buckingham, to regain her pleasure in the sojourn in Wiltshire. Her efforts were assisted by the duke, who seemed to lose interest in her altogether, and eventually she was lulled into a sense of security, able to believe that he had enjoyed tormenting her in revenge for her rejection of his advances, but had now found other interests.

  He had, indeed, found other, related interests, and the quiet work of discrediting Nicholas, Lord Kincaid, went on behind the scenes, and in the privacy of the king’s bed.

  The twelve days of Christmas at the court of King Charles II surpassed Polly’s wildest dreams of that pleasure-oriented celebration.

  Christmas at the Dog tavern had, in latter years, been celebrated with less than Puritan severity, certainly, but Polly had been kept far too hard at work to glean much amusement from the mummers and the musicians; the mistletoe hung upon the rafters had merely served to add to her burdens. There had been Christmas fare, and she had eaten her fill of goose and mince pies, but nothing in that experience had led her to expect the magnificence of this Christmas.

  Day after day, the junketings continued to the music of viol and drum; tables groaned beneath the boar’s head, the pheasants, the sturgeons and carps, the venison pasties, cheesecakes and sugar plums, nuts and fruit Faces remained flushed with the canary and sack, the punch and best October ale that flowed from earliest morning until the last reveler had sought his sodden slumber. And each night, the festivities were directed by the man who meant Christmas—the Lord of Misrule.

  Polly had thought it the most famous jest that Richard De Winter, elegant, aloof Richard, should have been chosen for this role, but she realized rapidly how clever a move it had been. It was the Lord’s task to keep the wildness from becoming out of hand, and De Winter enforced his discipline by fixing sconces, or penalties, of wickedly witty appropriateness, so that the miscreant, in paying his forfeit, would provide lavish entertainment for the assembled company. A sullen look, an unkind remark, the bringing of dissension, were punished instantly, as was horseplay that crossed the boundary of play. To be accused as a spoilsport of either kind meant the ordeal of firecrackers and squibs, and while the company might split its sides laughing at the antics of the offender, leaping and dancing as the fiery things tied to his heels and hems exploded, the delinquent was unlikely to repeat his offense.

  Polly, who had the misfortune to hiccup with laughter in the midst of some exaggeratedly dignified speech of the Lord of Misrule, was required for her insolence to walk upon her hands for the length of the state room. Fortunately, her costume for that evening permitted her to perform the gymnastic feat without loss of modesty. She was dressed as a grimy street urchin, in tattered breeches and torn shirt, soot smudges on her cheeks, her hair hidden beneath a ragged cap. Not a costume that detracted from her beauty in the least, Kincaid reflected, watching her progress between the lines of cheering revelers. The cap fell off, and her hair tumbled loose over her face, but she completed the walk nevertheless, flipping her legs over her head at the end to land neatly on her feet, brushing her hair away from her face, flushed with the upside-down exertion, as unselfconscious as if she had performed for them upon the stage at Drury Lane.

  “How did you know she could accomplish such an exercise?” Nick asked Richard, standing beside him.

  “An accurate surmise,” said the other, laughing. He glanced at his companion, who was looking in soft amusement at the antics of his mistress. “What d’ye intend, Nick? Now that the business with Buckingham is over.”

  “About Polly?” Nick’s smile broadened. “There’s no hurry, Richard. She is happy with matters as they are. I’ll not lay the burdens of wife and motherhood upon her just yet. I’d have her enjoy some playtime first. She’s had little enough in her life … not even a birthday present, Richard—” He broke off abruptly as the subject under discussion came prancing over to them.

  “Am I granted absolution, my Lord of Misrule?” Polly bowed before Richard, cap in hand.

  “You have done your penance,” he said solemnly, tapping her shoulder lightly with his black rod of office. “But have a care, lest you offend again.”

  The musicians, who had played a march tune during Polly’s gymnastics, struck up a galliard. Polly, despite her incongruous costume, was whisked away into the stately line. Taking advantage of this peaceful interlude in the generally riotous proceedings, the two men turned their backs on the room.

  All softness and amusement had gone from Kincaid’s expression now. “D’ye mark it, Richard?” he said quietly. “There is a most noticeable coolness. It has been building these last weeks, and now he barely accords me a nod in return for a bow.”

  “Aye,” Richard replied in the same low voice. “I mark it well. Can you think of a reason for it?”

  “I have racked my brains, man, but can come up with nothing. I wondered if, perhaps, ’twas Polly. His Majesty would have her in his bed and chooses this manner to tell me to withdraw. But that is not his way. All his mistresses have husbands or keepers; ’tis useful, is it not, to have someone available to acknowledge as his own any royal bastards?” This last was said with a cynical twist of his lips, and received a simple nod of agreement from his friend.

  “Our sovereign is a man of moods,” Richard said. “Mayhap this will pass as quickly as it came.”

  “It’s to be hoped so,” Nick said somberly. “Else I fear to receive my conge without ceremony. Say nothing of this to Polly. I’d not spoil her present pleasure for the world.”

  “No indeed,” Richard agreed, turning back to the room. “’Twould be the act of a rogue to do so. Such unaffected delight is a gift to all.”

  Polly’s own gifts this Christmas numbered twelve as her true love followed the old carol. Each morning she found upon her pillow some new delight. There was a saddle of tooled Spanish leather, then boots to match; a little locket of mother-of-pearl; inlaid combs and lace ruffles; and one morning, a tortoiseshell kitten with a blue satin ribbon around its neck.

  “She is called Annie,” Nick said, propping himself on one elbow beside her, enjoying every nuance of expression on the mobile face. “With care, she should not become so dirty that she will have to be thrown away.”

  “Oh, I love you!” Polly declared, hugging him fiercely.

  “And I you.” He stroked the rich honeyed mass tumbling over his chest, looking beyond her head into the middle distance. From somewhere the storm clouds were gathering, and for the life of him, he could not grasp a thread of explanation.

  “What is it?” Polly felt his sudden tension in the stroking hand on her head, in the broad chest against her cheek. She sat up.

  Nick smiled and put aside his foreboding; there was nothing he could do until he knew what he was facing. “What could possibly be the matter? Let us go riding.”

  By the end of January, Polly was once more ensconced with the Bensons in Drury Lane, the court was back at Whitehall, Parliament at Westminster, and the decimated capital began to pull itself back together. There were still cases of the plague, but the recovery rate was now much higher than that of the fatalities, and the populace ceased to fear; and ceased to observe even the most minimal precautions. As a result, the scourge retained the sting in its tail.

  The Theatre Royal opened again. Thomas Killigrew assembled his scattered company, setting to with a will to entrance the play going public.

  Polly was once more absorbed in the magic of the theatre. The Duke of Buckingham became as he had once been, just a member of the audience and a courtier she would avoid when at Whitehall. So busy and involved was she that she had little time for Susan’s gloominess, and quite failed to notice Nick’s increasing distraction. Until both were brought forcibly to her noti
ce.

  “Just what is the matter with Susan?” Nick demanded with unusual irritability as the parlor door banged on the departure of a red-eyed Sue. “She has had a permanent cold in the head since we returned from Wilton.”

  “Oh, I meant to talk to you about that!” Guiltily, Polly clapped her hand to her mouth. “It is just that Thomas is being so pernickety, and Edward wants to play a scene differently, and Thomas says he can go and play for Sir William Davenant in that case, and—”

  “Yes, I do not need a recitation of all the trials and tribulations at the playhouse,” Nick interrupted, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “What is amiss with Susan?”

  Polly, swallowing an indignant retort at this impatient response, looked at Nick carefully. His face was drawn and haggard, the emerald eyes somehow dulled, sunken in the hollows of his face. It occurred to her, with a wash of remorse, that she had been so full of her own activities in the last two weeks that she had asked him nothing about his own concerns. He was frequently in conference with Richard, and sometimes she would come into the room and have the unmistakable impression that they had abruptly switched the subject on her arrival. But she had simply dismissed the vague puzzle, assuming they would share the confidence when they chose.

  “Are you ailing, love?” she asked now, coming over to him, stroking his face with a fingertip. A note of fear tinged her voice as she thought of the plague, but Nick shook his head.

  “I am quite well; just fatigued. What is it with Susan?”

  She bit her lip, not willing to be so easily dismissed. But perhaps Nick did not want to be pressed, and to do so would simply increase his weariness. She turned to the sideboard, pouring him a glass of wine, wishing that she had thought to mix him a bowl of the punch which she knew well he enjoyed on these cold, inhospitable nights.

  “Come feel the fire,” she said softly, taking his hand, encouraging him to the hearth warmth. She pushed him into an elbow chair, then sat at his feet, resting her head against his knees. “Sue is sore afflicted, my lord.”