Venus (37 page)

While at night … Well, Polly smiled to herself. What went on behind the closed door of his bedchamber in the west wing of the house was no one’s concern but theirs. If his lordship’s man found Mistress Wyat tucked up in his lordship’s bed of a morning, he was too discreet and well trained to betray a flicker of surprise. Polly secretly thought it ridiculous that she was obliged to keep pretense of using her own apartment, keeping her clothes in there, performing her toilet in absurd privacy. It seemed a most profligate waste of space, she felt, to have two rooms when only one was necessary. But such thrifty and practical considerations were bred in the crowded city slums, not in the lofty mansions of the rich.

Kincaid, although he accepted the Earl of Pembroke’s hospitality at Wilton House, stabled his horses at an inn in the village, seeing no reason why they should be a charge upon his host, who was already put to great expense by the king’s gracing him with his presence.

Polly was glad of this arrangement, since it ensured that the mortification of her riding instruction was kept between themselves and the stable lads at the inn. At her insistence, they rode off the beaten track, where encounters like the one they had just narrowly avoided would be unlikely. However, as they clattered into the stable yard at the inn and she accepted
Kincaid’s hand to dismount, she was firmly resolved that she had had her last ride in that manner. The piebald seemed as happy to be rid of her as she was to be of him, clopping off to his stable with the relieved air of one who had performed a tedious duty and could now look forward to his reward.

Polly strolled casually over to the stable block, her long, extravagantly pleated riding skirt caught up over one arm. Outside one box, she stopped, peering into the gloomy interior, where a fly buzzed monotonously, and the rich aroma of horseflesh, hay, and manure filled her nostrils. The inhabitant of the box came over to the door at an inviting click. “Good morrow, Tiny,” Polly murmured, stroking the dainty creature’s velvety nose, reaching ’round to run her hand over the sinewy neck, which arched in pleasure as the mare whickered and nuzzled into her palm. “I did not bring anything this day,” Polly apologized. “But tomorrow I will.”

“You commune with that animal as if she were possessed of tongues,” Nick said, a laugh in his voice as he came up behind her.

“So she is, of her own kind,” Polly returned serenely. “We understand each other, do we not, Tiny?”

The mare rolled thick, pink lips against her hand in answer and pawed her stable floor, liquid brown eyes glowing. “See?” said Polly. “How could she be clearer?”

“With difficulty.” Nick smiled, reaching in to stroke the horse. “Next to Sulayman, she is my favorite.”

“May I ride her?” Polly asked directly, shooting him a sideways glance.

Nicholas nodded immediately. “She will suit you very well when you are able to handle her. But she is a spirited filly. It will take an experienced pair of light hands to achieve mastery. Her mouth is too delicate for a curb, and her spirit will not take kindly to the whip.”

“And you think my hands are sufficiently light?”

“If you will but listen to your instructor, and do as you are
bid, they will be so,” he teased, twining around his finger a stray curl that had escaped her hat.

“I think you are overcautious, my lord,” Polly declared.

“Impossible, when you consider what it is over which I exercise such caution,” he answered solemnly, although his eyes glinted with humor. “I would not have a bruise mar that ivory skin.”

“I am not unaccustomed to bruises,” Polly pointed out.

“But not with me,” he said, the gravity now genuine.

Polly inclined her head in smiling acceptance. “Nay, not with you. But I meant only that I am not so delicate that a tumble will spell disaster. If I am prepared to risk it, why are you not?”

“Because I am not.” The pronouncement effectively closing the discussion, Nicholas turned to leave. “Do you return to the house with me, or will you stay and commune further with Tiny?”

“There is no need to be vexed.” Polly walked beside him across the yard, out into the main street of the little village clustering at the gate of Wilton park.

“I have told you before that my patience is not inexhaustible. You are persistent as a wasp at the honeycomb.”

“Then I will cease my buzzing,” Polly declared cheerfully. “Shall you dress up for the masquerade tonight? I have it in mind to play a May Day milkmaid, with petticoats all tucked up and curls atumble. Think you t’will be pretty?”

Nicholas felt a flash of suspicion at this instant docility. He looked down at her, saw only the wide hazel eyes full of ingenuous question, her lips parted in a soft smile. He dismissed the suspicion as unworthy. Polly always capitulated with grace. “I can think of few costumes more delightful, moppet; particularly on you. But then, it matters little what you wear, as well you know. You enchant, regardless; hence my Lady Castlemaine’s distemper.”

“Well, I am determined not to allow her to trouble me anymore,” Polly said, reaching up to adjust the starched folds of her cravat. “If the ladies will not talk with me, then I shall devote my attention to the gentlemen with good conscience.
Mayhap His Grace of Buckingham will accord me more than a cold nod.” Brave words, she thought, but she must try to overcome these surely fanciful fears that every time she felt the duke’s eyes upon her, he was contemplating the price that he had promised to find.

She was as good as her word that evening. Sue had entered with enthusiasm into the idea of a May Day milkmaid, and the two girls spent the afternoon adapting a daintily flowered cambric petticoat that Polly would wear over her smock, without gown or kirtle. The gardens yielded pinks, marigolds, and daisies, which Susan’s nimble fingers entwined in the loose ringlets tumbling about the milkmaid’s shoulders.

“’Tis not a costume one would wear gladly in winter,” Polly said with a chuckle, surveying herself in the glass. “I must go barefoot if I’m to play the part with accuracy.”

“You would go barefoot before the king?” Sue, in the process of pinning up the skirt of the petticoat to reveal the shapely curve of calf and the neat turn of ankle, looked up, stunned at the idea of such brazen immodesty.

“I hardly think it is any the more indecent than appearing before the king in smock and petticoat,” Polly said tranquilly, adjusting the neck of her smock with a critical frown. “Besides, His Majesty is hardly unfamiliar with the female form in various states of undress.”

Sue giggled, in spite of her shocked disapproval at this irreverence. “Lor’, Polly, ye shouldn’t say such things.”

“’Tis but the truth,” her companion returned unarguably. “I am going to my lord’s apartments to show myself before appearing below. If there is anything amiss, he will tell me so.”

Her chamber, while it was smaller and less luxuriously appointed than Kincaid’s, as befitted the anomalous position in the court hierarchy of an accredited mistress with no husband’s status to define her own, adjoined his lordship’s. Polly had exclaimed at this convenience, until Kincaid had pointed out dryly that the Earl of Pembroke’s steward would be apprised of all relevant facts appertaining to his master’s guests, and would make disposition accordingly. Such tactful dispsition
had converted a dressing room to Polly’s bedchamber, enabling her to enter Kincaid’s apartments through the connecting door. She did so now, with no more than a light tap to herald her arrival.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I did not realize you had a visitor. Shall I come back later?” She smiled at De Winter, resplendent in crimson satin embroidered with turquoise peacocks, sitting by the window sipping a glass of canary.

Nicholas, engaged in inserting a diamond pin in the heavy fall of lace at his throat, said easily, “Not a bit of it, sweetheart. We talk no secrets.” He turned to examine her, and a smile spread slowly across his face. “What a bewitching jade you are. What think you, Richard?”

“That the knives will be sharpened to a fine keenness,” De Winter said with open amusement. “You have courage, I will say that for you, Polly. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst your fair rivals when you appear in such fashion.”

“Well, I do not care for that,” Polly declared stoutly. “If I were to put ashes in my hair and clothe myself in sackcloth, it would not alter Lady Castlemaine’s disposition toward me, so why should I care?”

“Why indeed,” Richard agreed easily. “’Tis such an ingeniously simple costume.” He laughed in rich enjoyment. “I’ll lay odds ’tis that that’ll cause the most grief. Imagine how galling to have spent hours and fortunes and positive buckets of paint and mountains of powder, only to be outdone by a milkmaid in petticoat, smock, and a few flowers.”

“If you are not to wear shoes, you had best have a care where you put your feet,” Nick said, rising and smoothing down his coat. “And what have you to say about mine own dress, mistress?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, turning slowly for her inspection.

“Magnificent!” Polly breathed, taking in the rich black satin with gold arabesques, the glint of diamond, the wink of silver on his shoes, the deep burnished auburn hair falling in heavy luxuriance to his shoulders, to lie in rich contrast against the dark cloth. The emerald eyes danced, seeming
even brighter against the somber black and gold of his suit. “You are a very prince.” She stepped across the room, metal to his magnet, quite forgetting Richard’s presence. Placing her palms against Nick’s chest, she stroked the silky cloth with its raised golden decorations, then stood on tiptoe to place her smiling lips against his.

“A prince should have a princess as consort, not a milkmaid.” Just as Baron Kincaid should have his baroness. The old, unbidden apprehension nibbled again at the edges of her present contentment. Again she quelled it, and fluttered her eyelashes against his cheek in a wicked little caress that brought his nerve endings to prickly arousal.

“That would depend upon the milkmaid.” De Winter interrupted the play, rising to his feet with a deceptive laziness. “However, you shall descend upon my arm, Polly, not that of your prince.”

“One must not wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve,” Polly said with an ironic smile. “But Buckingham knows where mine does
not
lie.”

Richard’s eyes met Nick’s across the flower-strewn honeyed head. “Are you uneasy, Polly?” he asked quietly.

Everyone has a price. I will find yours.
Oh, ’twas nonsense to be concerned about a remark made in the anger of chagrin. It had no place in this self-enclosed world, far removed from life’s realities, from the monstrous terrors of a plague-stricken metropolis. In this world where the pursuit of pleasure and the fulfillment of desires of whatever kind were the only object, why would Buckingham concern himself with an old and private thwarting? Nick was right. The coldness would soon dissipate as other interests took over, and she would not have these two concerned about her sinister fancies.

“Indeed not, Richard.” Polly spoke firmly. “What is there to be uneasy about? In truth, I prefer the duke’s coldness to his attentions. I do not find that familiarity has lessened the repugnance I feel for him.”

With a smile of sweet innocence, she dropped De Winter a curtsy. “Are you sure, my lord, that
you
are not paying me
too much attention? After all, I arrived here under your escort, and I am as often upon your arm as upon Nick’s.”

“Jackanapes! You are going to make a very bad end,” Richard declared with feeling, taking her hand and laying it upon his arm. “Strive for a modicum of conduct, if you please.”

Polly gave him a smile glinting with mischief before glancing over her shoulder at Nicholas, dropping one eyelid in a conspiratorial wink that brought a shout of laughter from him.

“Be off,” he said. “We will dance the coranto later, if you can remember the steps.”

“If
you
, my lord, will promise not to tread upon my toes,” she said, wriggling one bare foot pointedly; on which Parthian shot, she left him still searching for rejoinder, herself well satisfied that she had dissipated that moment of tension.

Her entrance, as had been predicted, caused no small stir. “What a rustic simplicity, mistress!” trilled Lady Castlemaine. “But one must have the simplicity of mind to accompany such a costume.”

“Indeed, the least sophistication and one would look perfectly ridiculous,” concurred Lady Frobisher, fanning herself vigorously.

“You are too kind, my ladies.” Polly sank into a deep obeisance, each movement in the sequence radiating insolence. “I am most complimented that my poor performance should be so convincing.”

Richard De Winter, shoulders shaking, left her in the vixens’ den, confident that she could hold her own. However, she was not to be left there for long. A liveried footman appeared at her shoulder, bearing the king’s summons.

Polly, smiling around the circle of ladies, excused herself. King Charles was sitting in a carved chair at the far end of the state drawing room. “I’faith, but ’tis a deuced pretty child y’are,” he declared, radiating bonhomie. “I’ll have a kiss, God save me.” Seizing her hands, he pulled her down upon the royal lap, embracing her with hearty enthusiasm.

Polly, emerging somewhat breathless from her sovereign’s
lusty salute, forced herself to laugh and flutter as if quite overset. In truth, she was a trifle overcome, never having conceived of the moment when she would receive attentions of this intimate nature from England’s monarch. But knowing how easily bored the king could become, she recovered rapidly. Plucking a marigold from her hair, she placed it in his buttonhole with a delicate blush and a pretty smile.

“A gift in return, sire.”

The sally earned her another kiss, and when she made a move to rise from his knee, King Charles circled her waist with a restraining arm. “Nay, my bud, I’ll have your company a while longer. Such a sweet weight as it is.” Laughing in great good humor, he took a perfumed comfit from the bowl on the table beside him and popped it between her lips.

For half an hour Polly sat upon his knee as he plied them both with sweetmeats, and his hands strayed just a little, and he engaged her in a risqué exchange that required all her wits. A circle of admiring courtiers surrounded them, laughing heartily at each sally, complimenting Polly on her wit, her dress, her beauty, in faithful recitation of their king. All the while, Polly was conscious of the darting venom directed at her from Barbara Palmer, Lady Castlemaine, who stood just outside the circle.