Venus (45 page)

For some strange reason such an aspersion seemed to catch him on the raw. “You have the word of a Villiers!” he snapped, losing his equilibrium for a second.

Polly raised an ironic eyebrow. “Your pardon, my lord duke, I meant no slur upon your honor. How should I, indeed?” She paused for a minute, but the duke had himself well in hand again, so she continued calmly. “I would have your word, also, that you will do me no serious hurt, and that you will not spill your seed within.” She was negotiating like a whore, Polly thought distantly. A whore’s terms, for one must keep intact the goods with which one had to bargain in the future.

Buckingham suddenly laughed. “By God, but y’are more
than I reckoned on! As consummate a courtesan as my Lady Castlemaine or any. Know your value and keep it! Well, the sport will be the better for it, I swear.” He strode to the door, flung it wide, and bellowed for the servant. “Bring me paper, quill, and sand caster.”

They were produced, the order written, the charges declared dismissed. Buckingham, dropped hot wax from the candle, sealing the document with the impress of his signet ring. “This will be delivered to the governor of the Tower in seven days time, on condition that you have fulfilled your side of the agreement.”

“You’ll not find me wanting,” Polly said.

George Villiers refilled his wineglass, selected two walnuts with some deliberation from a bowl, then leaned against the table, looking at her. He held the walnuts against each other between his hands and squeezed slowly. The shells cracked in the sudden stillness. Smiling, he turned his attention to peeling away the husks cupped in his hands before looking up at her as she stood, immobile by the fire. His eyes narrowed as he said softly, “I’d have you show me what I’ve bought.”

No different in essence, Polly thought, than the little chamber in the Dog tavern. She began to unhook her gown.

T
he seventh morning after the seventh night dawned, its cold gray light filling the square casement. Polly lay wide-awake, stiff and chilled, as she had done since her bedfellow had finally fallen asleep. Her wrists were bound beneath her, and Buckingham had neglected to share the quilt before he had slept, so she could do nothing about her exposure to the ice-tipped air.

There was an eerie silence. She had noticed in the last seven nights that this silence fell for no more than a couple of hours, just before profound night yielded to the dawn. It fell very suddenly, as if the wildness of the Piazza had run its course, its inhabitants stopped dead in the tracks of debauchery. The house slept in the same way, screams, giggles, footsteps, cries, all ceased as if at a signal, and it was as if Polly were the only person awake in this squalid corner of the universe.

She shivered convulsively, but nothing would persuade her to edge closer to the warmth of her companion’s body—not when it was not required of her, and her revulsion could not be detected.

“Are you cold?” Buckingham spoke into the gray light, sleepily matter-of-fact.

“You neglected to untie my hands,” she said, as matter-of-fact as he. “And I have no quilt.”

“Careless of me,” he said, his voice arid as the desert. “D’ye find no pleasure in the sensation of helplessness, bud?”

“Had I done so, my lord duke, I venture to suggest that
your
pleasure would have been diminished,” she responded with acid-tongued truth,

Buckingham chuckled. He had no objection to her tartness so long as she entered his sport without physical reservation; and she had certainly done that. Indeed, it had been a most rewarding seven nights; he was sorry that they were over. But he would have tired of her eventually, and there was a certain sweetness in an ending that came before one was truly ready. Rolling her onto her belly, he unfastened the silk scarf that bound her wrists.

“My thanks, sir,” Polly said formally, sitting up and shaking the life back into her numbed arms, chafing her wrists. “Our bargain is completed, I believe.”

“Aye.” Villiers sighed regretfully. “But I’d as lief continue it for a while longer. If I’d known what a joy you would be, I’d have fixed upon a month.” He got out of bed, stretched and yawned, then went to throw coals upon the fire’s embers.

Polly made no response, merely huddled beneath the quilt, which still retained his body warmth, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. She watched him dress, thinking dispassionately that it was for the last time. She would go home, and Susan would have the tub of hot water waiting before the blazing fire, and she would scrub the night’s violations from her body, and the memory from her mind for the last time. And Nicholas would return, and would replace those grimy memories with his own fresh, present reality.

Dressed, the duke went to the mantel, where he took up the sealed document that had lain there for the last seven nights. He tapped it thoughtfully against the palm of his hand, regarding the figure on the bed. “Extraordinary!” he murmured, shaking his head. “That one would voluntarily expose oneself to such a fatiguing emotion as love.” He
crossed to the bed, thrusting the document into the deep pocket of his coat. “A farewell kiss, sweet bud. ’Tis the last demand.”

Eventually, the door closed on his departure. Polly flew from the bed, scrambling into her clothes, drawing her hooded cloak tight about her. The house reeked of stale liquor and tobacco smoke, and many other less savory remnants. A ragged, skinny girl, her chapped hands blue with cold, her nose dripping, was sloshing cold water over a pool of vomit in the corner of the landing. Polly drew her skirts aside and stepped quickly past. The doorkeeper, grumbling and mumbling, spat phlegm onto the sawdust-covered floor as he pulled back the bolts on the street door.

“It’d ’elp a body if n ye’d come down t’gether!”

It had been the same complaint for the last six mornings. Buckingham always left before Polly—-just another client leaving his whore in the brothel, where she belonged—and the doorkeeper always bolted the door after him, then grumbled mightily at having to open up again five minutes later. Polly ignored him today, as she had done every previous day. Out in the street, where the night’s debris still littered, she took a deep breath of freedom. She would cleanse both mind and body of the soil of those nights. She was no delicately nurtured flower, no piece of porcelain to be cracked and broken by such doings. She had seen worse, had known as bad. For many, such sordid degradations informed their lives from birth until death. For her it was over.

She ran, gulping the air in great drafts, enjoying the icy scalding as it pierced her lungs. Susan, who as usual had been watching for her from the parlor window, had the door open before she could knock. Polly thanked her and leaned gasping against the newel post until she could get her breath.

“Bath’s all ready,” Sue said. “My Lord De Winter’s abovestairs, waitin’ on ye.”

Still somewhat breathless, Polly went upstairs. Richard was standing beside the fire, waiting for her return as he had done for the last five mornings, ever since she had told him
of Buckingham’s bargain. He looked at her searchingly. “’Tis done?”

“Aye.” She nodded and came to the fire, stretching her hands to its warmth. “’Tis done, Richard. He’ll not renege?”

“God’s grace, no!” Richard caught her chin, tipping it up. “And you, child?”

“Am no child,” she said with a tiny smile. “But I am whole. The scars will not run deep.”

His frowning examination continued. She returned the look with candor. After a while he nodded slowly. “It’s well. But I could wish you had stayed for advice before taking the bit between your teeth. Mayhap I could have spared you these last nights.”

Polly shrugged. “Even had you been able to, Richard, ’twould have taken a tedious long time. This way was speedier, and Nick will be free within the day. Indeed—” An exciting, yet somehow terrifying, thought struck her”—maybe within the hour, and I must bathe. I cannot greet him with … with …” Her hands passed down her body in a gesture expressive of disgust. “And he must not find you here, Richard, at this hour. It will puzzle him mightily.” She began to push him toward the door. “Nothing must arouse his suspicions.”

Richard resisted the inhospitable pressure of the small hands in his back. “You have Buckingham’s pledge of secrecy?”

All the light died from the hazel eyes. She shook her head in sudden defeated weariness. “I thought not to ask for it.”

“Then, if you will heed the-advice of a friend who knows Nick of old, you will lay the whole before him without delay,” Richard said briskly. “It is no great tragedy. He is a man of the world, Polly.”

“I do not wish him to know,” she said fiercely. “I would not have him share my own hells with the feeling that he was responsible for them. Can you not understand that?”

Richard sighed. “And suppose he should hear it from Buckingham, or from court whispers? Why do you imagine
Buckingham will keep it a close secret? He can have no reasons for doing so.”

“But by the same token, he can have no reason for not doing so,” Polly pointed out. “I cannot bring myself to tell him, Richard.” She shuddered slightly. “Mayhap when it has faded a little, but not now.”

She looked wan, fragile, seven sleepless nights etched upon her face, giving that usually vibrant beauty an ethereal appearance. Three afternoons, during this dreadful week, she had performed at the Theatre Royal, and only three members of the audience knew what superhuman effort it had cost her: Thomas Killigrew knew because he alone could read the professional actor; Buckingham and Richard knew. She had come close to breaking, and was still perilously close to the edge.

Richard decided that he would be unwise to push the issue at present. Her exhaustion, Nick would put down to worry, and maybe, for a few days, they would keep close to this house. Nick would not feel inclined to venture into society immediately, and when he was ready, Polly would perhaps be strong enough to tell him the truth of her ordeal.

“I will leave you to your bath, then,” he said, picking up his cloak. “An hour or two of sleep would not come amiss, either.”

Polly helped him with his cloak. “I could not have managed without your strength, Richard,” she said softly.

He smiled. “You underestimate yourself, my dear. You would have done what you felt you had to, with or without my support.” He bent to kiss her cheek. “Nicholas is a most fortunate man.”

Nicholas, at that moment, was standing on the parapeted walk outside his prison. He drew his cloak tight against the wind gusting from the Thames. The river ran, gray-brown, below the parapet, a major highway on which the townsfolk went about their business, sparing little attention as they passed beneath Tower bridge for those within the massive
gray walls of the Tower itself. Perhaps they looked at Traitor’s Gate, where the green river slime clung to the step, and the water slopped against the portcullis. And if they did so, perhaps they spared a thought for all those who had made the melancholy river journey, to enter this great and gloomy prison through that gate, to leave it only for the scaffold on Tower Hill.

It was a gloomy thought, but Nick could see little reason for cheer. True, he had not entered the Tower through Traitor’s Gate, but he was as securely held as any, and he still had no concrete charges to defend.

He turned to look over the other side of the parapet, down into the great court of the Tower, where the distinctive black ravens squabbled amongst themselves, circling and strutting with the self-importance of those who had inhabited this place for longer than any human soul. Even at this early hour, the scene was lively, guards and servants hastening about their business, troops of soldiers responding with well-trained obedience to bellowed orders, heralds and liveried messengers on horseback passing back and forth through the gates. The governor appeared, striding briskly across the quadrangle. He looked up to see his prisoner, and raised a hand in salute.

Nicholas returned the salute. The governor was a civilized man, one who enjoyed civilized and intelligent company over a fine port, and Kincaid had rarely spent a lonely evening during this sojourn in the Tower.

“Breakfast’s ’ere, m’lord.” A guard appeared in the narrow entrance to the tower where Nick was housed.

“I’d have more stomach for it with a deal more exercise,” Nicholas said, but he turned within. A fire burned in the round stone chamber of his jail, a thick quilt and feather mattress furnished the narrow bed, a pile of books stood upon the plank table beneath the small, barred window. There was little discomfort in his conditions, if one did not count the loss of freedom. He met no insult, not even a hint of discourtesy, from his jailers, but they were still his jailers.

He turned desultory attention to ale and sirloin. Was Polly
still abed? It was past seven, but if she had not sought her bed before midnight, then she could well be asleep, preparing herself for the morning’s work with Killigrew, and the afternoon performance. But what could she have been doing in his absence that would have kept her out of her bed into the small hours? Mayhap Richard was squiring her to court, encouraging her to maintain the casual, mercenary front that they had perfected over the months. Whatever happened, she must not be tarred with this unknown brush that painted her protector. Richard would understand that, and act accordingly.