Venus (7 page)

“It shall be exactly as you say, my lord,” he murmured, bowing low, rubbing his hands together. “My wife will attend to the girl personally.”

“Good. The wench there will help also.” Kincaid gestured toward Susan. “I will return in two hours. That should be sufficient.”

“Two hours!” Polly squawked. “I cannot spend two hours in water. I will dissolve.”

“Do you wish to learn to read and write?” His lordship fixed her with a gimlet eye. “And do all the other things we discussed?”

Polly put her chin up and turned resolutely toward the hothouse. “’Tis not so very unpleasant,” Susan reassured her, trotting along beside her. “We all comes every four weeks, even the mistress. Can’t abide dirt, she can’t. Says it aids the devil’s work. An’ lice!” Susan’s hands flew up in a gesture of exaggerated horror. “If ’is lordship hadn’t stopped’er
this morning, she’d have cut all your ’air off, she would. Did it to little Milly only last month. Right down to the scalp.”

That prospect was sufficiently hideous to grant Polly a degree of resignation to the alternative offered her. The proprietor’s lady was a large, cheerful woman whose experienced eye immediately took in the full gravity of the task ahead. She grimly rolled up her sleeves and added more hot water to the tub.

Kincaid spent the next two hours in a neighboring coffeehouse, looking through the latest
Oxford Gazette.
The news was as disturbing as ever. Public dissatisfaction with the king and his court was becoming daily more clamorous; the periodicals and tabloids to be found in the coffeehouses all contained tales of the wild doings of his cronies, of how the king was ruled by his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, of the ascendancy of the Duke of Buckingham. There was frank and fearful speculation that the king would make his bastard son, the Duke of Monmouth, legitimate, thus creating him heir to the throne in place of the king’s brother, the Duke of York.

For some reason, the king did not seem to see the danger he was in. He ignored the advice of all but those who encouraged him to assert his divine right to absolute power, as his father had done before him. The land had risen against his father’s autocracy, and they would do the same again if given just cause. The legitimizing of the Duke of Monmouth and the setting aside of the rightful heir would be seen as just cause. The House of Commons would never ratify such a move, and if the king attempted to force them to do so, he would meet his father’s fate. As he would if he continued with a reckless expenditure that was bankrupting the nation. The English people had tasted their own power, and they would not again accept being milked to pay for the king’s pleasures and whims.

Nicholas frowned, tapping a manicured finger on the table. Charles II needed wise counselors, not those who were interested only in their own political advancement and personal
power. Unfortunately, the young king had not been taught to distinguish the true from the false and, having spent his youth in impoverished exile, had not been bred to kingship.

Kincaid and De Winter led a small faction pledged to circumvent the influence of those who would lead the king astray, the Duke of Buckingham in particular. The king was a man of whim, choosing and abandoning favorites as the mood took him. If something could be discovered to Buckingham’s discredit, then his star would fall. In addition, it might be possible to forestall the worst of the king’s errors if they could keep one step ahead, were able to anticipate, so that, if necessary, the full force of opinion from the opposing members of the House of Lords could be brought to bear on the king before he approached the Commons with unpopular demands. If the Lords made its voice heard loudly enough, King Charles might listen.

This two-pronged attack depended entirely on having access to Buckingham’s inner circle, to the plots and plans he would weave with Sir Thomas Clifford and my Lords Ashley, Arlington, and Lauderdale. De Winter’s manservant had been recruited, initially. He had left De Winter’s service to become employed as lackey in Buckingham’s household, but not even the substantial sums he received for any piece of information had been able to compensate him for his terror at the prospect of discovery. It became obvious to his real employers that fear was making him unreliable, and one slip on his part would mean the end for all of them. Spying on the king’s favorite would be tantamount to spying upon the king—treason, which ended on the block.

The manservant had been retired on a healthy pension, well away from London, and another spy was needed. Why not a beautiful young actor? One who would so manifestly appeal to Buckingham’s notoriously lusting eye? A mistress would have access to all those private conclaves, and if she did not know she was spying, the danger of discovery would be reduced. Careful priming beforehand, and skillful questioning
later, should elicit the information from her without her being aware of it.

It was tricky, but it could work. It was certainly the best opportunity they had had in some time. Lord Kincaid consulted the watch hanging at his waist, saw that two hours had passed since he had abandoned his prospective spy to her watery fate, and returned to the hothouse. He found himself most eager to see what transformation soap and water had wrought. He was not disappointed.

“You must have been even dirtier than I thought,” he managed to say, once he had recovered from the sight of Polly’s now unhindered beauty. Her hair, clean and burnished, was an even richer color than he had realized, and her complexion, free of the dirt that had been embedded in the skin, was a clear, translucent ivory. Only her eyes were unchanged, except that in their now-polished setting they shone even more luminous than before. He could make an informed guess, aided by memory, of the condition of the rest of her, now concealed beneath the modest neatness of her unimpeachable garments. Once her bruises had healed, there would not be a blemish to mar the perfection. The thought brought an uncomfortable constriction in his loins; he turned brusquely toward the coach.

“Come, it is time we went home. I have wasted the greater part of my morning already.”

Polly, torn between resentment at his callously matter-of-fact manner and pleasure in the combined sensations of cleanliness and the feel of fine linen against her skin, followed him a little crossly. “But you promised that we might stop again at the Exchange.” She gathered up her skirts with unconscious elegance to mount gracefully into the coach.

Now, where had she learned to do that? Nicholas wondered. It was as if she had been born and bred to the gracious management of skirts and petticoats. “I will let you and Susan off at the Exchange. You may walk home afterward.”

“Oh, but please, my lord. My lady …” Susan stammered, leaning over the side of the box in her anxiety.

“I will make it all right with her ladyship,” Nicholas
promised, accepting that he was going to have an unpleasant scene on his hands when Margaret discovered that he had blithely given her maid a holiday.

Polly’s excitement when she was finally permitted to set foot in the magic world of commerce was so innocently, childishly at odds with that mature beauty that Kincaid was hard-pressed to keep a straight face. Bethinking himself that wandering around stalls lacked something essential if one was not in a position to purchase, he handed her a sovereign.

“’Tis hardly riches,” he said, laughing, as she looked at him, dumbfounded. “But you might see some trifle that takes your eye.” He was aware that Susan was also staring. “To hell and the devil,” he muttered. Why should a generous impulse have such an effect?

He knew perfectly well why, of course. One did not hand out sovereigns to servant wenches except in payment for services rendered—services, in general, of a certain kind. It would not do for Margaret to draw such a conclusion. Nothing would prevail upon her to share houseroom with one she would call whore. There seemed only one solution. He handed Susan the sovereign’s mate, with the injunction to enjoy themselves but to ensure that they were home for dinner. Then he gave the coachman instructions to drive to Whitehall, and left two blissfully happy girls, with untold riches burning a hole in their pockets, to enjoy a brief holiday.

The Long Gallery at Whitehall was thronged. It was here that gossip was created and exchanged, factions developed and broken, reputations made and ruined. His eye sought for the tall, slender figure of Richard De Winter, Viscount Enderby. Nick’s oldest friend, the man with whom he had shared the brutal hells of their boyhood years at Westminster School, was lounging beside one of the long windows overlooking the bowling green, his indolent posture belying the taut power and decision that Nick knew so well. An elaborate periwig fell to his brocade shoulders; diamond buttons on his coat sleeves winked in the light from the window. His eyelids drooped slightly, concealing the razor sharpness of
the gray eyes beneath. A lace-edged handkerchief fluttered from his beringed fingers, and a burst of laughter rose from the admiring group of ladies clustered around him. De Winter was a wit with a notoriously sharp tongue, and no scruples as to where and to whom he directed that sharpness. He was feared by many, but no one would show it, any more than they would fail to listen when he pronounced.

Nicholas strolled over to the group, pausing to acknowledge greetings, exchange a word of news, a light remark. He learned that again the king had not left his privy chamber this morning, where he was closeted with the Duke of Buckingham and two other favorites, my Lords Bristol and Ashley. Increasingly, His Majesty was cutting himself off from the conversation and opinions of the majority of the court.

“Why, Nick, my dear fellow, how goes the world with you?” De Winter hailed him.

“Indifferent well, Richard,” replied Nicholas airily, bowing with great ceremony to the ladies, his plumed hat sweeping the floor. “I fear I caught cold last night.”

De Winter’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Indeed, I am sorry to hear it, but ’twas a foul night. I was kept withindoors, myself, by some unexpected visitors.”

“A fortunate occurrence,” Kincaid said with a degree of dryness. “I should have been glad to have been so prevented from making my own journey.”

“Lord De Winter has been telling us the most outrageous story,” a lady in orange taffeta informed Nicholas with a trilling laugh. “It is said that during a ball at Lord Lindsey’s last week, a babe was born in the middle of the coranto. The infant was caught in a handkerchief, but no one knows who is the mother, no lady acknowledging the child, and everyone continuing with the dance.”

“Ah,” said Nicholas thoughtfully. “But I understand that my Lady Fawcett has since been confined to her bed.”

“Nick, you have outdone me!” cried De Winter. “I must retreat in shame.” With a sweeping bow, he removed himself from the circle, leaving Nicholas to entertain the ladies with
further scurrilous tales before he, too, made his excuses and sauntered along the matted gallery to take the stairs to the Privy Garden.

De Winter was waiting for him at the King Street Gate, at the far end of the garden. “My apologies for last night,” he said without preamble. “You had difficulties?”

“’Tis a long story, Richard.” Nick told the tale as they walked toward the Strand, then proceeded to expound his proposition to his rapt companion. “When you see her, you will see what I mean,” he finished. “Such extraordinary beauty. Never have I seen its like.”

De Winter looked at his friend, wondering if perhaps something had addled his senses. “Is she, indeed, a maid? It seems unlikely, my friend, although I would not doubt your word.”

“I have no empirical evidence,” Nick said with a slight shrug. “But I would stake my honor upon it. She is quite the most unusual wench.”

“Desirable enough for Buckingham? He has more interest in flesh and blood than in the fey.”

Nicholas gave a short laugh. “Desirable enough, Richard! I know not how to keep my own hands from her at times. And she is most definitely of this world.”

“And Killigrew will take to her?”

“When she is groomed,” Nick said with absolute certainty.

“And you can rely upon her cooperation?”

“Her only desire is to tread the boards,” Nicholas said. “And I am convinced she has no small talent. Indeed, I am often hard-pressed to tell the performance from the genuine emotion.”

“But with such a creature—a Newgate brat who has grown from the slums—you will not be able to trust in her loyalty. It will be given to the highest bidder. For that reason, you may be able to encourage her into Buckingham’s bed—there are few higher—but how can you be sure she will remain sufficiently attached to you to enable you to milk her of any information? It will have to be done very casually
if she is not to suspect. It seems to me, my friend, that that predicates a certain intimacy.” His eyebrows lifted. “Should she begin to suspect the truth, she may well see financial advantage in playing turncoat. Then we will both lose our heads.”

Nicholas was silent for a minute. He did not resent this hard catechism. Richard spoke only the truth, and the stakes would be of the highest. Finally he said, “If I may bind her to me …”

“She will remain loyal,” De Winter finished on a low whistle. “Will you bind her with the chains of gratitude or of love, my friend?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Of the first, certainly. Of the second …” He smiled. “We will wait and see. I find I have a powerful desire for her, Richard, one I would consummate; but I must kindle her own first. She is still an innocent in matters of passion, in spite of her background.” He paused thoughtfully, then said, “Maybe because of it. Passion and desire are not necessarily synonymous with lust, and she is certainly familiar with the latter in its ugliest manifestations. But we will leave that in abeyance. While she remains beneath my roof, she remains virgin. She must be taught certain things, and in the teaching I will forge some chains.”

Richard De Winter nodded, and kept silent. He found himself with a great desire to make the acquaintance of Mistress Polly Wyat.