Venus

by Jane Feather

  “’ow d’ye save his life, then?” asked Susan, rummaging in a cupboard. “’Ere, these’ll do you.” She handed her a pair of wooden pattens. “Ye’d best borrow Bridget’s cloak, for I’ll have need of mine.”

  “Carriage is ’ere!” Tom appeared breathless in the door. “’is lordship’s coolin’ ’is heels abovestairs, and bids ye both come straightway.”

  Polly smiled her thanks as she took the cloak of coarse homespun handed her by the cook. The smile, did she but know it, did much to reconcile Bridget to the loan of such a precious garment.

  “We must make haste.” Susan pranced in the doorway, in her anxiety and excitement quite forgetting that she had not received an answer to her question.

  Nicholas, while he was resigned to the task ahead, was also regretting his impulse until Polly appeared, wrapped in the ample folds of the cook’s cloak. She turned the full sun of that glorious countenance upon him and smiled—a smile that carried a hint of shyness behind its gratitude. He ceased to regret the impulse, accepting that it had been as inevitable as the sunrise. Clean, groomed, not at a disadvantage, who would she not entrance? He would welcome De Winter’s second opinion, and such an opinion would only be hastened by the speedy performance of the business in hand.

  “Come.” He gestured to the open front door, where the carriage waited, set his plumed hat upon his head, and followed the pair. “Susan, you may ride upon the box.”

  Susan climbed up to sit beside the coachman, very much wishing that she could have exchanged a glance with Polly. The sedate Kincaid household had achieved a most lively addition, one who was like to create a fair number of sparks if she continued to bask in the favor of my lord and the disfavor of my lady.

  “The Royal Exchange,” Kincaid instructed the coachman, before climbing into the carriage behind Polly, who took her seat, patting the leather squabs with an appreciative hand. This carriage was a far cry from the hackney of the previous evening.

  “It is a most elegant coach, sir,” she said politely. Her gaze ran approvingly over his attire as he sat opposite her, adroitly swinging his sword to one side so that it would not catch between his legs. “And you are a most proper gentleman, my lord.”

  Nicholas’s lips twitched, but he accepted the compliment with a gracious bow of his head.

  “You were not quite so magnificent last night,” Polly continued, as if apologizing for not having complimented her companion earlier.

  “One dresses rather differently when one is intending to visit the court from when one is frequenting a wharfside tavern,” he explained solemnly.

  “I imagine so,” agreed Polly, frowning. “But I do not understand why you would wish to frequent a wharfside tavern when you can go to court or … or even to the playhouse.”

  “Have you ever been to the play?” Nicholas asked curiously, hoping to take her mind off her question… Her eyes glowed as she shook her head. “Not to a real playhouse, no; but Twelfth Night four years ago, a troupe of strolling players came to the Dog tavern and put on an entertainment to pay for their cakes and ale. It was wonderful!” The glow deepened as she seemed to be looking into another world. “The costumes and the dancing. They let me take part a little and said I had some talent.” She shot him an almost defiant look as if daring him to contradict her. “They would have taken me with them, only Josh overheard me asking; so I got his belt instead.” She shrugged, cheerfully insouciant. “But I am going to be a good actor.”

  “That would not surprise me in the least,” he said mildly, and Polly looked instantly gratified. “I have witnessed a fair number of your performances since last evening.”

  There was something in his tone that took a little of the gilt from the statement, but the carriage at this point came to a halt, and Polly, pulling aside the leather curtain, gazed upon the riotous bustle of the Royal Exchange, where stall keepers jostled for custom, calling out their wares to prospective shoppers, maids and mistresses, gentlemen and loungers, who picked over the merchandise and haggled over the prices.

  Polly had her hand on the door latch, ready to leap to the ground, when his lordship spoke with soft determination behind her. “Nay, you must stay in the carriage. You cannot possibly show yourself in public in such undress.”

  Her face fell ludicrously, all the glow and sparkle fading from those great eyes. “But I have never before seen such a place. I will pull the cloak around me—”

  “Nay!” he repeated, sharply this time. “It is freezing outside. You exposed yourself to the elements sufficiently last evening.” Stepping past her, he sprang lightly to the ground, where Susan already stood in attendance. He closed the carriage door firmly, then, although he knew it to be a mistake, glanced upward. Polly looked at him through the window, as pathetic as any prisoner, as appealing as a drooping violet after a rainstorm. Kincaid sighed. “If you promise not to set the hothouse on its heels with your wailing, we will stop here on the way back, and you may explore to your heart’s content.”

  The violet lifted its head to the sun, unfurling its radiance. Her mouth curved in that devastating smile as she propped her elbows on the edge of the window and settled down to observe the scene from shelter. Kincaid, completely bewitched, shook his head helplessly.

  “Come, Susan, let us deal with this matter without delay.” He strode off with the maidservant in tow.

  When they returned within half an hour, Susan was lost behind the number of packages heaped in her arms. But when the coachman relieved her of her burdens, thus revealing her face, her expression was one of shock. When the mistress shopped, particularly for her servants, every item was subject to careful consideration, a weighing up of necessity against cost. The materials were all to be sturdy and hard-wearing, coarse and without frills or furbelows, and only the strictest necessities were purchased. His lordship, while bearing in mind that a servant in his sister-in-law’s house must be clad only in the most sober, modest garments, had bought a petticoat and smock of the finest Holland, a kirtle of warm, fine wool, and a plain dark gown of a mixture of wool and silk. There was a thick serge cloak with a fur-trimmed hood, and a pair of leather gloves. Two pairs of woolen hose, a pair of leather pumps, and a pair of cork-soled pantofles to wear over the pumps in inclement weather completed a wardrobe that would enrage Lady Margaret by a quality and scope that was most definitely unsuited to the status of a kitchen maid.

  “Lor!” murmured Susan, climbing back on the box. “There’ll be fireworks when the mistress sees that lot.” She regaled the fascinated coachman with a full account of the purchases as they bowled along to the hothouse.

  Their arrival at this building caused Polly to assume the mien of one about to ascend the scaffold. She stepped hesitantly out of the coach into the courtyard and stood still, clinging to the door handle. The vehicle, bearing the Kincaid arms upon its panels, brought the establishment’s proprietor hustling across the cobbles, calling over his shoulder to have one of the privy chambers prepared for his lordship. When informed that his customer was not, on this occasion, to be his lordship, but, instead, the tumbled, begrimed girl at his lordship’s side, he rapidly revised these instructions. The common baths in the female wing would do perfectly well. Only the gentry were entitled to privacy.

  He was required to revise his plans yet again when he received his lordship’s orders, and a more than generous payment. There was to be privacy, a limitless supply of hot water, plentiful towels, whatever assistance was requested for however long the ablutions should take.

  The proprietor glanced at the wench again, deciding that it was going to be a long and tedious task. Why was his lordship concerning himself with the cleanliness of this street drab? Then the girl looked up at him, and he understood why. God’s grace! But where had he found such a pearl? She was in sore need of cleaning up, though, even if one was not particularly fastidious.

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