Venus v-8

by Jane Feather

  The sound of the front door made them both start. " 'Tis Nick," Polly said, relaxing at the familiar tread.

  "What the deuce goes on here?" demanded Nick, coming into the parlor. " Tis near two in the morning."

  "Oh, we have been writing a letter to Oliver," Polly told him cheerfully, reaching up to kiss him in greeting. "At least, I have been writing."

  "Then heaven send Oliver uncommon powers." Nick tossed his cloak onto the settle. "He'll never be able to decipher it, else. You might just as well leave him in ignorance."

  "Oh, that is unjust," Polly exclaimed. "I have made it fair. Only see." She held out her handiwork.

  Nick scrutinized the communication, returning it with a head shake of mock exasperation. "You spell most vilely, Polly. I swear I should have used the rod to teach you with."

  "Oh, I do not care a jot for your opinion," Polly declared. "It says what Sue wished it to say."

  "Then it had best go to the carrier without delay." Nick took his long clay pipe from the mantel. "Be off with you to your bed, Susan."

  He lit the pipe and stood, shoulders to the hearth, squinting through the fragrant blue smoke as if trying to decide on something.

  Polly stood immobile, afraid that a movement would dis-

  tract him, and she did not want him distracted because just possibly he was deciding to confide in her. A dreadful thought reared an ugly head, nurtured by her conversation with Sue. Perhaps he had resolved to take a wife, and was even now trying to think how best to break it to her.

  Nicholas was thinking of the conversation he had just had with his friends. It was clear to them all that for some cause, Kincaid was regarded with deep disfavor by the king. While he had not been denied admittance to Whitehall since their return from Wilton, he was made to feel like a leper, ostracized by all but his special friends. It was a pattern familiar to all habitues of Whitehall in these days of favoritism and conspiracies, both real and imagined. In a society defined by a complete absence of trust, no one was really safe. A certain coolness would be noticed, an absence of attention if one approached the king; then came the frown, the turned shoulder that denied audience; then came the whispers that fed more whispers; and a man was on his way to outer darkness.

  Matters had now reached this last stage for Nicholas, and he was no nearer to understanding the cause than he had been at Christmas. None of his friends could throw light on the matter, either. They knew only that Kincaid was persona non grata, that the king mistrusted him, and it was best not to be seen in his company if one was not to be tarred with the same brush.

  His present dilemma was a difficult and a dangerous one. He had two choices: to brave it out, taking the risk that no more than mood and whim lay behind his present disfavor; or he could flee London, rusticate in Yorkshire until some other matter took the king's attention, to put Kincaid out of sight, out of mind. The latter course would be the sensible one if he thought there was a concrete reason for King Charles's anger and mistrust. Concrete reasons led to the Tower and the executioner's block. But he could come up with nothing. And if he fled, what was to be done with Polly? As his mistress, she might also be endangered if he left her behind. Yet to take her away would take her from her

  beloved theatre at a high point in a career that depended upon being in the public eye. He did not think he had the right to do that-not without absolute certainty of danger. She was not his wife yet, when all was said and done. Fortunately for her, he thought mirthlessly. In his present anomalous position, the greater the perceived distance between them, the better.

  "Are you going to leave me?" Polly heard herself whisper, quite without volition. The bleak look on his face frightened her more than anything she could have imagined, and the need to know what caused it had become invincible, regardless of what misery the knowledge might spell for her.

  Nick started at this uncanny reading of his thoughts. What could she know of this? "Why would you think such a thing?" he demanded, his voice harsh without intention.

  Polly bit her lip, her fire-warmed cheeks cooling with the chill that seemed to enwrap her. "I do not know why; but you appear so distracted, and you will not tell me of the cause. I… I was thinking of marriage." This last came out in a rush, and she dropped her eyes lest he read her panic.

  "Marriage!" What sort of a mind reader was she? But now was not the moment for such a subject in all its complexities; not now when he was enmeshed in a web of an unknown's spinning, and he must make immediate decisions that could well have far-reaching consequences for both their lives. "Do you know what o'clock it is?" he demanded irritably. "When I decide 'tis time to talk of marriage, I will apprise you of the fact in good order."

  "And I suppose that then I must find another protector," Polly said, unable to help herself. Once the monster had risen, it would not return peaceably to its lair.

  Nicholas closed his eyes on a weary sigh. Why on earth was she playing this silly game now? Had she no more understanding of his bone-deep exhaustion, his dreadful apprehension than to make ridiculous jests? He heard truculence in her voice, rather than the anxiety this was designed to mask. He saw her pallor and interpreted it as fatigue; the

  gaze that would not meet his, he interpreted as the petulance of an overtired child.

  "Do not talk such arrant nonsense," he said shortly. "It seems to me that you lack even common sense. You were exhausted four hours ago, but instead of seeking your bed like the rational grown woman you are supposed to be, you waste the night in idle chatter with the maid."

  "I had thought that was why Susan lived here," Polly fired back, confused resentment overcoming anxiety. "So that I should have someone with whom to engage in idle chatter!"

  "I do not always make the right decisions, particularly where you are concerned," snapped his lordship. "Get you to bed straightway."

  "I will not on your say-so," she declared, furious at this apparently unprovoked attack.

  Nicholas sighed. "Polly, I am awearied, too much so to join battle. Go to bed or not, as you please."

  "I do please!" Polly banged into the bed chamber, there to crawl beneath the quilt, falling asleep with sticky lashes and tear-wet cheeks and salt upon her lips.

  Nicholas remained beside the fire, tobacco and wine providing a measure of spurious ease. Eventually he went to bed, slipping an arm beneath the sleeping figure, rolling her into his embrace before finding his own uneasy oblivion.

  Chapter 19

  They came for Lord Kincaid that same night, in the hour before dawn when the spirit is at its lowest ebb and the night's chill at its most pervasive.

  The hammering at the street door, the bellowed "Open in the name of the king!" brought casements flung wide the length of Drury Lane, and Goodman Benson, in nightcap and gown, hurrying from his bed, shivering with fear and cold, to draw back the bolts.

  The lieutenant pushed past him, a troop of six soldiers at his back. "We are come for Lord Kincaid. Where is he to be found?"

  Benson, quivering like an aspen leaf, pointed abovestairs, unable to find his voice in the face of this terrifying visitation.

  The lieutenant, hand on sword, mounted two steps at a time, flinging open the door to the darkened parlor. He crossed the empty room, threw wide the door to the bedchamber. "My Lord Kincaid?" he demanded into the darkness, his soldiers crowding at his back.

  Nick had heard the banging, had had time to recognize what was about to happen, but not to prepare himself. Now he reached for flint and tinder, lighting the candle beside the bed. Polly had sat up, her eyes wide in incomprehension, her

  tumbled hair doing little to conceal her breasts as the quilt fell to her waist.

  The intruders' eyes, as one pair, became riveted upon that creamy, rose-tipped perfection. Nicholas took hold of the cover and drew it up. "You have need of this," he said quietly. "To what do I owe this pleasure, gentlemen?" An eyebrow quirked in sardonic question.

  "You are Lord Kincaid?" The lieutenant approached the bed, one hand
still on his sword hilt, although the man in the bed was both naked and unarmed.

  "The very same," Nicholas said with an ironic bow of his head.

  "What is happening?" Polly found her voice at last, clutching the sheet to her neck as she stared at a scene that smacked of a Bedlamite's lunacy.

  "Hush, sweetheart," Nick commanded, gently but with authority. "You are to say nothing at all."

  "I bear a warrant for your arrest, my lord," intoned the lieutenant. "You are to be committed to the Tower, there to await impeachment."

  "On whose authority?" asked Nick, still quiet.

  "His Grace the Duke of Buckingham signs the warrant in the king's name," came the answer, promptly.

  "And the charge?"

  "Treason, my lord."

  Polly gasped. "But that is-"

  "Hold your tongue!" Nicholas snapped. "May I see the warrant, Lieutenant?"

  Polly subsided, realizing that she must sit still, and watch and listen. Only thus could she perhaps find a clue to this mystery. Surely it was a mistake; Nick would read the warrant and laugh, because it was meant for some other Lord Kincaid. But she knew that there was no mistake, and when Nick, having perused the document, handed it back without a word, the little cold space in her heart began to expand until she felt a great, terrifying emptiness.

  "Will you grant me privacy to dress, Lieutenant?" Nicho- j

  las asked politely. "If you await me in the parlor, I will join you in a few moments."

  The soldier's eyes went to the casement. "You have my word," Nicholas said.

  One could not refuse to take the word of a gentleman. "Very well, my lord." The lieutenant clicked his spurs together, spun on his heel, and left the bedchamber, his cohorts following.

  "I do not understand what is happening," Polly whispered. "What is this of treason?"

  "If I knew, I would be better able to form a defense," Nicholas said, swinging out of bed. "But 'tis my own fault."

  "How so?" Polly sat watching him dress, in thrall to a confused terror that numbed her like the poisonous bite of a spider. The world she thought she knew was disintegrating, and she could not seem to do anything to hold it together.

  "I had foreseen this, but dallied overlong," Nick said bitterly, buckling his sword belt. "Because I did not understand it, I did not believe in the urgency. I should have left London last week."

  "But why?" Desperately, she still sought for a kernel of understanding. "What will they do to you, love?" Kneeling on the bed, she stretched out her hands toward him. "They will realize it is a mistake, and then you will come back. That is how it will be, isn't it?"

  Nicholas looked at the huge eyes in the pale face, beseeching him with the dark, haunted terror of a small animal in a trap. He took the outstretched hands, folding them in his own, holding them to his breast. "You must go to De Winter and tell him of this. He will know how best to protect you. Tell him that the warrant bears Buckingham's signature. I know not how I have fallen foul of the duke, but it is certain sure that therein lies my offense."

  Polly listened to the calm instructions, felt the warm strength of his hold, and heard again in memory Buckingham's voice: "Everyone has a price. I will find yours, make no mistake." How naive she had been to imagine that, having played with her a little at Wilton House, he considered

  his revenge well taken. He had told her as plainly as he could that he had found her price-the incalculable value of love.

  Premonition took on a dread shape; what had been only specter solidified. Nick's voice, softly urgent, continued to reach her across the gray wasteland of knowledge, telling her that she must not lose courage, that he had friends aplenty who would work in his cause, that in these friends they must both trust, because, once lodged in the Tower, Nick could not act on his own behalf; until the charges were made clear when he was impeached, he could formulate no detense.

  An imperative knock came at- the bedchamber door. Nick kissed her-a short, hard tarewell-and released her hands, pulling the quilt around her shoulders. "Do not lose courage, sweetheart. In that you must not fail me," he said, the deep green eyes holding hers. "And you must trust Richard. He will look after you."

  "My lord?" The door opened, and Nick turned to face the lieutenant.

  "I am ready." He reached for his cloak.

  "I must ask you to surrender your sword, my lord," the lieutenant said in wooden accents.

  Nick's hesitation was barely perceptible; then, an enigmatic smile playing over his lips, he drew forth his sword, presenting it with a bow, hilt first, to his guard. At the door, he looked over his shoulder to where Polly still knelt, wrapped in the quilt. He could feel the coldness of her hands in his, the stark terror that rendered her motionless, and he could not bear to abandon her in such a plight. He took a step back to the bed. The lieutenant laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. Nick, with a violent curse, flung the hand away. The lieutenant drew his sword, and Polly in that instant returned to her senses.

  She tumbled off the bed, clutching the quilt, the life again glowing in her eyes as her blood began to flow hot and fast. "I will not lose courage, love," she said, her voice strong. Tripping over the quilt in her haste, she ran toward him. "You must not think of me. You require all your thoughts and energies for yourself." She turned to the lieutenant, her

  chin lifting as she looked him in the eye, her voice icily scornful. "Put up your sword, sir. It is not meet to draw it against an unarmed man and a woman."

  Nicholas relaxed. "Bravo, sweetheart," he approved softly. "You will do as I bid you?"

  "Aye," she said strongly. "Fear naught for me." Ignoring the guard, who, having sheathed his sword, was now shifting his booted feet impatiently, she reached up to kiss Nick. "I will see you back soon, my love."

  He left then; it was not a farewell to be prolonged, for all that in the bleak recesses of his soul he knew that it could be the last.

  Polly flew to the parlor window, looking down into the dark street, where a closed, unmarked carriage awaited. The escort and his prisoner climbed in, the troop mounted their horses, and the sinister procession set of in the direction of the Tower, from whence so many never returned. For one dreadful minute she saw the scaffold on Tower Hill, the executioner with his ax, heard the crowds laughing and jeering, come to see the sport; Nick, his hair tied back, shirt collar loosened, laying his bared neck upon the block. That paralyzing terror threatened again. This was not a world where one could rely on justice. Justice was an instrument of putty to be bent and shaped by those who possessed the power. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, possessed that power.

  The terror receded, a cold, clear purpose taking its place. She would consult with Richard first, because that was what Nick had bidden her do. But if De Winter would not agree to support her when she did what she knew had to be done, then would she play the game alone.

  She dressed rapidly, then hastened down the stairs. The Bensons appeared from the back of the house as she laid her hand upon the latch. "Where've they taken my lord?" quavered Goodman Benson, his face waxen in the light of the candle that wavered in his shaking hand.

  "To the Tower," Polly said shortly. "Ye've no need for fear. 'Tis no great matter, and will be soon sorted."

  "But he was ta'en in our house," moaned the goodwife, dabbing her lips with her handkerchief, her nightcap askew on the thin gray curls. " Tis us they'll come fer next."

  "You talk foolery," Polly snapped, understanding their fear but having little time for it. "Ye'll not be traduced. Why should the Duke of Buckingham concern himself with the likes of you?"

  Indeed, neither of the Bensons could think of a single reason, and some of the anxiety faded from the faces still raised, half in appeal, half in anger, toward their lodger without whom this dread happening would not have occurred.

  Polly could not stay for further discussion. She left them by the stairs, going out herself into the cold and the gray gloom of a winter dawn. Richard lived in a fine house in St. Martin's Lane. I
t took her no more than ten minutes before she was hammering on the great knocker, caring not if she woke the dead.

  The bolts scraped back, and a sleepy footboy stood, indignant, in the doorway, rubbing his hands in the icy air. j "What business d'ye have at this hour?"

  "Business with my Lord De Winter," Polly announced briskly, pushing past him into the hall. "Pray tell him at once that Mistress Wyat desires speech with him."

  The footboy looked as if he was about to take issue with this peremptory and outrageous demand, but Richard, alerted by Polly's vigorous knocking, appeared on the stairs, a warm furred nightgown drawn close about him against the early morning chill.

  "Why, Polly! What's amiss, child?" Quickly, he came down to the hall. "No, you shall tell me in my parlor. Lad, kindle the fire, then bring hot milk to the parlor!" He snapped his fingers at the bemused boy, who scampered off in obedience. "You are chilled to the bone. Have you walked from Drury Lane?"

  "Aye," Polly said, a hint of impatience in her voice. "There is not time for fires and hot milk, sir-"

  "There is ample time for both, child," Richard inter-

  rupted calmly. "You will learn as you grow older that very little cannot wait upon hot milk and a fire."

  "But they have taken Nick!" Polly cried.

  "Yes, it was to be expected. But wait until we are private to tell me the manner of it."

  Polly yielded. She had not the strength to batter against the wall of De Winter's calm impassivity. "You expected it?" She allowed him to lead her into the small, booklined parlor at the back of the house, where a fire now blazed in the hearth.

  "Aye, but we miscalculated. We had thought to discover what lay behind Nick's fall into disfavor, and thus hoped to circumvent it." Richard tapped his fingers on the carved wooden mantel, staring down into the fire. "He is imprisoned in the Tower?"

  "Yes." Polly sat wearily on a leather-covered stool beside the fire. "They took him but a half hour since. He said-" She broke ofF as the door opened to admit the lad with a steaming pitcher and two mugs, which he set on the table.