he gentled her with a soft word against her mouth, and proceeded inexorably to bring her to the edge of delight with the skillful play of his fingers.
Polly felt the curling spiral tighten in her belly; her hips lifted and moved, responding to the rhythm of the presence within. Her head moved restlessly on the coverlet; hot blood surged through her veins, and that part of her body she had thought of as peculiarly her own responded to another's possession. With an incoherent cry, she took her release in the only way possible, the muscles of thigh and buttocks tightening around his hand as the juices of arousal flowed sweet and her body opened in joy.
Nick swung himself across her supine body, stopping her mouth with his own as he guided his surging flesh within the still-pulsating gate. He knew now how deeply lodged was her maidenhead, and, with one determined thrust, plunged to her core. Her eyes opened, wide with shock, but in the aftermath of climax her muscles were capable of no resistance and the moment passed, to be remembered only as the briefest spark of an irrelevant pain.
She looked up at him as he hung over her, raking her face for knowledge as he moved himself within, slow and easy now until she picked up the rhythm. She smiled suddenly. It was such a wonderful smile, so expressive of surprise and delight, that he laughed joyously.
"I did not think it possible for you to be more beautiful," he said with soft wonder. "But never have I seen such glorious radiance. I will take you now into a world outside this one, if you will give yourself into my charge."
"Gladly," she returned, her eyes locking with his as he took them both to the outermost edge of bliss, to hover in a timeless, sensate universe until the ultimate could no longer be held at bay, and they slipped over the edge, into the beyond.
Polly came back to a sense of the world around her very slowly. She opened her eyes to find Nick, propped on one elbow, smiling down at her. He brushed a lock of hair from
her forehead and kissed her. "It appears that you are an apt pupil in everything, moppet."
"I do not think," Polly said consideringly, "that I could have done otherwise than I did, sir. Matters seemed to take care of themselves." Her eyes twinkled roguishly. "For which I must thank you, I suspect."
"You may thank me by using my name. I have asked you to do so once already this day." His fingers traced the curve of her mouth.
"I have a lamentable memory, Nicholas." She sucked his finger into her mouth, curling her tongue, tasting the slight saltiness.
"Then you had best set about improving it," he retorted, running his free hand down her body in a leisurely caress, smoothing over the fine turn of a hip, one long damask-toned thigh, cupping the curve of her knee. She had the most beautiful knees; but then, it would be ridiculous for such perfection to be marred, even by something as insignificant as a knee, Nick reflected dreamily. Her body shifted in lazy response to the caress, and a bright smear of blood showed on her inner thigh.
Nick got off the bed, crossing to the tiring table, where ewer and basin stood. The water that he poured into the basin was tepid, but the fact that it had once been warmed bore witness to the care of Goodwife Benson. He dipped a towel in the basin, then came back to the bed, where Polly still lay, watching him. "Let me make you a little more comfortable," he said softly, sitting down beside her. She stretched, catlike, as he drew the damp cloth down her body, freshening the sweat-slick skin, parting her thighs to cleanse her of the bright blood of innocence and the residue of passion.
It was the most sweetly tender intimacy, and Polly quite suddenly felt tears welling behind her eyes. They were not tears of sorrow or of joy, but of amazement at such an unexpected ministration so lovingly offered. She had been touched in many ways in her seventeen years, but rarely with
gentleness, and never before in this cherishing manner, and the tears rolled unbidden down her cheeks.
"Do not weep, flower," Nick said in distress, not understanding why she should produce this reaction when a bare instant before she had been all teasing, sensual mischief.
"I cannot seem to stop," she sobbed.
Nicholas thought of the dramatic manner in which her life had been transformed in the last few hours, of the suddenness of the change, and he ceased to question. He stood up, going into the parlor, returning with a cup of wine. "Sleep is your best medicine, sweetheart. Drink this first." She swallowed obediently, choked, and managed a misty smile.
"I am not in general a watering pot."
"Not unless it will serve some nefarious purpose," he agreed with a twinkle, pulling the heavy quilt up to her chin before going over to mend the fire, building it high so that it would warm them through the night.
Polly, snug and sleepy, watched him, marveling at the elegance of his movements, an elegance not at all impaired by his nakedness. Indeed, without his clothes, the power of that broad, muscled frame, wide shoulders, narrow waist, slim hips, was there to be viewed in all its inimitable glory.
"You are most beautiful, my Lord Kincaid," she murmured as he trod over to the bed, bearing the single candle that he had left alight.
"You are too kind, madame," he said, placing the candle on the bed table and bowing. Chuckling at the absurd contrast of the stately salutation and his bare skin, she pulled aside the quilt in invitation. Nick blew out the candle and slid in beside her, drawing the bed curtain against drafts and the fire's illumination. Her hand moved in sleepy exploration. He smiled in the dark, catching her wrist. "You will be better served after sleep, sweetheart."
"Oh," Polly said on a distant note of disappointment. "Then I hope it will soon be morning." She rolled into his embrace and was instantly deeply asleep.
Chapter 8
“I cannot help feeling that you are neglecting your duties, my dear Barbara." George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, took snuff with a delicate twist of his wrist, and arched an ironic eyebrow at his cousin, my Lady Castlemaine. "His Majesty has an air greatly disconsolate. Was he, perhaps, impervious to your usual forms of consolation last night?"
The king's mistress shrugged plump white shoulders, the gesture lifting her breasts clear of her decolletage to reveal the nipples. "He had set his heart upon flying his new hawk this morning." She gestured to the long, snow-encrusted windows of the Privy Gallery looking over the Pebble Court at Whitehall Palace. "It is hardly possible in such weather, and you know how he detests being thwarted."
"Then it is surely incumbent upon us to suggest some diversion," Buckingham mused, nicking at his satin sleeve with his lace-edged handkerchief. "There is no knowing what he may decide to do when he is allowed to brood."
"Or whose company he may choose to favor," said Lady Castlemaine, with a shrewd, knowing look at her cousin. "He seems uncommon pleased with Clarendon this morning. They were closeted in his Privy chamber for upwards of an hour. Methinks the lord chancellor is returning to grace."
A laugh, tinged with malice, accompanied the suggestion that she knew would arouse Buckingham to supreme irritation.
The greater part of the duke's energies these days was expended in the discrediting of the chancellor to the king-a task hindered by the facts that Clarendon's daughter was married to the Duke of York, His Majesty's brother, and that Clarendon had been Charles II's most trusted counselor throughout his exile and in the years since his restoration. But the king was coming to apostatize the old man as a bore, ¦ a dull dog who would put a bridle on His Majesty's pleasure seeking; one who was forever demanding that he turn his mind to the business of governing, and the placation of Parliament if he was to secure further revenue from them. King Charles did not consider it his task to placate the Commons in order to be provided with the money he required to pursue his pleasures. The granting of such funds was Parliament's duty.