"Why do you not wait and see how you feel the next time before you judge yourself?" Nick advised calmly. "This first performance is, after all, an unknown experience. Familiarity with it may well bring you ease."
"It is to be hoped so," she said fervently, "else I will die of the anxiety. Can one die of anxiety?"
"I doubt it." He took her empty tankard and bent to kiss her. "Sleep now, moppet."
"I wish you will tell Richard to go to his own bed," she grumbled, reaching her arms around his neck. "I would be held in your arms until I sleep, love, not put to bed like an overtired babe." She buried her nose in his neck, inhaling the warm, earthy scent of his skin, the rosewater freshness of his linen, running her fingers through the luxuriant auburn curls.
He caught her hands at the wrists behind his neck. "Sweet love, I must have speech with Richard. I will come to you as soon as may be. In the meantime, you will sleep like the overtired babe that you say you are not." He laughed as a monstrous yawn swallowed her attempt at indignant protest, and her eyelids drooped.
Polly felt the brush of his lips against her mouth, thought: What is so important that you must discuss it with Richard at this hour? Thought but could not articulate, as she dipped into the sleep of emotional exhaustion.
Nick picked up the bedside candle, shielding its flame with a cupped hand, carrying it over to the hearth, where its light would not fall upon the sleeper. Then he went back to the parlor to examine Richard's proposition.
"How can I ask her to become intimate with a man whom she appears to loathe?" He closed the door behind him, speaking in a low voice.
"She does not know him yet beyond an unfortunate encounter when he alarmed her with the scope and intensity of his power. You know as well as anyone, Nick, the extent of his charm when he chooses to exert it. If she catches his eye-and it appears that she has already done so-he will exert it. She will lose her loathing, and if you ask for her assistance, I am convinced she will not deny you." De Winter spoke also in an undertone. "Your relationship with her need not be altered fundamentally if she amuses Buckingham at your request and for a definite purpose. She has wit
enough to understand and fulfill that purpose, to see her task for the practical solution to the problem that it is." He shrugged easily.
Nick walked over to the window, looking out into the night. Two short months ago he had been as cynical as Richard, would have believed such a thing as readily as his friend did. Why should lovemaking with one's mistress lose anything by the knowledge that she shared other beds? To suggest such a thing would bring ridicule upon one's head. Women at all levels of society used their bodies for their advancement-it was, after all, the only currency they possessed. No sophisticate would be troubled by such an unfashionable notion as infidelity, in many cases not even when applied to the marriage bed.
Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine, showed no constraint with his wife; indeed, they lived in perfect amity together. Nick could think of half a dozen other men who accepted a cuckold's horns quite cheerfully, while going about their own adventures, and they were certainly not made the butt of society's malice or mirth by this graceful discretion. In fact, the reverse was in general true. A wife's fidelity was no longer necessarily a matter of honor, although duels were occasionally fought, and the seducer of a man's wife was honor-bound to meet the challenge of a wronged husband. But in the present climate, there was more scandal attached to the duel than to its cause.
So why should the idea of his Polly-a Newgate-born, tavern-bred bastard with few fanciful delusions-subjecting herself to the sexual attentions of George Villiers, or indeed, anyone else, fill him with such overpowering revulsion?
"I pledged myself to this matter, and I will not fail you," he said, the only thing it was possible to say. "But I must repeat: I will not expect her to do anything she finds repugnant."
"But you will encourage her to find Buckingham less repugnant?" De Winter watched him over the lip of his glass. "You have all the influence of the trusted mentor-as well as
of the lover. You may easily persuade her out of her dislike before asking for her help."
Such calculating cynicism! To use the influence of love for such a purpose. And yet, what choice did he have? At least he would not be guilty of deception. But it was hollow comfort for one who would be guilty of the blatant manipulation of a trusting innocent.
"I will do what is necessary," he said.
De Winter took his leave soon after. Nick snuffed the candles in the parlor before going into the bedchamber. Polly was sleeping the restorative sleep of youth and health, her hair spread across the pillow, her hands curled open above her head, lips slightly parted, presenting a picture as guileless and ingenuous as the flower of which she so often reminded him. That she was not as guileless and ingenuous as she looked, Nick was all too well aware, but the awareness did little to rid him of the sour taste in his mouth, the acrid roiling in his gut, as he thought of what he must persuade her to do.
He slipped into bed beside her, and she cuddled instantly into his arms, warm and pliant. "Nick?" Her mumble was sleepily questioning.
"Who else would it be?" A teasing response that rang in his ears as hollow as a beggar's bowl.
Polly giggled, wriggling closer before sliding back into sleep.
When she awoke, last night's rain had vanished. Early morning sun was pouring through the window. A blackbird trilled in insistent joy from the gnarled gray branch of an old apple tree in the garden. It was the first intimation of the closeness of spring, and she lay, snug in the deep feather bed, under the heavy quilt, feeling Nick's warmth and strength beside her. Contentment washed through her, bringing in its wake such a resurgence of confidence that she could barely believe her miserable panic of the preceding day. Remorse prickled as she remembered how sorely she had tried Nick's patience.
Propping herself on one elbow, Polly leant over Nick's
recumbent form, beginning with great deliberation to kiss him into awareness. His eyes stayed shut, but his skin rippled as her lips pressed into the hollow of his throat and she stroked him with her body, moving sinuously against him. Nick yielded to the glorious languour as sleep gave way to wakefulness and his body stirred beneath the sensuous caress of her skin. Indulging a wicked impulse, he kept himself as immobile as control over his voluntary reactions would allow, his eyes tight shut as if sleep still claimed him. Polly's tongue fluttered against his nipples; still he did not move. She raised her head to look at him, puzzlement clear on her face. If this was a game, it was not one they had played before. Then, with a little smile, she twisted, burrowing headfirst under the quilt.
It was too much. Nick groaned with pleasure, running his hands down her back beneath the quilt, his thumbs pressing into her spine, which arched and curved in catlike response. "Stop now," he whispered huskily as the edge of bliss drew inexorably closer. Polly, indulging her own devilish impulse, ignored the request, merely increasing her attentions. Nick groaned again. He smacked her bottom imperatively. "Wicked one!" Catching her around the waist, he hauled her up. "Don't you know what you are doing to me?"
She emerged laughing from the warm darkness of the covers, tossing her hair back. "Of course I know. Would I do it, else? I had to find some way to waken you." She leaned down to kiss his mouth, swinging one leg astride the narrow waist. He ran his hands over the curve of her hips, along the smooth planes of her thighs as she knelt astride him, stroked the softness of her belly, reached up to cup her breasts, holding them in the palms of his hands.