"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.

"My dear cousin," said Buckingham deliberately, "it is no more in your interests than 'tis in mine to advance the chancellor's cause. You would be better employed in joining forces with me than in amusing yourself at my expense." Almost indolently, he reached out a hand, catching her wrist, shaking back the fall of lace that had obscured a diamond bracelet. The stones caught the light from the chandelier. They were exceptionally fme stones in a most intricate setting, and His Grace made great play of examining them. "An expensive trinket, madame," he drawled, pointing his meaning with an arched eyebrow. "A present from your husband, no doubt?" He dropped her wrist abruptly, and his eyes, cold and hard, met hers. "Take heed whom you make your enemy, my lady. I will govern the king, and when I do I will remember my friends and my foes." With a neat toss of his head to throw back the heavy fall of his peruke so that it should not obscure his face, His Grace bowed deeply.

The irony in the salutation after such a declaration would not have been missed by one much less perspicacious than Lady Castlemaine. She curtsied with matching depth. "I,

too, can be a powerful friend, my lord duke. Much can be contrived in the privacy of the bed curtains."

"Exactly so." Buckingham smiled. "Which is why I would have you remain there, Barbara." The smile touching only his lips widened. "We understand each other, I trust?"

"Perfectly." Lady Castlemaine fluttered her fan. She watched him walk over to where the king sat, surrounded by an anxious court, all clearly racking their brains for some solution to His Majesty's ennui. A deep frown drew the thick royal eyebrows together; slender, beringed fingers drummed on the carved oak arm of his chair; a red-heeled, ribbon-adorned shoe tapped an impatient rhythm. The duke bowed and said something that Lady Castlemaine could not hear, but the result was a deep roar of laughter from the king, followed by admiring ripples in imitation from the surrounding circle.

Her ladyship's fingers combed restlessly through her hair, drawing it across her shoulders. Earlier she had tried, but failed, to do what Buckingham had so signally succeeded in achieving-the return of the king's good humor. It was a lesson she had best take to heart. His grace would soon be the most powerful man in the land, and there was no saying whether his influence could reach as far as his majesty's bedchamber, could prove threatening to the mistress of that bedchamber. But it was not worth putting to the test. The Countess of Castlemaine, all smiles, went over to join the laughing circle around the king.

"Nicholas… Nick! Oh, wake up, do!" Polly tugged at his shoulder. "It is the most amazing thing. You must come and see!"

Nicholas for a moment did not know where he was as the importunate voice and hand penetrated his deep slumber. Then memory returned. He rolled onto his back, blinking sleepily. The bed curtains were drawn back, but the light in the chamber was dim and gray. "You are awake betimes, Polly."

She pulled a mischievous face. "I have become accustomed to early rising in your sister's household, sir. Lying long abed encourages the devil's work." Her voice was an uncanny imitation of Margaret's, and he burst into laughter.

"Come back to bed. You will catch cold."

"Nay… Come and see!" She threw the quilt off him, seizing his hand.

Groaning, Nick obeyed the summons, staggering to his feet. He was not accustomed to leaving his bed until the morning was fairly well advanced, and the sight of Polly, prancing eagerly in her bare skin, was one to encourage a long lie-in, as was the cold air on his own uncovered flesh. "Put on your smock, moppet. You will freeze to death," he protested, reaching for his shirt.

"Oh, 'tis only cold in here because the fire had gone down," she said impatiently. " 'Tis not cold in the parlor." Pulling him behind her, she danced into the other room, where he noted that the fire was newly kindled, last night's supper dishes removed, and the table laid for breakfast. Goodwife Benson was clearly an efficient landlady.

"Look!" Polly gestured dramatically to the window. "We are in a snow house."

Nicholas whistled, crossing over to what had once been a window. It was completely blanked out by snow.

"Could the snow have fallen so deeply that it reached the upper story?" demanded Polly. "Shall we open it and see?"

"If you wish to fill the chamber with snow, by all means do so," Nick said equably. Polly looked so crestfallen as she realized the absurdity of a suggestion made in the throes of excitement that he chuckled. "One would think that you have never seen the stuff before."

"I have always loved it," she told him. "It covers up all the grime and the refuse, and you can pretend for a little bit that it will never come back-that the world will always be fresh and sparkling and white." She shrugged. " 'Tis fanciful, I know. The white cover becomes fouled, then it melts and the filth is still there, only even worse." A metaphor for life, she had so often thought. There would be moments when

hope was high, when the idea of radical change seemed not impossibly chimeric, then reality would intrude, made even more vicious by its destruction of dreams. But this time, the white transmuting cover would not become sullied and melt. It could not, because this time she had been given control over her destiny. The prize was there to be seized if she was capable of doing so.

Nick frowned, wondering why the radiance should have been so abruptly wiped from her face. But the bleakness vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, and she offered him that heart-stopping smile again.

"Mayhap we will be snowbound."

Nicholas returned the smile. "I can think of worse fates, but I had best get dressed and investigate downstairs." He went into the bedchamber to pull on shirt and breeches. Polly followed, scrambling into her smock.