"I wish to investigate, also," she said in reply to his raised eyebrow. "May I not?"

"I had rather you climbed back into bed and awaited my return. I do not intend to be many minutes; then we have some unfinished business to attend to. I seem to recall that you were rather anxious for the onset of morning. Or do you find the prospect of snow so all-absorbing that you will be unable to concentrate on anything else?"

Polly removed her smock and climbed back into bed. "But if you are a very long time, I shall come to find you."

"I can safely promise you that I shall not be," he said, rendered strangely dizzy by the sight to which he had just been treated. Polly's back view as she had clambered up onto the high feather mattress had set up in an inventive and playful mind an utterly dazzling series of images and possibilities. Finding themselves snowbound could, indeed, prove decidedly entertaining.

"I fear you must be having most improper thoughts, my lord," Polly said demurely, peeping at him over the quilt, which she was holding up to her nose. His own gaze lowered without volition to follow the direction of hers. "I do not think you should go and visit Goodwife Benson just yet,"

she continued. "Not until you have… have, well… subsided, if you see what I mean." The hazel eyes were alight with mischief; her tongue peeked from between her lips.

"I fear you are right," declared his lordship, calmly pushing off his breeches. He reached for the quilt and twitched it out of her hold, flinging it back.

"But the fire had gone out!" Polly yelped as the cold air hit her now-rewarmed flesh.

"The price of impudence," he told her cheerfully. "But you will not be complaining of the cold soon. Turn over."

When Goodwife Benson knocked on the bedchamber door an hour later, Polly had discovered that there was a variety of novel ways of increasing the body's temperature. Nicholas bade their landlady enter and propped himself on the pillows to smile a greeting as the round figure bustled in.

"Ye'U be needing the fire newly rekindled in "ere," said the goodwife, setting a bucket of coal in the hearth. "Will ye be wantin' my man to trim ye, m'lord?" She wiped her hands on her apron. "Right handy 'e is with a razor. Been a gentleman's gentleman, sir."

Nick rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin. "I'd be glad of his services, goodwife. It's kind in him to offer."

The woman beamed. " 'Tis nothin', m'lord. But ye'll not be venturin' forth today. Snow's still falling."

Polly sat up at this, observing hopefully, "Mayhap you will not be able to open the door."

"Like as not." The goodwife's smile broadened. It was clear to Nick that she was as amused as he was by the contrast between Polly's ingenuousness and that extraordinary sensual, tumbled beauty. "But my man and the boy'll take a shovel to it, soon as may be." She turned back to the fire, busying herself with coals and kindling until a cheerful blaze filled the hearth. "There now. I'll fetch you up hot water and send my man to ye, m'lord. Will the young lady require help with 'er dressin'?"

Polly looked startled. "No… no, thank you." The goodwife inclined her head, bobbed a little curtsy, and bus-

tied out. "Why should she imagine I would need help with my dressing?" Polly slid out of bed.

"Ladies generally do," replied my lord with that enigmatic little smile. His words had the effect he had expected. She stood stock-still and stared.

"I do not think Newgate-born bastards, bred in a tavern, warrant such a title," she said carefully.

"But a lord's mistress might," he suggested. "We have not discussed what background you must assume, but you should perhaps consider this now. When you are introduced to Thomas Killigrew you will not wish to present him with… with…" He felt for words before deciding that Polly's had been both sufficiently descriptive and accurate. "A Newgate-born bastard. While actors are welcomed at court, such a history as yours is unlikely to be received with equanimity. And you know you must earn the king's approbation if you are to join his company."

Polly moved closer to the fire's warmth as she considered this. She turned herself slowly, like a roast on a spit, maintaining an even warmth on her bare skin. As always, she appeared sublimely unconscious of her nakedness. Such ease with one's body was, Nicholas reflected, a considerable asset in one who would tread the boards. He watched her cogitations in silent amusement for a moment.

"We have spent some considerable time and effort in the last month ensuring that your deportment and accomplishments are consistent with a respectable background," he reminded her eventually. "One that will not come amiss at court."

"I had not fully realized the complexity of this," Polly said slowly. "I realized that Master Killigrew must decide that I have some skill, but I had not thought as far ahead as coming to His Majesty's notice."

"If Killigrew agrees to take you on, he will present you in one of his productions," Nick told her. "He will invite the king to attend the theatre and will recommend you to his notice. The rest will be up to you, for you know that the members of the king's company are servants of His Majesty;

they wear the king's livery and receive their pay from the royal purse. With the Duke of York's company, the same applies, except that they are servants of His Grace. King Charles must decide for himself that he wishes you in his service."

"Oh." Polly found the idea of having to appeal in person to His Majesty, King Charles II, utterly daunting.

Nick read her mind with little difficulty. "I should not be overly anxious, sweetheart. The king is most susceptible to all aspects of female beauty, and you possess them all-lavishly." He chuckled as she blushed. Could she possibly be unaware of it? "If you have even a minimal talent for the stage, you need have no fears."

"I have more than minimal talent," she declared, indicating that her modesty was not all-encompassing.

"I do not doubt it," Kincaid agreed smoothly. "But you would be well advised to conceal the circumstances of your birth and upbringing if you wish to frequent the court."

"But not all actors have genteel antecedents," Polly objected. "I know they do not because the daughter of the butcher on Tower Street became an orange girl at the Duke of York's theatre, and then found a protector and became an actor."

"If you wish to be a mediocre actor, never emerging from the back ranks, then your origins may be as humble as you please," Kincaid said briskly. "But I had thought you intended to star. Star actors become courtiers, or they do not star."

"Perhaps I should be a woman of mystery," Polly said, a gleam in her eye. "With a deep and dark past. Will that serve, d'ye think?" She twirled, showing him her back, kissed pink by the fire's heat.

"Done to a turn," murmured Nick, sliding to the floor. A sharp rap at the door gave him pause. He sighed, reaching for his shirt. "One minute," he called. "I expect that this is Goodman Benson come to trim me. I will join him in the parlor. Do you dress yourself, now, and come out when you are decent."

Polly dressed rapidly, putting on over her kirtle the daygown that Kincaid had bought for her in the Royal Exchange. It was not an article of clothing worn by kitchen maids-kirtle, cap, and apron being considered quite sufficient-so she had only put it on when specifically instructed by Nicholas to do so. Clearly it was incumbent upon her in present circumstances to wear it. She combed her hair free of the tangles created by the night and morning's activities. Her pins, she remembered, were in the parlor, where Nick had left them last night, so she was obliged to leave her hair to hang loose over the neat lace collar of her kirtle.

The scene that she found in the parlor was one unfamiliar to her. The men she had known hitherto tended to the unkempt and bearded. Nicholas was seated before the fire, a large towel wrapped around his shoulders, his face lost behind a lather mask, while a thin, birdlike man, presumably Goodman Benson, razor in hand, was engaged in drawing a series of swaths through the lather. Polly stood watching, fascinated and amused at the thought of this delicate, ascetic-looking man belonging to the rotund and bustling Goodwife Benson.

"There you are, my lord." Benson spoke in reverential accents as he wiped his lordship's face with a dampened towel before standing back to survey his handiwork with a critical eye. "A little work with the comb, my lord, and I venture to say that ye'd be fit to attend court." Suiting action to words, he plied a comb vigorously to my lord's long, flowing locks, while Polly, nibbling on a slice of barley bread liberally buttered, continued to watch. If one's morning toilet was customarily this rigorous and extended, it was no wonder one did not appear belowstairs until the morning was far advanced.

The task was eventually completed to Benson's satisfaction. "I'd be happy to furbish your linen, my lord, seein' as how, on account of the snow, ye'11 be short of anything clean."

"Very true," said his lordship. "I'd be most grateful."

"I've a good velvet gown, if yer lordship would be so

condescending," offered Goodman Benson. It was an offer that was accepted with alacrity, and the erstwhile gentleman's gentleman hurried off, beaming, to fetch the required garment.

"I think you have just made him the happiest man in London," observed Polly, turning back to the table to hack at the pink, glistening ham. "Will you permit him to dress you, also? Fastening one's own buttons must be dreadfully tedious work."

"Don't talk with your mouth full. I have told you before; it is both ill bred and inelegant," was Kincaid's affable response to this sweetly uttered piece of provocation.

Benson returned before Polly could marshal her wits for a further attack, and his lordship was shortly arrayed in a velvet gown, which, judging by its size, was not the property of the goodman. The latter took away all my lord's garments, including his shoes, with the statement that the buckles could do with shining.

"Do you shift your linen every day?" Polly asked in genuine astonishment.

Nicholas took his seat at the breakfast table. "It is customary. Sit down, now. 'Tis most ill mannered to eat standing up." He poured ale into a pewter tankard, drinking deeply, before slicing bread and bacon for himself.

"I have never known it to be customary," declared his companion, sitting opposite him. "And 'tis not ill mannered to eat standing up if you do not have the time to sit down."

"But you do have the time," he reminded. "And will continue to have; just as you will find yourself amongst people with whom it is customary to shift their linen regularly, if not on a daily basis."

"That is a little difficult if one has only one petticoat and smock," pointed out Polly, helping herself liberally to a dish of anchovies and olives.

"That will be remedied as soon as the snow has cleared sufficiently for a shopping expedition. Until it does, we should perhaps use our enforced seclusion to continue your

studies. I must teach you a few of the French words that are in frequent use. They must come easily to your tongue."

"That sounds somewhat tedious," Polly said with a comical grimace. "I can think of many more amusing ways to while away the time. Can you not?"

"Without question," he agreed, managing to conceal the fact that he had quite failed in an attempt to react imperviously to the frankly wanton invitation in the hazel eyes. "And it you wish to abandon your ambition of an introduction to Master Killigrew, then I see no reason why we should bother with such tedious activities."

Polly lowered her eyes to her plate. She had been outma-neuvered in that mischievous little play, and it clearly behooved her to sharpen her wits if she wished to indulge in such amusements in future.

Kincaid grinned. Her thought processes were transparently easy to divine. She looked up, caught the grin, and burst into laughter. "It is odious in you to gloat so! I have not had as much practice as you have in the art of conversational exchanges."

"Oh, was that what that was?" he murmured. "I had thought it more in the nature of a ham-fisted attempt to score unnecessary points on the subject of my sartorial habits-a subject, I might add, on which you are not equipped to expatiate."

"I do not know what that means," Polly declared. "But I collect it is in the nature of a snub."