"No, you are right." Nick pulled Polly's arms from

around his neck. "Neither is it a practice to be conducted in public, I fear. Pleasant though it is for the recipient."

"I do not understand what you mean." Polly looked hurt. "I wished only to kiss you."

De Winter turned a choke of laughter into a cough and sprinkled nutmeg onto the contents of the punch bowl.

"Will you explain, Richard, or shall I?" Nick asked.

"You. I have my hands full with the punch," replied his friend.

"Sit down, Polly… No, not on my knee!" Nick put her firmly back on the stool she had abandoned. "Now, listen to me very carefully. 'Tis a lesson I have not yet imparted."

Polly, looking more than a little rebellious, kept her seat on the stool, folding her hands in her lap. "I do not think this is a lesson I am going to want to learn," she muttered suspiciously.

"Probably not," Nick responded, as equable as always. "But it is a vital one nevertheless." He stood up, reached for his clay pipe and the pouch of tobacco on the mantel, and began to fill the bowl as he talked. "I have told you that any overt discourtesy will put you beyond the social pale. The same applies to public displays of emotion of any description. Cool friendship is acceptable, but that is as far as you may go." He bent to light a taper in the fire, then set it to the pipe.

"I may not speak lovingly to you, or touch you, or-"

"No, you may not!" Nick broke in in vigorous confirmation. "In public, you will treat me with a careless indifference, as I will treat you-"

"Nay!" Polly jumped up, horrified at such an image. "I could not do such a thing, and if you treat me with a… with a careless indifference, I shall go home."

"Then you will never again be invited to show your face at court," Richard said coming to his friend's aid. "While it will be common knowledge that you live under Nick's protection, you will become an object of disgust if you parade your emotions."

"Why?"

Nick shrugged. "It is not done, sweetheart. That is the only answer I can give you. If you would achieve acceptance in that world, then you must abide by the rules."

De Winter tasted the concoction in the punch bowl with a critical frown before remarking casually, "Should you break the rules in such a fashion, you will make Nick a jestingstock, as well as yourself. 'Twould hardly be a convincing demonstration of affection." He ladled the drink into three pewter goblets. "The very reverse, I would have said."

Polly buried her nose in the fragrant steam curling from the goblet. She came from a world where every facet of emotional life was lived on the surface and in front of all eyes. Kisses, blows, endearments, and curses were administered whenever and wherever the need or desire arose. There was no privacy in the fetid, teeming lanes and houses of the city slums, and concealing emotion was a concept quite alien to her.

Nick watched her over the lip of his own goblet, guessing at her thoughts, just as he knew what Richard was thinking. Not only would she jeopardize her own position at court in such an instance, but she would also destroy all possibility of their own plan's coming to fruition.

As if echoing his thoughts, Richard spoke again. "As an actor, Polly, it will be not in your interests to imply that you have eyes only for Lord Kincaid. You will receive many other offers, which you may or may not choose to accept; but if you wish to further your ambition, then you will not wish to give the impression of one who has lost her heart and cannot be approached. There are those who might offer you marriage." His eyebrows lifted. "You would not be the first female actor to marry into the nobility."

Polly struggled to master the stab of dismay at these words. She could not imagine wishing for a protector other than the one she had. But then, it was always possible that Lord Kincaid would weary of her. Why would he not? She had said that first night, when he had put her into the truckle bed in his room and she had first propounded her plan, that once

she was established under his aegis, if he no longer wished to be her protector, then she would be able to find another one. It was the way these matters were conducted, as she had always known.

The idea of marriage was so far beyond her sights, whatever De Winter might say, that she did not trouble to dwell upon the notion. Even if the world was not to know she was a Newgate-born, tavern-bred bastard, she would always know.

She raised her head, smiling, and neither of her companions had an inkling of the effort it cost her. "It is just possible, my lord, that I may be successful enough at my profession to support myself. In which case, I would have no need of a husband and may take only those lovers who appeal to me."

"Let us drink to such an admirable goal," De Winter said easily, raising his glass, exchanging a quick glance with Nick, who merely quirked an eyebrow.

Nick drank the toast, wrestling with his own quite unjustified resentment. Without so much as a word to himself, De Winter had appropriated the task of planting in Polly's head the seeds of her future role. It was a task that Nick thought should lie at his own door, but De Winter was behaving as if Polly were common property.

In a sense she was, he admitted grimly to himself-inasmuch as she was the tool the faction would employ in their conspiracy against Buckingham, she belonged to the group. Clearly, it behooved him to keep his eye on the ultimate goal and concentrate on germinating the seeds planted by De Winter. Becoming sidetracked by emotion would serve no purpose and could, indeed, endanger the lives of them all.

Chapter 9

Iwill not be long absent, sweetheart," Nicholas said, lifting a honeyed lock from where it lay across her breast. "I must return home to discover how matters are progressing with Margaret, and to find clean raiment. It has been three days since I was last seen alive by anyone but Richard, yourself, and the good Bensons."

Polly reached up a finger to trace the line of the finedrawn mouth. "You did send the Bensons' lad with a message, so Margaret will not be afeard tor you." She smiled ruefully. "But I know it must come to an end, for all that I would it did not have to."

"I also." He bent to kiss her, tasting that sweetness that had become so wondrously familiar. "But think not of an ending, only of a beginning." Reluctantly, he pushed aside the bedcover, swinging his legs to the floor. "When I return I will take you shopping. You may harry the mercers like a plague in Egypt and set an army of sempstresses to work, for without a more alluring wardrobe, my flower, you will be ill equipped to face the world of your choosing."

Polly sat up, hugging her knees. Mercers and sempstresses conjured up a most heady image, one that she could not immediately grasp in all its magnificence. Mercers meant the buying of tafieta and velvet, damask and satin; embroidered

petticoats, lace collars and ruffs; girdles and gloves and hose. "I think you should begone, sir, in order that you may return the sooner."

Nicholas gave a shout of laughter to see such joyful calculation in those green-brown eyes. The Newgate-born, tavern-bred bastard was looking upon Elysian fields. "Petticoats of sarcenet," he enticed gleefully. "Nightgowns of wool and velvet; a gown for every kirtle-"

"Oh, begone, do!" begged Polly. "In your absence, I will make some drawings of the gowns I would wish made."

That pulled him up short. "You know what you would like?"

"But of course," she said simply. "If there is paper and quill and inkhorn, I will show you." A smile touched her lips. "It is easier to draw than to write, my lord."

"It requires less learning, perhaps," he said doubtfully, wondering how she could possibly know enough about the elegancies of a lady's dress to have a sufficiently clear picture of her wants to present to a sempstress.