While at night… Well, Polly smiled to herself. What went on behind the closed door of his bedchamber in the west wing of the house was no one's concern but theirs. If his lordship's man found Mistress Wyat tucked up in his lordship's bed of a morning, he was too discreet and well trained to betray a flicker of surprise. Polly secretly thought it ridiculous that she was obliged to keep pretense of using her own apartment, keeping her clothes in there, performing her toilet in absurd privacy. It seemed a most profligate waste of space, she felt, to have two rooms when only one was necessary. But such thrifty and practical considerations were bred in the crowded city slums, not in the lofty mansions of the rich.

Kincaid, although he accepted the Earl of Pembroke's hospitality at Wilton House, stabled his horses at an inn in the village, seeing no reason why they should be a charge upon his host, who was already put to great expense by the king's gracing him with his presence.

Polly was glad of this arrangement, since it ensured that the mortification of her riding instruction was kept between themselves and the stable lads at the inn. At her insistence, they rode off the beaten track, where encounters like the one they had just narrowly avoided would be unlikely. However, as they clattered into the stable yard at the inn and she ac~

cepted Kincaid's hand to dismount, she was firmly resolved that she had had her last ride in that manner. The piebald seemed as happy to be rid of her as she was to be of him, clopping off to his stable with the relieved air of one who had performed a tedious duty and could now look forward to his reward.

Polly strolled casually over to the stable block, her long, extravagantly pleated riding skirt caught up over one arm. Outside one box, she stopped, peering into the gloomy interior, where a fly buzzed monotonously, and the rich aroma of horseflesh, hay, and manure filled her nostrils. The inhabitant of the box came over to the door at an inviting click. "Good morrow. Tiny," Polly murmured, stroking the dainty creature's velvety nose, reaching 'round to run her hand over the sinewy neck, which arched in pleasure as the mare whickered and nuzzled into her palm. "I did not bring anything this day," Polly apologized. "But tomorrow I will."

"You commune with that animal as if she were possessed of tongues," Nick said, a laugh in his voice as he came up behind her.

"So she is, of her own kind," Polly returned serenely. "We understand each other, do we not, Tiny?"

The mare rolled thick, pink lips against her hand in answer and pawed her stable floor, liquid brown eyes glowing. "See?" said Polly. "How could she be clearer?"

"With difficulty." Nick smiled, reaching in to stroke the horse. "Next to Sulayman, she is my favorite."

"May I ride her?" Polly asked directly, shooting him a sideways glance.

Nicholas nodded immediately. "She will suit you very well when you are able to handle her. But she is a spirited filly. It will take an experienced pair of light hands to achieve mastery. Her mouth is too delicate for a curb, and her spirit will not take kindly to the whip."

"And you think my hands are sufficiently light?"

"If you will but listen to your instructor, and do as you are

bid, they will be so," he teased, twining around his finger a stray curl that had escaped her hat.

"I think you are overcautious, my lord," Polly declared.

"Impossible, when you consider what it is over which I exercise such caution," he answered solemnly, although his eyes glinted with humor. "I would not have a bruise mar that ivory skin."

"I am not unaccustomed to bruises," Polly pointed out.

"But not with me," he said, the gravity now genuine.

Polly inclined her head in smiling acceptance. "Nay, not with you. But I meant only that I am not so delicate that a tumble will spell disaster. If I am prepared to risk it, why are you not?"

"Because I am not." The pronouncement effectively closing the discussion, Nicholas turned to leave. "Do you return to the house with me, or will you stay and commune further with Tiny?"

"There is no need to be vexed." Polly walked beside him across the yard, out into the main street of the little village clustering at the gate of Wilton park.

"I have told you before that my patience is not inexhaustible. You are persistent as a wasp at the honeycomb."

"Then I will cease my buzzing," Polly declared cheerfully. "Shall you dress up for the masquerade tonight? I have it in mind to play a May Day milkmaid, with petticoats all tucked up and curls atumble. Think you t'will be pretty?"

Nicholas felt a flash of suspicion at this instant docility. He looked down at her, saw only the wide hazel eyes full of ingenuous question, her lips parted in a soft smile. He dismissed the suspicion as unworthy. Polly always capitulated with grace. "I can think of few costumes more delightful, moppet; particularly on you. But then, it matters little what you wear, as well you know. You enchant, regardless; hence my Lady Castlemaine's distemper."

"Well, I am determined not to allow her to trouble me anymore," Polly said, reaching up to adjust the starched folds of her cravat. "If the ladies will not talk with me, then I shall devote my attention to the gentlemen with good conscience.

Mayhap His Grace of Buckingham will accord me more than a cold nod." Brave words, she thought, but she must try to overcome these surely fanciful fears that every time she felt the duke's eyes upon her, he was contemplating the price that he had promised to find.

She was as good as her word that evening. Sue had entered with enthusiasm into the idea of a May Day milkmaid, and the two girls spent the afternoon adapting a daintily flowered cambric petticoat that Polly would wear over her smock, without gown or kirtle. The gardens yielded pinks, marigolds, and daisies, which Susan's nimble fingers entwined in the loose ringlets tumbling about the milkmaid's shoulders. ' 'Tis not a costume one would wear gladly in winter," Polly said with a chuckle, surveying herself in the glass. "I must go barefoot if I'm to play the part with accuracy."

"You would go barefoot before the king?" Sue, in the process of pinning up the skirt of the petticoat to reveal the shapely curve of calf and the neat turn of ankle, looked up, stunned at the idea of such brazen immodesty.

"I hardly think it is any the more indecent than appearing before the king in smock and petticoat," Polly said tranquilly, adjusting the neck of her smock with a critical frown. "Besides, His Majesty is hardly unfamiliar with the female form in various states of undress."

Sue giggled, in spite of her shocked disapproval at this irreverence. "Lor', PolJy, ye shouldn't say such things."

' 'Tis but the truth," her companion returned unargu-ably. "I am going to my lord's apartments to show myself before appearing below. If there is anything amiss, he will tell me so."

Her chamber, while it was smaller and less luxuriously appointed than Kincaid's, as befitted the anomalous position in the court hierarchy of an accredited mistress with no husband's status to define her own, adjoined his lordship's. Polly had exclaimed at this convenience, until Kincaid had pointed out dryly that the Earl of Pembroke's steward would be apprised of all relevant facts appertaining to his master's guests, and would make disposition accordingly. Such tactful dispo-

sition had converted a dressing room to Polly's bedchamber, enabling her to enter Kincaid's apartments through the connecting door. She did so now, with no more than a light tap to herald her arrival.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I did not realize you had a visitor. Shall I come back later?" She smiled at De Winter, resplendent in crimson satin embroidered with turquoise peacocks, sitting by the window sipping a glass of canary.