Nicholas sighed. "Polly, I am awearied, too much so to join battle. Go to bed or not, as you please."
"I do please!" Polly banged into the bed chamber, there to crawl beneath the quilt, falling asleep with sticky lashes and tear-wet cheeks and salt upon her lips.
Nicholas remained beside the fire, tobacco and wine providing a measure of spurious ease. Eventually he went to bed, slipping an arm beneath the sleeping figure, rolling her into his embrace before finding his own uneasy oblivion.
Chapter 19
They came for Lord Kincaid that same night, in the hour before dawn when the spirit is at its lowest ebb and the night's chill at its most pervasive.
The hammering at the street door, the bellowed "Open in the name of the king!" brought casements flung wide the length of Drury Lane, and Goodman Benson, in nightcap and gown, hurrying from his bed, shivering with fear and cold, to draw back the bolts.
The lieutenant pushed past him, a troop of six soldiers at his back. "We are come for Lord Kincaid. Where is he to be found?"
Benson, quivering like an aspen leaf, pointed abovestairs, unable to find his voice in the face of this terrifying visitation.
The lieutenant, hand on sword, mounted two steps at a time, flinging open the door to the darkened parlor. He crossed the empty room, threw wide the door to the bedchamber. "My Lord Kincaid?" he demanded into the darkness, his soldiers crowding at his back.
Nick had heard the banging, had had time to recognize what was about to happen, but not to prepare himself. Now he reached for flint and tinder, lighting the candle beside the bed. Polly had sat up, her eyes wide in incomprehension, her
tumbled hair doing little to conceal her breasts as the quilt fell to her waist.
The intruders' eyes, as one pair, became riveted upon that creamy, rose-tipped perfection. Nicholas took hold of the cover and drew it up. "You have need of this," he said quietly. "To what do I owe this pleasure, gentlemen?" An eyebrow quirked in sardonic question.
"You are Lord Kincaid?" The lieutenant approached the bed, one hand still on his sword hilt, although the man in the bed was both naked and unarmed.
"The very same," Nicholas said with an ironic bow of his head.
"What is happening?" Polly found her voice at last, clutching the sheet to her neck as she stared at a scene that smacked of a Bedlamite's lunacy.
"Hush, sweetheart," Nick commanded, gently but with authority. "You are to say nothing at all."
"I bear a warrant for your arrest, my lord," intoned the lieutenant. "You are to be committed to the Tower, there to await impeachment."
"On whose authority?" asked Nick, still quiet.
"His Grace the Duke of Buckingham signs the warrant in the king's name," came the answer, promptly.
"And the charge?"
"Treason, my lord."
Polly gasped. "But that is-"
"Hold your tongue!" Nicholas snapped. "May I see the warrant, Lieutenant?"
Polly subsided, realizing that she must sit still, and watch and listen. Only thus could she perhaps find a clue to this mystery. Surely it was a mistake; Nick would read the warrant and laugh, because it was meant for some other Lord Kincaid. But she knew that there was no mistake, and when Nick, having perused the document, handed it back without a word, the little cold space in her heart began to expand until she felt a great, terrifying emptiness.
"Will you grant me privacy to dress, Lieutenant?" Nicho- j
las asked politely. "If you await me in the parlor, I will join you in a few moments."
The soldier's eyes went to the casement. "You have my word," Nicholas said.
One could not refuse to take the word of a gentleman. "Very well, my lord." The lieutenant clicked his spurs together, spun on his heel, and left the bedchamber, his cohorts following.
"I do not understand what is happening," Polly whispered. "What is this of treason?"
"If I knew, I would be better able to form a defense," Nicholas said, swinging out of bed. "But 'tis my own fault."
"How so?" Polly sat watching him dress, in thrall to a confused terror that numbed her like the poisonous bite of a spider. The world she thought she knew was disintegrating, and she could not seem to do anything to hold it together.
"I had foreseen this, but dallied overlong," Nick said bitterly, buckling his sword belt. "Because I did not understand it, I did not believe in the urgency. I should have left London last week."
"But why?" Desperately, she still sought for a kernel of understanding. "What will they do to you, love?" Kneeling on the bed, she stretched out her hands toward him. "They will realize it is a mistake, and then you will come back. That is how it will be, isn't it?"
Nicholas looked at the huge eyes in the pale face, beseeching him with the dark, haunted terror of a small animal in a trap. He took the outstretched hands, folding them in his own, holding them to his breast. "You must go to De Winter and tell him of this. He will know how best to protect you. Tell him that the warrant bears Buckingham's signature. I know not how I have fallen foul of the duke, but it is certain sure that therein lies my offense."
Polly listened to the calm instructions, felt the warm strength of his hold, and heard again in memory Buckingham's voice: "Everyone has a price. I will find yours, make no mistake." How naive she had been to imagine that, having played with her a little at Wilton House, he considered
his revenge well taken. He had told her as plainly as he could that he had found her price-the incalculable value of love.
Premonition took on a dread shape; what had been only specter solidified. Nick's voice, softly urgent, continued to reach her across the gray wasteland of knowledge, telling her that she must not lose courage, that he had friends aplenty who would work in his cause, that in these friends they must both trust, because, once lodged in the Tower, Nick could not act on his own behalf; until the charges were made clear when he was impeached, he could formulate no detense.
An imperative knock came at- the bedchamber door. Nick kissed her-a short, hard tarewell-and released her hands, pulling the quilt around her shoulders. "Do not lose courage, sweetheart. In that you must not fail me," he said, the deep green eyes holding hers. "And you must trust Richard. He will look after you."
"My lord?" The door opened, and Nick turned to face the lieutenant.
"I am ready." He reached for his cloak.
"I must ask you to surrender your sword, my lord," the lieutenant said in wooden accents.
Nick's hesitation was barely perceptible; then, an enigmatic smile playing over his lips, he drew forth his sword, presenting it with a bow, hilt first, to his guard. At the door, he looked over his shoulder to where Polly still knelt, wrapped in the quilt. He could feel the coldness of her hands in his, the stark terror that rendered her motionless, and he could not bear to abandon her in such a plight. He took a step back to the bed. The lieutenant laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. Nick, with a violent curse, flung the hand away. The lieutenant drew his sword, and Polly in that instant returned to her senses.
She tumbled off the bed, clutching the quilt, the life again glowing in her eyes as her blood began to flow hot and fast. "I will not lose courage, love," she said, her voice strong. Tripping over the quilt in her haste, she ran toward him. "You must not think of me. You require all your thoughts and energies for yourself." She turned to the lieutenant, her
chin lifting as she looked him in the eye, her voice icily scornful. "Put up your sword, sir. It is not meet to draw it against an unarmed man and a woman."