Buckingham, who had been bent over and almost helpless in his unrestrained laughter, now recovered himself and put out one hand to grab her about the throat, the while he jumped this way and that to avoid her clawing nails and flying feet. And then, as they struggled, they got hold of each other's disguising wigs and pulled off both at once. Barbara stepped back with a horrified gasp, holding the Duke's black wig in her hands, while he dangled hers at his side like some grisly battle trophy.
"Buckingham!"
"Your servant, madame."
He made her a mock bow and tossed her wig onto the table —beside which Heydon was still standing in stupefied horror at these goings-on, which would surely ruin him—and Barbara snatched it up and clapped it on to her head again, this time somewhat askew.
"You lousy bastard!" she cried furiously, finding her tongue at last. "What d'you mean, spying on me?"
"I was not spying, my dear cousin," replied Buckingham coolly. "I was here when you came and I merely stepped into the bedroom to wait for you to leave so that I might continue my business with the Doctor."
"What business!"
"Why, I was trying if I could discover what woman I should next get with child," replied the Duke, frank amusement on his mouth. "I'm only sorry I laughed so soon. That was a mighty interesting tale you were telling the Doctor. But pray satisfy my curiosity on a point or two: have you lain with your blackamoor of late, or the Chancellor?"
"Filthy wretch! You know I hate that old man!"
"We agree on one thing."
Barbara began to gather her belongings, mask, fan, cloak and muff, tying the hood once more over her hair. "Well, I'll go along now and leave you to finish your business, my lord."
"Oh, but you must let me wait upon you to your lodgings," protested his Grace quickly, for he suspected her of intending to go immediately to the King and hoped to head her off by some device or other. "It's dangerous riding through the ruins. Only yesterday I heard of a lady of quality dragged from her coach and beaten and robbed and finally left for dead." What he said was true enough, for the ruined City swarmed with cutthroats and thieves after dark and it was not always possible to get a hackney to make the trip. "How did you come?"
"In a hell-cart."
"Well, fortunately I have not only my coach but a dozen footmen waiting below. You're foolish to go about thus unprotected, my dear—and it's mighty lucky I'm here to see you get back safe."
Buckingham took up his wig and set it on his head again, put his feather-loaded hat on top of it, and turning to wink broadly behind her back at the worried Doctor he flung his cloak up over his left shoulder and offered her his arm. He and Barbara started down the black stair-well, where Heydon had finally recovered himself sufficiently to bring a candle to light them.
"And mind you," called Barbara as she got halfway down, "not a word of this to anyone, or I'll have you kicked!"
"Yes, my lady. You may trust me, madame."
Outside it was cold and the wind swept down the narrow, dark little street, carrying pieces of wet paper with it and driving hard needles of rain against their faces. The moon was completely obscured so that the night was black. Buckingham put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. An instant later half-a-dozen men appeared from some nearby hiding-place, emerging like goblins, and after two or three minutes a great rocking coach drawn by eight horses came lumbering noisily down the steep hill toward them and stopped, six more footmen leaping off the back where they had been riding. Buckingham gave the driver his directions, handed her in, and they started out with those who could hanging onto the coach and the others running behind it; a footman on either side held a blazing flambeau.
They rode down Great Tower Hill and turned into Tower Street, which was still lined with ruins, though the ways had now been cleared of debris and were passable. It was a slow ride of some two and a quarter miles over East Cheap and Wat-ling Street, past the twisted iron and the great heaps of boulders that marked the site of old St. Paul's, along Fleet Street and the Strand to Whitehall.
Barbara was shivering again, huddled in her cloak with her teeth chattering. Buckingham gallantly spread a fur-lined velvet robe over them both. "You'll soon be warm," he said consolingly. "If we pass a tavern I'll send in for a couple of mugs of lamb's wool."
But Barbara was not to be diverted by such gallantries. "What's his Majesty going to think to hear you've been paying visits to an astrologer?"
"Are you going to tell him?"
"Perhaps I will and perhaps I won't."
"I wouldn't, if I were you."
"Why not? You've been mighty strange with me of late, George Villiers. And I know more than you may think."
Buckingham scowled, wishing that he could see her face. "You're mistaken, my dear, for there's nothing to know."
Barbara laughed, a smug-sounding impudent laugh in the darkness beside him. "Oh, isn't there? Well, suppose I tell you something then: I know that you're having a certain horoscope cast—and it isn't your own, either."
"Who told you that!" Buckingham reached out suddenly and grabbed her arm, his fingers clenching it so that she winced and tried to jerk away; but he held her, bending his face close to her own. "Answer me! Who told you that!"
"Let go of me, you sot! I won't tell you! Let me go, I say!" she cried, and all at once she gave him a resounding slap on the face with her free hand.
With a curse he released her, one hand held to his stinging face, mumbling beneath his breath. Pox on the jade! he thought furiously. If she were anyone else I'd give her a kicking for this! But instead he held his temper and began to wheedle.
"Come, Barbara, my dear. We know too much about each other to be enemies. It's dangerous for both of us. Surely even you are convinced by now that if ever I take a notion to tell his Majesty what's become of his letters he'd send you hence like a rat with a straw in its arse."
Barbara flung back her head and laughed. "Poor fool! He doesn't even guess, does he? Sometimes I think he's stupid as a woodcock! He won't even look for 'em!"
"That's where you're mistaken, madame. He's had the Palace searched from top to bottom. But there are only two people in the world who could tell him where they are: you, Barbara—and I."
"You're the fly in my ointment, George Villiers. Sometimes I've a mind to have you poisoned—if you were out of the way I'd never have anything to worry about."
"Don't forget, pray—I know a thing or two about mixing an Italian salad myself. Now, let's be serious for a moment. Tell me where you got that information, and tell me truly. I've an uncommonly keen nose for smelling out lies. They stink like blue-incle to me."
"And if I do tell you what I know will you tell me something?"
"What?"
"Tell me whose it is?"
"Tell you whose what is?"
"The horoscope, dolt!"
"Then you don't really know anything at all."
"Try me and find out—I know enough to have you hanged."
"Well, then," said the Duke smoothly, as though he heard that news every morning before breakfast, "I'll tell you. The truth of it is, my dear, I have an incurable aversion to hemp-rope and slip-knots."
"It's a bargain. The horoscope you're having cast is that of a person of such consequence that if it became known your life wouldn't be worth a farthing. No, don't ask me how I found that out," she added quickly, shaking a finger at him. "For I won't tell you."
"God's blood!" muttered Buckingham, "How the devil have you got hold of this? What more do you know?"
"Isn't that enough? Now—tell me: Whose horoscope is it?"
The Duke relaxed, slumping with relief as he sat beside her. "You've got me on the hip, I'll have to tell you. But if one word of this gets out to anyone—believe me, I'll tell the King about his letters."
"Yes, yes. What is it? Quick!"
"At his Majesty's bidding I was having York's horoscope cast to determine whether or no he will ever be King. Now there are just three of us who know it—hi
s Majesty, you, and me—"
Barbara believed the lie, for it sounded plausible, and though she promised him that she would never speak a word of it to anyone she soon discovered that it was burning a hole in her tongue. It was such an exciting thing to know, such a fatal secret, so loaded with potential trouble that she was sure it must be of great value to her. Certainly the worth of such knowledge was almost incalculable in pounds sterling and she saw it as the source of great sums to herself over the years to come—no matter what new and younger woman might supplant her in the King's slippery affections.
She asked Charles for twelve thousand pounds one night, just as he was getting out of her bed.
"If I had twelve thousand pound," said the King, standing up and reaching for his periwig, then glancing into a mirror to see that it was on straight, "I'd spend part of it to buy myself a new shirt. The footmen have been looting my wardrobe lately to get their back wages. Poor devils—I can't blame 'em. Some haven't been paid a shilling since I got back."
Barbara gave him a pettish glare as she slipped into her dressing-gown. "God's my life, Sire, but I'm sure you've grown miserly as a Jewish pawnbroker."
"I wish I were as rich as one," said the King, then put his hat on his head and started for the door. Barbara thrust herself in front of him.
"I tell you, I've got to have that money!"
"Mr. Jermyn demands it?" asked Charles sarcastically, referring to current tales that she was now paying some of her lovers. He adjusted his lace cravat and walked on by her; but she reached the door first and covered the knob with her own hand.
"I think your Majesty had best reconsider." She paused significantly, lifted her brows and added, "Or I may tell his Highness a few things."
He gave her a puzzled scowl, but his mouth was half amused. "Now what the devil are you about?"
"Such a superior air! Well, no doubt you'll be surprised to hear that I know what it is you've been trying to discover?" There! It was out! She had not actually expected to say it, but her tongue—as it often did—had spoken anyway.
He shook his head, uninterested. "I haven't the vaguest idea what you're talking about." He turned the knob, opened the door a few inches, and then stopped abruptly as she said:
"Did you know that Buckingham and I are friends again?"
He shut the door. "What has Buckingham to do with this?"
"Oh, what's the use of pretending! I know all about it! You've had York's horoscope cast to find out if he'll ever be king." Look at him! she thought. Poor fool, trying to seem unconcerned. Twelve thousand! What devil put that paltry sum into my head! I should have asked for twenty thousand—or thirty—
"Did Villiers tell you this?"
"Who else?"
"Pox on him! I told him to keep it a strict secret. Well— you'd better not let him know you've told me or he'll be in a fury."
"Oh, he hasn't told anyone else. And I wouldn't let him know I'd told you for anything. Now—what about my twelve thousand pound?"
"Wait a few days. I'll see what I can do for you."
The next morning Charles talked privately with Henry Ben-net, Baron Arlington, who, though he had once been Buckingham's friend, now hated him violently. In fact, the Duke had few friends left at Court; he was not a man to wear well under the strain of daily association. Charles told his Secretary of State exactly what Castlemaine had told him, but he did not mention Barbara's name.
"It's my opinion," said the King, "that the person who told me this was deliberately misinformed. I'd be more inclined to think it was my horoscope Villiers had cast."
Arlington could not have been more pleased if someone had brought him the Duke's head. His blue eyes glittered and his mouth snapped together like an angry trap; his fist banged down on the table. "By Jesu, your Majesty! That's treason!"
"Not yet, Harry," corrected the King. "Not until we have the evidence."
"We shall have it, Sire, before the week is out. Leave me alone for that."
Three days later Arlington gave Charles the papers. He had immediately put into operation all the backstairs facilities of the Palace, and upon arresting and examining Heydon they discovered copies of several letters from him to the Duke and one from Buckingham to him. Charles, thoroughly annoyed at this latest treachery on the part of a man who was literally his foster-brother, issued a warrant for his arrest. But the Duke, in Yorkshire, was warned by his wife and he got out of the house just before the King's deputies reached it.
For four months the Duke played a cat-and-mouse game with his Majesty's sergeants, and though sometimes a rumour arose that his Grace had been located and was about to be taken prisoner, it was always the wrong man they captured or the Duke was gone before they got to him. People began to make disparaging remarks about his Majesty's espionage system, which had always been compared unfavourably to Cromwell's. But actually it was not strange that the Duke could elude his pursuers.
Fifteen years before, the King himself had travelled halfway across England with a price on his head and posters fixed up everywhere describing him, had even talked to Roundhead soldiers and discussed himself—and then finally escaped to France. The best known noblemen in the country went unrecognized to taverns or brothels. Any gentleman or lady could take off the jewels and fine clothes and go masquerading with the danger not that they would be recognized but that, if need arose, it would be almost impossible to establish identity. And Buckingham was an accomplished mimic into the bargain, able to disguise his face and manners so that even those who knew him best had no idea who he was.
And so it was that at last he even turned up in the Palace itself, dressed in the uniform of a sentry with musket, short black wig and heavy black mustache and eyebrows. He wore built-up boots to increase his height and a coat thickly padded over the shoulders. The sentries were often posted in the corridors to prevent a duel or other anticipated trouble, and no one noticed him—for a couple of hours. He amused himself by watching who came and went through the entrance to his cousin's apartments.
About mid-morning Barbara herself strolled out with Wilson and a couple of other waiting-women; one little blackamoor carried her train and another her muff, out of which peeked the petulant face of her spaniel. Barbara sailed on by, not even seeing him, but one of the waiting-women did and when he smiled she smiled in return. Sometime later when they came back the maid smiled again, but this time Barbara noticed him too. She gave him a sidelong glance just as she disappeared, her eyes running with quick approval over his handsomely padded torso, and one eyebrow went up slightly.
The next morning she paused, gave him a languishing look through her thick lashes, and unfurled her fan. "Aren't you the fellow who was here yesterday? Is a duel expected?"
He made her a respectful bow and in a voice and accent quite different from his own replied: "Wherever your Ladyship is, there is danger of men losing their heads."
Barbara bridled, pleased. "Oh, Lord! I'll swear you're impudent!"
"The sight of your Ladyship has made me bold." His eyes looked down into her bodice, and she gave him a smart rap on the arm with her fan.
"Saucy wretch! I could have you kicked!"
She gave her head a toss and walked away, but the next morning a page came to summon him into her Ladyship's chamber. He was taken down the corridor and through another door which led back to her apartments by means of a narrow passage he knew well enough, for it opened directly into her warm, luxuriously furnished bedroom, and there he was left alone. Barbara was playing with her spaniel, Jockey, and wearing a half unfastened dressing-gown, her hair falling down her back.
She looked up, straightened, and gave him a careless wave of her hand. "Good morning."
He bowed, his eyes bolder than ever, and Barbara's own were going over him as though he were a stud stallion on exhibition at Smithfield. "Good morning, your Ladyship. Indeed it is a good morning when I'm asked to wait upon your Ladyship." He bowed again.
"Well—I suppose you're surprised that a per
son of quality has sent for a mere nobody, aren't you?"
"I'm grateful, madame, if I can be of service to your Ladyship."
"Hm," murmured Barbara, one hand on her lip, half her naked leg showing as the gown fell away. "Perhaps you can. Yes—perhaps you can." Suddenly she was more brisk. "Tell me, are you a man of discretion?"
"Your Ladyship may trust me with your honour."
"How d'you know I intend to?" cried Barbara, annoyed that he should understand her so readily.
"I beg your Ladyship's pardon. I meant no offense, I assure you."
"Well, I wouldn't have you take me for a whore—just because I live at Court. Whitehall's got a mighty evil reputation these days—but I'll have you know, sir, I'm a person of honour."
"I'm convinced of that, madame."
Barbara relaxed again, and let the gown fall lower over her breasts. "You know, you're an uncommonly handsome young fellow. If I took a fancy to you I doubt not that I could see you advanced to a better position."
"I want nothing but to serve your Ladyship."
"Ordinarily, you understand, I wouldn't glance at a sentry— but the truth of the matter is, I find myself strangely drawn to you."
He bowed again. "It's more than I deserve, madame."
"What's more than you deserve, you puppy?"
This time Buckingham answered her in his own voice. "Why, your Ladyship's kind approbation."
"Well—" began Barbara, and suddenly her eyes opened wide and she stared at him. "Say that again!"
"Say what again, your Ladyship?" asked the sentry.
Barbara blew a sigh of relief. "Whew! For a moment you sounded deucedly like a gentleman of my acquaintance—whom I'm not eager to see just now."
Buckingham leaned lazily back on his musket. One hand reached up to draw off his wig and his normal voice asked, "Not his Grace of Buckingham, by any chance?"
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