When at last they had gone she turned back to Buckingham, who was strumming at a guitar. Barbara stared at him from across the room. “Now, George Villiers—give me that letter!”
The Duke made an airy gesture. “Tush, Barbara. You’re always so brisk. Listen to this tune I pricked out the other morning. Rather pretty, don’t you think?” He smiled at her and nodded his head in time to the gay little melody.
“A pox on you and your damned tunes! Give me that letter!”
Buckingham sighed, tossed the guitar into a chair and took the letter from his pocket; as he began to unfold it she started toward him. He held up a warning hand. “Stay where you are, or I’ll go elsewhere to read it.”
Barbara obeyed him and stood there, her arms folded and the toe of her mule tapping impatiently. The crisp parchment crackled in the quiet room, and then as his eyes went rapidly over the contents a smile of amusement and contempt stole onto his face.
“By God,” he said softly, “Old Rowley writes as lewd a love-letter as Aretino himself.” Old Rowley was his Majesty’s nickname, after a pet goat that roamed the Privy Gardens.
“Now will you give me that letter!”
Buckingham slipped it once more into his own pocket. “Let’s talk this over for a moment. I’d heard his Majesty wrote you some letters just after you’d met. What do you expect to do with ’em?”
“What business is that of yours!”
The Duke shrugged and started for the door. “None, I suppose, strictly speaking. Well—a very fine lady has made me an assignation and I should hate to disappoint her. Good-night, madame.”
“Buckingham! Wait a minute! You know what I intend doing with them as well as I do.”
“Publishing them some day perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“I’ve heard you’ve threatened him with that once or twice already.”
“Well, what if I have? He knows what a fool he’d look if the people were ever to read them. I can make him jump through my hoop like a tame monkey by the mere mention of ’em.” She laughed, a gleam of reflective gloating cruelty in her eyes.
“A time or two, perhaps, but not for long. Not if he really decides to put you by.”
“Why, what do you mean? Age won’t stale these! Ten years will only give ’em a higher savour!”
“Barbara, my dear, for an intriguing woman you’re sometimes uncommonly simple. Has it never occurred to you that if you really tried to publish those letters you wouldn’t be able to find ’em?”
Barbara gasped. It had not, though she kept them under lock and key and until tonight no one but herself had known where they were. “He wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t steal them! Anyway, I keep them well hidden!”
Buckingham laughed. “Oh, do you? I’m afraid you take Old Rowley for a greater fool than he is. The Palace swarms with men—and women too—who make it their business to find anything that will bring a good price. If he really decided that he wanted those they’d disappear from under your nose while you had your eye on ’em.”
Barbara was suddenly distraught. “Oh, he wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t play me such a scurvy trick! You don’t really think he would, do you, George?”
He smiled, very much amused at her distress. “I know he would. And why not? Publishing them wouldn’t be exactly a gesture of good faith on your part, would it?”
“Oh, good faith be damned! Those letters are important to me! If he ever gets tired of me they’ll be all I have to protect myself—and my children. You’ve got to help me, George! You’re clever about these things. Tell me what I can do with them!”
Buckingham heaved himself away from the wall against which he had been leaning. “There’s only one thing to do with them.” But as she started eagerly toward him he made a gesture of one hand, and shook his head. “Oh, no, my dear. You’ll have to puzzle this out for yourself. After all, madame, you’ve not been my best friend of late—unless I’ve heard amiss.”
“I’ve not been your best friend! Hah! And what good turns have you done me, pray? Oh, don’t think I don’t know about you and your Committee for Getting Frances Stewart for the King! ”
He shrugged. “Well, a man must serve his King—and pimping’s often the high-road to power and riches. However, it all came to nothing. She’s a cunning slut, if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Well,” said Barbara, beginning to pout. “If it had it might have undone me for good and all. I thought you and I were pledged to a common cause, Buckingham.” She referred to their mutual hatred of Chancellor Clarendon.
“We are, my dear. We are. It’s my fondest wish to see that old man turned away in disgrace—or better yet to see his head on a pole over London Bridge. It’s time the young men have a swing at governing the country.” He smiled at her, a friendly ingratiating smile, all malice and scorn gone from his face. “I can’t think why we’re so often at odds, Barbara. Perhaps it’s because we both have Villiers blood in our veins. But, come—let’s be friends again—And if you’ll do your part I’ll try what luck I can have to bring you back into his Majesty’s favour again.”
“Oh, Buckingham, if only you would! I swear since her Majesty’s recovery he’s done nothing but trail after that simpering sugar-sop, Frances Stewart! I’ve been half-distracted with worry!”
“Have you? I’d understood there were several gentlemen who’d undertaken to console you—Colonel Hamilton and Berkeley and Henry Jermyn and—”
“Never mind! I thought we were going to be friends again—but that doesn’t give you leave to slander my reputation to my face!”
He made her a bow. “My humblest apologies, madame. I assure you it was but an idle jest.”
They had similarly quarrelled and made friends a dozen times or more, but both of them were too fickle, too mercurial, too determinedly selfish to make good partners in any venture. Now, however, because she wanted his help she gave him a flirtatious smile and was instantly forgiving.
“Gossip will travel here at Whitehall, be a woman never so innocent,” she informed him.
“I’m sure that’s your case to a cow’s thumb.”
“Buckingham—what about the letters? You know I’m but a simple creature, and you’re so clever. Tell me what I shall do.”
“Why, when you ask so prettily of course I’ll tell you. And yet it’s so simple I’m half ashamed to say it: Burn ’em up.”
“Burn them! Oh, come now, d’you take me for a fool?”
“Not at all. What could be more logical? As long as they exist he can take them from you. But once they’re burned he can turn the Palace upside down and never find ’em—and all the while you’re laughing in your fist.”
For a moment she continued to regard him skeptically, and then at last she smiled. “What a crafty knave you are, George Villiers.” She took a candle from the table and going to the cold fireplace tossed into it those letters which she held in her hand. Then she turned to him. “Give me the other one.”
He handed it to her and she tossed it too on the heap. The candle-flame touched one corner and in a moment the slow fire began to creep up the paper, making it curl as it turned black. And then suddenly they broke into a bright blaze which burned for a moment or two, the sealing-wax crackling and hissing, and began to die out. Barbara looked up over her shoulder at Buckingham and found him staring into the low fire, a thoughtful enigmatic smile on his handsome face. She had a quick moment of misgiving, wondering what he could be thinking; but it soon passed and she got to her feet again, relieved to have the troublesome letters safe at last.