“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 also 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 Bennet, 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
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 back-stairs 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.
