Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

“Ye gods!” said Amber to Nan one day as she was dressing in the room which adjoined his chamber. “I think when I marry this old man I’ll be a nursemaid and not a wife!”

“Heavens, mam, it’s you’ve insisted he can’t get out of bed! And it was your idea in the first place to feed ’im those toadstools—”

“Shhh!” cautioned Amber. “You’ve got no business remembering such things.” She got up, gave herself a last glance in the mirror, and went toward the door into the next room; an expression of sweet tenderness spread over her face before she opened it.

BARBARA’S HEAD LAY on James Hamilton’s shoulder.

And both of them lay motionless, half between waking and sleeping, eyes closed, faces smooth and peaceful. But slowly Barbara began to grow uneasy. Her nose wrinkled a little and then the nostrils flared; she sniffed once or twice. What the devil’s that smell? she thought irritably. And then all at once she realized.

Smoke!

The room was on fire!

She sat up with a start and saw that an entire velvet drapery was aflame, apparently having been lighted by a candle into which it had blown. She put her fists to her mouth and screamed.

“James! The room’s on fire!”

The handsome colonel sat up and glared resentfully at the flaming drapery. “Good Lord!”

But Barbara was pushing him out of bed, sticking her feet into mules, reaching for her dressing-gown. And now, suddenly wide awake, Hamilton rushed across the room and with a swift movement jerked the hanging from its rod and started to stamp the flame out. But already it had spread to a chair and as he flung it onto the floor a Turkish rug caught fire.

Barbara ran to him with his clothes in her hand. “Here!” She thrust them at him: “Get into these! Quick—down that stairway before someone comes! Help! Help!” she screamed. “Fire! Help!”

James got out of the room just as Barbara admitted half-a-dozen servants from the other door. By now the flames were licking up the walls, the opposite drapery was afire and smoke was beginning to fill the room and make them cough.

“Do something, some of you!” yelled Barbara furiously, but though the room was filling with people—footmen, pages, blackamoors, serving-women, courtiers who had been passing by—no one had yet made a move to put out the fire. They all stood for several seconds, looking on in stupefied amazement, each waiting for someone else to decide what should be done.

And then a couple of footmen arrived carrying buckets full of water and pushed their way in; they gave a mighty sling and sent the water splashing over one burning chair and carpet. There was a hissing and the smoke rolled out and everyone retreated, squinting his eyes and coughing. Several now began to run for more water.

Dogs were barking. A scared monkey leaped chattering from one shoulder to another and in his terror bit the hand of a woman who tried to knock him aside. Men rushed in and out with buckets of water, most of the women ran around distractedly, doing nothing. Barbara was trying to give orders to everyone at once, though no one paid her much attention. And now she seized a page by the arm as he went hurrying by, huge buckets slopping with water in either hand.

“Boy! Wait a moment—I want a word with you!” The young man stopped and looked at her; his eyes were bloodshot and his face wet with sweat and smeared with soot. She lowered her voice. “There’s a cabinet in there—a small one over in this corner—with a guitar atop it. Bring it out and I’ll give you twenty pound.”

His eyes flickered in surprise. Twenty pounds when his pay for the year was three! She must want it badly. “The whole side’s aflame, your Ladyship!”

“Forty pound, then! But bring it out!” She gave him a shove.

Two or three minutes later he came back carrying the cabinet easily in one hand, for it was very small. One side had been charred and as he set it down it fell apart and several folded letters dropped to the floor. He stooped quickly to retrieve them but Barbara cried: “Leave them alone! I’ll pick them up! Go back to your work!”

She knelt on one knee and began to gather them swiftly, when all at once a hand reached across and took one from beneath her very fingers. Looking up she saw the Duke of Buckingham standing there smiling down at her. Her purple eyes narrowed and her teeth closed savagely.

“Give that to me!”

Buckingham continued to smile. “Certainly, my dear. When I’ve had a look at it. If it’s so important to you, perhaps it’s also important to me.”

For a moment they continued to stare at each other, Barbara still half crouching, her tall cousin looming over her, both impervious to the noise and confusion all about them. And then suddenly she sprang at him, but he stepped lightly aside and warded her off with one raised arm, meanwhile sliding the letter into an inside pocket of his doublet.

“Don’t be so hasty, Barbara. I’ll return it to you in good time.”

She gave him a sullen glare and muttered some impolite curse beneath her breath, but evidently realizing that she would have to wait until he was ready she went back to directing the workmen. The fire was almost out by now and they were carrying from the bedroom all the furniture which had not been scorched. But the entire apartment was black with smoke and the bedchamber a wet charred mess. The windows were flung open to air the rooms, though it was a gusty rainy night, and Wilson brought Barbara a mink-lined cloak to put over her dressing-gown.

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! ”