Winsor, Kathleen (122 page)

Buckingham
gave him a glance of displeasure and turned again to watch the stage, but
Harry's mischievous zeal was merely whetted. He took out his pocket-comb and
began grooming his wig. " 'Sdeath," he drawled, "but I was
somewhat surprised his Grace should be content to take over the cast-off whore
of half the men at Court." Some time since he had been a lover of the
languid dangerous sensual Countess of Shrewsbury, and now that she was the
Duke's mistress he babbled incessantly about the affair.

Buckingham
scowled angrily at him. "Govern your tongue,
you young whelp. I will not hear
my Lady Shrewsbury maligned—particularly I hate the sound of her name in a
mouth so foul as your own!"

The
vizard-masks and beaus in the pit had begun to look up at them, for in the
small confines of the theatre their voices carried and it sounded like a quarrel.
Ladies and gentlemen in nearby boxes craned their necks, smiling a little in
anticipation, and some of the actors were paying more attention to Killigrew
and the Duke than to their own business.

Feeling
all eyes begin to focus upon him, Harry grew bolder. "Your Grace is
strangely fastidious concerning a lady who's turned her tail to most of your
acquaintance."

Buckingham
half rose, and then sat down again. "You impertinent knave— I'll have you
soundly beaten for this!"

Killigrew
was indignant. "I'll have your Grace to understand that I'm no mean fellow
to be beaten by lackeys! I'm as worthy of your Grace's sword as the next
man!" It was a fine point of honour. And so saying he left the box,
summoning his friend to go with him. "Tell his Grace I'll meet him behind
Montagu House in half an hour."

The
young man refused and began hauling at Harry's sleeve, trying to reason with
him. "Don't be a fool, Harry! His Grace has been troubling no one! You're
drunk—come on, let's leave."

"Pox
on you, then!" declared Killigrew. "If you're an arrant coward, I'm
not!"

With
that he unbuckled his sword, lifted it high and brought it smashing down, case
and all, upon the Duke's head. He turned instantly and began to run as
Buckingham sprang to his feet in white-faced fury and started after him. The
two men scrambled along, climbing over seats, hitting off hats, stepping on
feet. Women began to scream; the actors on the stage were shouting; and above
in the balconies 'prentices and bullies and harlots crowded to the railing,
stamping and beating their cudgels.

"Kill
'im, your Grace!"

"Whip
'im through the lungs!"

"Slit
the bastard's nose!"

Someone
threw an orange and it smacked Killigrew square in the face. An excited woman
grabbed at Buckingham's wig and pulled it off. Killigrew was heading at furious
speed for an exit, looking back with a horrified face to see the Duke gaining
on him. Now Buckingham pulled out his naked sword, bellowing, "Stop, you
coward!"

Killigrew
sent men and women sprawling to the floor in his headlong flight and the Duke,
following after, tramped across them. He might have escaped but someone stuck
out an ankle to trip him. The next moment Buckingham was upon him and gave him
a hearty kick in the ribs with his square-toed shoe.

"Get
on your feet and fight, you poltroon," roared the Duke.

"Please,
your Grace! It was all in jest!"

Killigrew
writhed about, trying to escape the Duke's feet, which kicked viciously at him
again and again, striking him in the stomach and the chest and about the shins.
The theatre roared with excitement, urging him to trample out his guts, to
slice his throat. Now Buckingham leaned over, wrenched Harry's sword away and
spat into his face.

"Bah!
You snivelling coward, you don't deserve to wear a sword!" He kicked him
again and Killigrew coughed, doubling over. "Get on your knees and ask me
for your life—or by God I'll kill you like the yellow dog you are!"

Harry
crawled to his knees. "Good your Grace," he whined obediently,
"spare my life."

"Keep
it then," muttered Buckingham contemptuously. "If you think it's any
use to you!" and he kicked him again for good measure.

Harry
got painfully to his feet and started out, limping, one hand pressed against
his aching ribs. He was followed by derisive hoots and jeers as the scornful
crowd hurled oranges and wooden cudgels, shoes and apple-cores after him. Harry
Killigrew was the most disgraced man of the year.

Buckingham
watched him go. Then someone handed him his wig and he took it, slapped the
dust out and set it back on his head again. With Harry gone their cries of
abuse changed to cheers for his Grace, and Buckingham, smiling and bowing
politely, made his way back to his seat. He sat down between Rochester and
Etherege, sweating and hot, but pleased in his triumph.

"By
God, that's a piece of business I've been intending to do
for a long
while!"

Rochester
gave him an affectionate slap on the back. "His Majesty should be grateful
enough to forgive you anything. There's no man who wears a head needed a public
beating so bad as Harry."

Lord
Carlton had not been gone a month when Amber was appointed a Lady of the
Bedchamber and moved into apartments at Whitehall. The suite consisted of
twelve rooms, six on a floor, strung out straight along the river front and
adjoining the King's apartments, to which it had access by means of a narrow
passage and staircase opening from an alcove in the drawing-room. Many such
trap-stairs and passageways had been constructed during Mrs. Cromwell's stay
there, for her ease in spying upon her servants—the King often found them
useful too.

And
will you look at me now! thought Amber, as she surveyed her new surroundings.
What a long way I've come!

Sometimes
she wondered in idle amusement what Aunt Sarah and Uncle Matt and all her seven
cousins would think

if
they could see her—titled, rich, with a coach-and-eight, satin and velvet gowns
by the score, a collection of emeralds to rival Castlemaine's pearls, bowed to
by lords and earls as she passed, along the Palace corridors. This, she knew,
was to be truly great. But she thought she knew also what Uncle Matt, at least,
would think about it. He would say that she was a harlot and a disgrace to the
family. But then, Uncle Matt always had been an old dunderhead.

Amber
hoped at first that she was rid of both her husband and her mother-in-law, but
it was not long after the signing of the peace treaty that Lucilla returned to
London, dragging Gerald in her wake. He paid a formal call upon Amber while she
was still at Almsbury House, asked her politely how she did, and after a few
minutes took his leave. His encounter with Bruce Carlton had scared him enough;
he had no wish to interfere with the King. For he knew by now why Charles had
created him an earl and married him to a rich woman. If he was humiliated he
saw no solution but pretended nonchalance, no remedy but to employ himself in a
course of dissipations. He was content to pursue his own life and leave her
alone.

But
his mother was not. She came to visit Amber the day after she had moved into
Whitehall.

Amber
waved her into a chair and went on with what she had been doing—directing some
workmen in the hanging of her pictures and mirrors. She knew that Lucilla was
watching her with a most critical eye on her figure—for she was now in the
eighth month of her pregnancy. But she paid little attention to the woman's
chatter and merely nodded occasionally or made some absent-minded remark.

"Lord,"
said Lucilla, "to see how captious the world has grown!
Everyone,
absolutely
everyone,
my dear, is under suspicion nowadays, don't you agree? Gossip,
gossip, gossip. One hears it on every hand!"

"Um,"
said Amber. "Oh, yes, of course. I think we'd better hang this one here,
just beside the window. It needs to catch the light from that side—" She
had already had several things sent down from Lime Park and she remembered what
she had learned from Radclyffe about the most effective place for each.

"Of
course Gerry doesn't believe a word of it." Amber paid no attention at all
to that and she repeated, louder this time, "Of course
Gerry
doesn't
believe a word of it!"

"What?"
said Amber, glancing around over her shoulder. "A word of what? No—a
little to the left. Now, down a bit— There, that's fine. What were you saying,
madame?"

"I
said, my dear, that Gerry thinks it's all a horrid lie, and he says he'll
challenge the rascal who started it if once he can catch him."

"By
all means," agreed Amber, standing back and squinting one eye to see that
the painting was where she wanted it. "A gentleman's nothing here at
Whitehall till he's had his clap and
writ his play and killed his man. . . .
Yes, that's right. When you're done with that you can go."

Convinced
by now that she would never get rid of Lucilla until she had heard her out, she
went to sit down in a chair and scooped up Monsieur le Chien to lay him across
her lap. She had been on her feet for several hours and was tired. She wanted
to be let alone. But now her mother-in-law leaned forward with the hot-eyed,
excited eagerness of a woman who had unsavoury gossip to tell.

"You're
rather young, my dear," said Lucilla, "and perhaps you don't
understand the way of the world so well as a more experienced woman. But to
tell you the truth on it, there's a deal of unpleasant talk regarding your
appointment at Court."

Amber
was amused and one corner of her mouth curled slightly. "I didn't think
there'd ever yet been an appointment at Court that didn't cause a deal of
unpleasant talk."

"But
this, of course, is different. They're saying— Well, I may as well speak
frankly. They're saying that you're more in his Majesty's favour than a decent
woman should be. They're saying, madame, that that's the King's child you're
carrying!" She watched Amber with hard unforgiving eyes, as though she
expected her to blush and falter, protest and weep.

"Well,"
said Amber, "since Gerald doesn't believe it, why concern yourself?"

"Why
concern myself? Good God, madame, you shock me! Is that the kind of talk you're
willing to have go on about you? I'm sure no decent woman would have such
things said about her!" She was growing breathless. "And I don't
believe that you would either, madame, if
you
were a decent woman! But I
don't think you are—I think it's true! I think you were with child by his
Majesty and knew it when you married my son! Do you know what you've done,
madame? You've made my good honest boy appear a fool in the eyes of the
world—you've spoiled the honourable name of the Stanhopes—you've—"

"You
have a great deal to say about my morals, madame," snapped Amber,
"but you seem willing enough to live on my money!"

Lady
Stanhope gave a horrified gasp.
"Your
money! Good Heavens! what is
the world coming to! When a woman marries, her money belongs to her husband!
Even you must know that! Live on your money! I'll have you to know, madame, I
scorn the mere thought of it!"

Amber
spoke sharply, through her teeth. "Then stop doing it!"

Lady
Stanhope jumped to her feet. "Why, you hussy! I'll bring a suit against
you for this! We'll find out whose money it is, I warrant you!"

Amber
got up, dropping the dog onto the floor where he stretched and yawned lazily,
putting out his long pink tongue. "If you do you're a greater fool than I
think. The marriage-contract gives me control of all my money. Now get out of
here and don't
trouble me again—or I'll make you sorry for it!" She gave a furious wave
of her arm and as Lady Stanhope hesitated, glaring, Amber grabbed up a vase and
lifted her hand to throw it. The Dowager Baroness picked up her skirts and went
out on the run. But Amber did not enjoy her triumph. Slamming away the vase she
collapsed into a chair and began to cry, overwhelmed with the dark reasonless
morbidity of her pregnancy.

It
was Dr. Fraser who delivered Amber's son, for many of the Court ladies were
beginning to employ doctors rather than midwives—though elsewhere the practice
was regarded as merely one more evidence of aristocratic decadence. The child
was born at three o'clock one hot stormy October morning; he was a long thin
baby with splotched red skin and a black fuzz on top of his head.