“She’s rich, I suppose.”
“Rich enough.”
“And beautiful too?”
“Yes—I think so.”
This time she paused a moment, but then she drove out the question: “Do you love her?”
He turned and looked at her strangely, his eyes slightly narrowed. For a moment he made no answer and then, softly, he said, “Yes, I love her.”
She snatched up her dressing-gown, slid her arms into it, and flounced off the bed. The words she said next were the same as might have occurred to any Court-bred lady faced with the same situation. “Oh, damn you, Bruce Carlton!” she muttered. “Why should you be the only man in England to marry for love!”
But the veneer was too thin; under any real pressure it was sure to crack. Suddenly she turned on him. “I hate her!” she cried furiously. “I despise her! Where is she!”
He answered gently. “In Jamaica. She had a child in November and didn’t want to leave.”
“She must be mighty fond of you!”
Bruce made no reply to that sarcastic sneer and she added savagely, “So now you’ve got married to a lady and you’ll have someone to breed up your brats whose ancestors have spent two thousand years sitting on their arses in the House of Lords! I congratulate you, Lord Carlton! What a calamity if you’d had to let any ordinary human raise your children!”
He looked at her with anxiety and a kind of pity. His hat was in his hand. “I’ve got to go now, Amber. I’m half an hour late already—”
She gave him a sullen glare and turned her head away, as though expecting him to apologize for having offended her. But then, against her will, she watched him as he walked across the room—his body moving with the familiar remembered rhythm that seemed to have in it something of all the reasons why she loved him. “Bruce!” she cried suddenly. He paused and slowly turned to face her. “I don’t care if you are married! I’ll never give you up—never as long as I live, d’ye hear! You’re as much mine as you are hers! She can never have all of you!”
She started toward him but he turned again. In a moment he had opened the door and gone out, closing it quietly. Amber stopped where she was, one hand reaching out, the other catching at her throat to stifle a sob. “Bruce!” she cried again. And then, wearily, she turned about and went back to the bed. For several seconds she stood and stared at it, and then she dropped onto her knees beside it. “He’s gone—” she whispered. “He’s gone—I’ve lost him—”
During the first two weeks that he was there Amber saw Lord Carlton but infrequently. He was busy at the wharves and interviewing merchants, disposing of the tobacco he had brought with him and drawing up new contracts, making purchases for himself and the other plantation owners. Whenever he went to Whitehall it was to see King Charles, for he wanted another land grant—this one for twenty thousand acres to give him a total of thirty thousand. But he spent no time at all in the Drawing-Rooms or at the theatre.
At Amber’s suggestion Lady Almsbury had given him apartments adjoining hers, and though he said nothing about seeing her the second night—assuming that her husband would be there—she knocked at his door when she heard him come in. They met every night after that. There was no doubt that he knew she sometimes came home late because she had been with the King, but he never mentioned it. Her casual relationship with Gerald seemed to amuse him, but he did not speak of that either.
It did not, however, amuse Gerald’s mother.
During that fortnight Amber saw her only a time or two, at Whitehall, and then she hurried off the other direction to avoid an encounter. But the Dowager Baroness seemed to be very busy and Nan said that she was in constant cabal with hair-dressers and jewellers, sempstresses and tailors and a dozen different kinds of tradesmen, that her rooms were littered with satins and velvets, taffetas and laces, ribbons and silks by the dozen-yard.
“What the devil is she about?” asked Amber. “She hasn’t got a shilling!”
But she thought that she knew well enough. The old jade was spending her money. If she had not been so intensely preoccupied with Bruce and her interests at Court she would not have let the Baroness continue her spending spree for even two days—but as it was she let her go ahead and was relieved not to be troubled by her. One of these days, she promised herself, I’ll pluck a crow with that woman. But Lady Stanhope sought her out first.
Amber was never awake before nine o’clock—for it was late when she returned from the Palace—and by that time Bruce was always gone. She would sip her morning cup of chocolate, get into a dressing-gown and go to see the children. From ten until noon she spent getting dressed. It took that long, partly because painting her face and having her hair arranged and getting into her clothes was a complicated process, but also because she admitted great numbers of those mercers and jewellers and perfumers who flocked to the anterooms of the rich and noble. No one was ever turned away from her door.
She liked the noise and confusion, the sense of importance it gave her to be great enough that she should be so pestered, and she liked to buy things. If the material was beautiful she could always order a new gown; if the setting was unusual or extravagant she could always find use for a new necklace or bracelet; if it had come from far away or was said to be very rare or if it merely caught her fancy she never refused another vase or table or gold-framed mirror. Her prodigality was well known among the tradesmen and before noon her apartments were almost as crowded as the courtyard of the Royal Exchange.
She would sit at her dressing-table wearing a loose gown, a pair of mules hanging on the tips of her toes, while Monsieur Durand arranged her hair. Nan Britton had advanced quite beyond such tasks. She was now waiting-woman to a countess and had no duties but to dress handsomely, always look her best, and accompany her mistress wherever she went. And, like most waiting-women of fashionable ladies, she had her coterie of lovers—many of them the same lords and fops who circulated among the ladies themselves. Nan enjoyed her life with all the gusto and enthusiasm she brought to everything she did—though it was a triumph and success she had never expected, for which she would have made no effort herself.
The tradesmen and women hovered in a buzzing circle about Amber, thrusting first this and then that beneath her nose. “Pray, look at these gloves, madame—and smell them. But place them to the nose and you’ll never have another scent. Is it not exquisite?”
Amber smelled. “Neroli, isn’t it? My favourite scent. I’ll take a dozen pairs.” She whisked a tiny brush over her curved black brows, smoothing them and taking off the specks of powder.
“I’ve been saving this length for you, madame. Feel that nap, as deep as anything ever woven. And the colour—it becomes your Ladyship to a miracle. See how it matches your eyes!—as near as anything could. And let me add, madame,” leaning close and whispering, “the Countess of Shrewsbury saw it the other day and was mightily taken with it. But I told her it was already gone. I could see it for no one but you, madame.”
“I’ll have to take it now, won’t I, you crafty knave?” She slid a pair of diamond drops into her ears. “But it is beautiful. I’m glad you saved it for me—and don’t forget me when your next shipment comes in. Nan, give him the money, will you?”
“Madame, I beg of you, take this bracelet into your hand. See how it strikes the light—how it flashes like fire? Finer stones were never mined. And let me tell you—though it’s worth five hundred pound and more—I’ll give it to your Ladyship at a great loss to myself, only for the honour of having my work upon your Ladyship’s arm. Though anyone else would demand at the very least five hundred pound—I’ll give it to your Ladyship for but one hundred and fifty.”