Her coach was waiting in King Street with a great many others, just outside the Palace Gate, and at sight of it Almsbury gave a low whistle. “Well! I didn’t know acting was such a well-paid profession!”
Amber took the cloak which Jeremiah handed her and tossed it over her shoulders, for evening had set in and it was growing cool. Picking up her skirts she gave him a sly smile over her shoulder.
“Maybe acting isn’t. But there’s another that is.” She climbed in, laughing as he sat down heavily beside her.
“So our innocent country-maid has listened to the Devil, after all.”
“What else could I do after—” She stopped quickly, colouring, and then hastily added, “There’s only one way for a woman to get on in the world, I’ve found.”
“There’s only one way for a woman to get on very well—or very far. Who’s your maintainer?”
“Captain Morgan, of his Majesty’s Horse Guard. D’you know ’im?”
“No. I think I’m somewhat out of the fashion, in keepers and clothes alike. There’s nothing will run a man out of the mode so quick as a wife and a home in the country.”
“Oh! So now you’re married!” Amber gave him a roguish grin, almost as though he had just admitted some indiscretion.
“Yes, now I’m married. Two years the 5th of next month. And I’ve got two boys—one a little over a year and another just two months. And—a—weren’t you—” His eyes went down over her questioningly, but he hesitated.
“I have a boy, too!” cried Amber suddenly, unable to control herself any longer. “Oh, Almsbury, you should see him! He looks just like Bruce! Tell me, Almsbury: Where is he? Has he been back to London? Have you seen him?” She did not care any longer about seeming flippant and independent. She was happy with Rex and had almost thought that she was no longer in love with Bruce Carlton—but the mere sight of Almsbury had brought it all churning up again.
“I’ve heard that he’s in Jamaica and sails from there to take Spanish ships. Lord, sweetheart, don’t tell me you’re still—”
“Well, what if I am!” cried Amber, tears in her voice, and she turned her head quickly to look out the window.
Almsbury’s tone was soothing. He moved closer and put an arm about her. “Here—darling. Good Lord, I’m sorry.”
She dropped her head onto his shoulder. “When do you think he’ll come back? He’s been gone two years—”
“I don’t know. But I suppose one of these days when we least expect it he’ll be putting into port.”
“He’ll stay here then, won’t he? He won’t go away again, will he?”
“I’m afraid he will, sweetheart. I’ve known Carlton for twenty years, and most of that time he’s been just coming home or just going away. He doesn’t stay long in one place. It must be his Scottish blood, I think, that sends him off adventuring.”
“But it’ll be different—now that the King’s back. When he has money he can live at Court without having to crawl on his belly—that’s what he said he didn’t like.”
“It was more than that. He doesn’t like the Court.”
“Doesn’t like it! Why, that’s ridiculous! That’s where everybody would live—if they could!”
Almsbury shrugged. “Nevertheless he doesn’t like it. No one does—but few of ’em have got the guts to leave.”
Amber shook her shoulders, pouting, and leaned forward to get out as the coach drew up before her lodging-house. “That sounds like damned nonsense!” she muttered crossly.
Her maid, Gatty, was not in, for Amber had given her permission to see the pageant and then pay a visit to her father. Prudence she had long since dismissed when she had come home unexpectedly to find the girl parading about in her best and newest gown. And there had been two others before Gatty, one sent away for pilfering and the other for laziness. Amber sent Jeremiah to bring them some food from the Bear, an excellent nearby ordinary which sold French food cooked by Englishmen. Her meals were all sent in, from taverns or cook-shops.
She showed him her rooms with great pride, pointing out every detail so that he should miss nothing. Rex was generous and gave her almost everything she asked for; consequently he spent much of his time when not on duty gambling in the Groom Porter’s Lodge or at a tavern.
Among her recent acquirements was a chest of drawers from Holland made of Brazilian kingwood—chocolate brown with black veins, decorated with a great deal of florid Dutch carving. There was a lacquered black Chinese screen, and in one corner stood a what-not loaded with tiny figures: a tree of coral, a blown-glass stag, an old Chinese knife-grinder worked in silver filigree. And over the fireplace hung a three-quarter portrait of Amber.
“What d’you think of me?” she asked, gesturing toward the portrait, tossing her muff and fan aside.
Almsbury put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, examining it with his head to one side. “Well, sweetheart, I’m glad I saw you in the flesh first, or I should have been troubled to think you’d grown so plump. And who sat for the mouth? That isn’t yours.”
She laughed, beckoning him into the bedroom where she began to unpin her back hair. “Being in the country hasn’t changed you so much, Almsbury. You’re still as great a courtier as ever. But you should see the miniature Samuel Cooper did of me. I’m supposed to be Aphro—I forget what he called it—Venus, anyway, rising from the sea. I stand like this—” she struck an easy graceful pose, “and haven’t got a thing on.”
Almsbury, sitting astride a low chair with his arms folded across the back, gave a low appreciative hum. “Sounds mighty pretty. Where is it?”
“Oh, Rex has it. I gave it to him for his birthday and he’s carried it ever since—over his heart.” She grinned mischievously and began untying the bows down the front of her gown. “He’s mad in love with me. Lord, he even wants to marry me now.”
“And are you going to?”
“No.” She shook her head vigorously, indicating that she did not care to discuss the matter. “I don’t want to get married.”
Picking up her dressing-gown, she went behind the screen to put it on. Just her head and shoulders showed over the top of it, and as she took off her garments, tossing them out one by one, she kept up a merry chatter with the Earl.
Finally the waiter arrived and they went into the dining-room to eat. Rex had sent her a message that he would be on duty at the Palace until late, or she would never have dared eat her supper with a man, wearing only a satin dressing-gown. For she had discovered long ago that Rex was not joking when he said that if he took her into keeping he would expect a monopoly of her time and person. He kept the beaus from crowding her too closely or impudently at the theatre and discouraged them from visiting her—though all the actresses held their levees at home just as the Court ladies did and entertained numbers of gentlemen while they were dressing. The result was that during the last few months they had quite given up Mrs. St. Clare. Rex had a formidable reputation as a swordsman, and most of the tiring-room fops would rather see an apothecary for a clap, than a surgeon for a flesh-wound.
Throughout the meal Amber and the Earl talked with all the animation of old friends who have not met for a long while and who have a great deal to say to each other. She told him about her successes, but not her failures, her triumphs but not her defeats. He heard nothing of Luke Channell or of Newgate, Mother Red-Cap or Whitefriars. She pretended that she still had left a good deal of Lord Carlton’s five hundred pounds, deposited with her goldsmith, and he admitted that she had been far more clever than most young country girls left to shift for themselves in London.