As Amber talked Nan’s flexible face changed, her expressions shifting like the play of sunlight over water, and at the end she ran to throw her arms about Amber. “Oh, I’m sorry, mam! I didn’t know—I didn’t guess—I thought he was just some gentleman you’d taken a fancy to.” Suddenly she smiled broadly, holding onto Amber’s arms. “And so he’s little Bruce’s father! Oh, of course! Why, they look alike!” She gave a gasp and put one hand to her mouth. “Lord, but it’s mighty lucky the Captain would never go out with you to see ’im! If he ever saw his Lordship—”
Carlton was staying at Almsbury House and two days later Amber sent a note inviting him, with Almsbury and his countess, to see the play—she wheedled Killigrew into reserving four seats in the front row of the King’s Box—and she asked them to have supper with her in her apartments afterward. Lord and Lady Almsbury were intended as decoys in the event that Captain Morgan should arrive unexpectedly.
They accepted, and for the next forty-eight hours Amber was in a flurry of excited preparation. She had Nan call in a woman to help her clean so that every speck of dust was brushed from the drapes and the walnut furniture oiled and polished until it gleamed. She went herself to the New Exchange to buy a great supply of artificial silk flowers, since the fresh ones were not yet in bloom, and she badgered Madame Drelincourt into finishing a new gown for her several days before it had been promised. She consulted the head-cook at Chatelin’s about the supper and the wine, trying to remember everything that Bruce liked best, and just before she left for the theatre she repeated once more to Nan the multifarious instructions which covered each smallest detail.
Halfway down the stairs she stopped suddenly, turned about, and ran back again. “Don’t forget to put a decanter of water on the tray with the brandy, Nan! Lord Carlton likes it that way!”
She got there very early and, once dressed and painted, went down into the pit to circulate about among the young men. She made a great show of all her charm and gaiety, hoping that Lord Carlton would see her and be impressed and perhaps a little jealous to find how popular she was with all the fops. But it was almost three-thirty and she was once more back behind the curtains when she saw him come in.
Lord and Lady Almsbury walked ahead, going to the seats which Amber had sent some boys to keep for them; but as one of the ladies leaned back and put out a hand to take hold of Bruce’s wrist he stopped, smiling, and bowed. Amber watched with anxious alarm while he bent over to hear what she was saying and saw her languid-eyed stare, the lazy intimate grasp which her hand kept on his, as though they had been long and well acquainted.
“Hey!” She heard Beck’s voice suddenly just beside her. “Who’s the handsome fellow my Lady Southesk is giving an assignation to?” Carnegie’s husband had recently succeeded to the earldom of Southesk.
“That’s Lord Carlton and he’s not making her an assignation!”
Beck looked at her in mild surprise and then smiled. “Well—” she drawled. “And if he is or isn’t—what’s that to you, pray?”
Quick anger at her own foolishness rushed over Amber, for she knew well enough that in spite of the half-hearted friendship which existed between them nothing would please Beck so much as an opportunity to create trouble between her and Rex Morgan. “It’s nothing at all to me! But I happen to know he’s laid his affections elsewhere.”
“Oh? And where’s that?” Beck’s voice was a musical purr and her eyes gleamed with sly malice.
“On my Lady Castlemaine!” snapped Amber, though it burnt her tongue to say it, and she flounced off.
She wished then that she had not invited Bruce to come back to the tiring-room after the play—for she knew that Beck’s sharp eyes would be upon them—and just before the last act she sent a boy to their box with a note asking him to meet her at Almsbury’s coach instead. She was not on the stage at the end of the play, and she rushed through her dressing to be ready to go by the time the crowds began streaming out of the theatre.
She left before anyone had returned to the tiring-room and made her way over to Almsbury’s coach, where Bruce stood waiting at the opened door. “Bruce! I’m so glad to see you!” She lowered her voice and glanced quickly around, for she did not want to be seen or overheard by anyone who might know Rex. “I sent you that note because I thought—”
He smiled. “Never mind, Amber. No excuses are necessary. I believe I know what you thought. May I present you to Lady Almsbury?”
She gave him a quick glance of indignation—for she wished he would not understand her motives so readily, or would be more offended by them when he did. But he seemed not to notice the look, took hold of her arm and began to make the introductions.
As Amber saw at once, Emily, Lady Almsbury, was by no means a beauty. Her hair, her eyes, even the clothes she wore, seemed indefinite in colouring, though there was nothing otherwise amiss in her features, and her teeth were white and even. Paint and false curls, a few patches and a low-necked gown, as well as a little natural audacity, might have made quite another woman of her. And it was noticeable that she was pregnant again.
Lord! thought Amber. How unprofitable it is to be a man’s wife!
Bruce and Amber went to ride in her coach and with them went a little Negro boy who could have been no more than five or six and who had much ado to keep his master’s cloak, which he carried, from getting into the mud. He was perfectly black and shiny, so that the whites of his eyes gleamed in his face, and as Amber smiled at him he gave her a broad ingratiating grin.
“This is Tansy,” Bruce explained. “I got him a year ago in Jamaica.”
Some of the nobility owned black servants, but Amber had never seen one of them at close range before and she examined him as though he were some small inanimate object or a new dog, looking at the pale-coloured palms of his hands and admiring the dazzling whiteness of his teeth. He wore a splendid suit of sapphire-blue satin and his head was wound in a silver-cloth turban, stuck through with a large ruby pin. But his shoes were shoddy and much too large for him and he was then easing the heel of one down off his foot with the toe of the other, while his big solemn eyes stared up at her.
“Oh, Bruce, what a pretty little moppet he is!” cried Amber. “Can he talk?” And without waiting for an answer she immediately asked him, “Why do they call you Tansy?”
“ ’Cause my mother ate a tansy puddin’ before I was born.” He had a soft liquid voice which it was difficult for her to understand. He stood up in the coach, leaning with one elbow on the seat beside Bruce, and he did not once glance out the window at the busy streets through which they were passing.
“What does he do? What’s he for?”
“Oh, he’s very useful. He plays the merry-wang—that’s a kind of guitar the Negroes have—and makes coffee. And of course he sings and dances. I thought perhaps you’d like to have him.”
“Oh, Bruce, is he for me! You brought him across the ocean for me! Oh, thank you! Tansy—how would you like to stay here in London with me?”
He looked from Amber to Bruce, then shook his head. “No, sir, mam. I’s goin’ back to see Mis’ Leah.”
Amber looked questioningly at Bruce, and caught a quick passing smile on his face. “Who’s Miss Leah?”
“She’s my housekeeper.”