Behind them the Earl and Nan exchanged looks. "Well," said his Lordship, "there's no friend to love like a long voyage at sea," and he climbed into his own coach and rattled off in the opposite direction.
Amber turned instantly to Lord Carlton. "Bruce! Oh—is it really and truly you! It's been such a long time—oh, darling, it's been two years and a half!"
She was close beside him as she looked up, her eyes seeming to swim in some luminous light, and his arm went around her. He bent his head swiftly and his mouth came down hard upon hers. Amber returned his kiss with wild abandon, forgetting where they were, straining toward him with a longing to be crushed and enveloped. She had a sense of plunging disappointment when he released her, as if she had been cut off in the midst of a dream, but he smiled and his fingers passed over her face, lightly caressing.
"What a charming little witch you are," he said softly.
"Oh, Bruce, am I? Do you think so? Did you ever think about me—way over there?" She was intensely serious.
"I thought about you a great many times—more than I expected. And I worried about you too. I was afraid that someone might get that money away from you—"
"Oh, no!" protested Amber immediately. She would have died rather than let him know what had happened to her. "Don't I look well enough?" A wave of her hand indicated her expensive clothes, the coach they rode in, her own triumph over the great world. "I can shift for myself, I'll warrant you."
He grinned, and if he saw through her bluff he gave no indication of it. "So it seems. But I should have known you would. You've got the world's most marketable commodity— enough for ten women."
"What's that?" she asked him, putting on a demure face.
"You damned well know what it is, and I'm not going to flatter you any more. Tell me, Amber: What does he look like? How big is he?"
"Who?" She looked at him in sudden surprise, thinking that he meant Rex Morgan, and then they both burst into laughter. "Oh, the Baby! Oh, Bruce, wait till you see him! He's grown so big I can hardly lift him. And he's so handsome! He looks just like you—his eyes are the same colour and his hair is getting darker all the time. You'll adore him! But you should have seen 'im at first. Lord, he was a fright! I was almost glad you weren't there—"
Both their faces sobered at that. "I'm sorry, darling. I'm sorry you had to be alone. You must have hated me for leaving you."
She put her hand over his and her voice was low and tender. "I didn't hate you, Bruce. I love you and I'll always love you. And I was glad I had him—he was a part of you that you'd left with me, and while I carried him I wasn't as lonely as I'd have been otherwise. But I don't want any more babies—it takes too long. Maybe someday when I get old and don't care how I look I'll have some more then.
He smiled. "And when will that be?"
"Oh, when I'm about thirty." She said it as though she would never be about thirty. "But tell me what you've been doing. What's in America? Where did you live? I want to know everything."
"I lived in Jamaica. It's an island, but I went to the mainland too. It's a wonderful country, Amber—wild and empty and untouched, the way England hasn't been for a thousand years. And it's over there waiting—for whoever will come to take it." He sat staring ahead now, talking softly and almost as though to himself. "It's bigger than anyone knows. In Virginia the plantations are spreading back from the coast, hundreds of thousands of acres, and still there's more land. There are wild horses and herds of wild cattle, and they belong to whoever can catch them. The forests are full of deer and every year the wild pigeons come over in clouds that blot out the sky. There's more than enough food in Virginia alone to feed everyone in England better than he's ever been fed before. The soil is so rich that whatever you plant grows like weeds. It's something to catch your imagination—something you never dreamed of—" He looked at her suddenly, his eyes glittering with passionate enthusiasm.
"But it isn't England!"
He laughed, relaxed again, the tension gone. "No," he agreed. "It isn't England."
As far as Amber was concerned that settled the matter, and they began to talk, instead, of his adventures at sea. He told her that the life was unpleasant, that nothing could make a man uglier than being shut up for weeks at a time on a ship with other men, but that it was not very dangerous and was a sure road to riches. That was why so many seamen preferred sailing with the privateers to joining the British navy or the merchant fleets. At that moment the Thames was crowded with prizes just brought into port and more were arriving every day.
"I suppose you're a mighty rich man, now."
"My fortunes are considerably improved," he admitted.
It took an hour and a half to reach Kingsland, for the road was unpaved most of the way and the recent heavy rains had turned it into a slough. Tempest and Jeremiah had to pry the wheels free a dozen times.
But at last they arrived and went around to the kitchen-door of Mrs. Chiverton's pretty little thatched cottage, where they found her just cleaning the remains of the noon-day meal. Amber had given her frequent and generous gifts of money, for she wanted her son to live in a comfortable home, and the cottage now had an air of pleasant warmth and friendliness that it had not had at first.
The baby lay in his cradle, which he had now almost outgrown, flat on his back and sleeping soundly. Amber put up a cautioning finger as they came in and, walking softly, went over to look at him. His cheeks were flushed and there was a sheen of moisture on his eyelids, his breathing came quietly and regularly. For a long moment Bruce and Amber stood staring down at him, and then their eyes turned and met in a look of mutual pride and congratulation. Lord Carlton's slender, hard aristocratic hands reached down and closed under his son's armpits and he lifted him to his chest.
He woke up then, yawning, looked in some surprise at the man who held him, and then catching sight of Amber broke into a sudden smile and reached out for her.
"Mother!"
After a while, when they had eaten a bowl of hot pottage which Mrs. Chiverton insisted they have, they began to unwrap the baby's presents. There were numerous toys, including drums and soldiers and a Jack-in-the-Pulpit—a Puritan preacher which popped out of a box and swayed comically from one side to the other. And there was a doll with real blonde hair and an extensive wardrobe which Amber had bought for Mrs. Chiverton's four-year-old daughter. They stayed until mid-afternoon, but when finally they got ready to leave, the baby cried and wanted to go with them. While Amber tried to quiet him Bruce gave Mrs. Chiverton fifty pounds, telling her that he was grateful for the good care his son had received.
It was raining again as they started back, Amber chattering with the greatest enthusiasm and excitement about the baby. For she had been pleased and a little surprised to find that Bruce—who she had half expected would be an indifferent father—seemed to love the child as much as she did. But even while she talked she was conscious again of the rising surge of passion in both of them, temporarily calmed and forced back while they had been at the cottage. Now it was once more wild and violent, immediately demanding, determined to sweep away two years and a half in a few moments of savage union.
Stopping in the midst of a sentence she turned and looked up at him. Bruce gave a swift glance out the window, and as one arm went about her he leant forward to rap on the side of the coach. "We're coming to Hoxton," he said quickly to Amber. "I know a good inn there. Hey!" he raised his voice to a shout. "Stop up here at the Star and Garter!"
When Amber got home, after nine o'clock that night, she found Nan sitting beside the fireplace mending one of Rex's shirts while he stood next to her, his hands jammed into his pockets and a scowl on his face. Amber paused, looking at him with a sense of surprise, for he seemed almost unreal to her—and then he had crossed the room and had her hands in his.
"My God, darling! What happened! I was just going out to try to find you!"
She forced a smile. "Nothing happened, Rex. The baby didn't want me to go and I kept staying on—and th
en the coach got stuck and once it almost turned over." She reached up to caress his cheek, a little sorry to have cheated him as she had, for he looked at her with such adoration and not the faintest hint of doubt or suspicion. "You mustn't worry about me all the time, Rex."
"I can't help it, darling. I love you, you know."
Amber turned away to escape the expression in his eyes and as she did so she saw Nan's look of disapproval and resentment.
Early the next morning, when they were alone, Amber asked her if she had told Rex about the visit of Almsbury and Lord Carlton. Nan was making the bed, smoothing out the sheets with a bed-staff, and she answered without looking at Amber,
"No, mam, I did not," she said crisply. "Lord, I'm sure I don't know why you should think I'd meddle in your business. I never have before. What's more. I wouldn't tell Captain Morgan you were playing him false for a thousand pound. It would break his heart!" She turned around all at once and the two women stood staring at each other; there was a gleam of moisture in Nan's eyes.
"You weren't so finical when it was the King I was playing him false with!"
"That was different, mam. That was serving the Crown. But this—this is wicked. Captain Morgan loves you beyond his own life— It's—it's not kind!"
Amber gave a sigh. "No, Nan, it's not kind. But I can't help it. I'm in love with Lord Carlton, mad in love with him. Nan! He's Bruce's father! Not my husband—I married Luke after Lord Carlton had gone to America. Oh, you've got to help me, Nan; help me to keep Rex from finding out. While he's here I've got to see him—and I will see him!—but he'll be gone soon, in a month or two, and when he's gone Rex will be none the wiser. I'll marry him then—to make it up to him. Will you help me, Nan? Will you promise?"
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 wrists 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."
Instant suspicion showed in her eyes. "Is she a blackamoor too?"
"She's a quadroon."
"What the devil's that?"
"It's one who has a quarter Negro blood and the rest white."
Amber gave a mock shudder. "They must be a scurvy lot!"
"Not at all. Some of them are very beautiful."
"And do they call 'em all 'mis'?" she demanded sarcastically. "Or only yours!"
He smiled. "That's the way Tansy pronounces 'Mrs.' "
She gave him a sidewise glance of jealousy and mistrust, and though she wanted to ask him point-blank if the woman had been his mistress he was still a little strange to her and she did not quite dare. I'll ask Tansy, she decided. I can find out from him some way.
At that moment they stopped before her lodging-house. Bruce helped her out and whatever she was about to say to him was cut short by the appearance of Almsbury's coach, which had followed close behind them. She and the countess walked upstairs together, chatting about the weather and the play and the audience, and Amber found herself liking her very well, for she seemed kind and generous and apparently had none of the envy or malice which Amber habitually expected in a woman.
Forever Amber Page 33