“And a barren Queen,” whispered Catherine, her tiny hands clasping her fan until they trembled. “How they hate me for that!” Suddenly her eyes came up and she looked Amber straight in the face. “How I hate myself!”

Amber had a sudden pang of shame; she wondered if Catherine knew that she was pregnant at that moment, with his child. Impulsively she pressed her hand, tried to give her a reassuring smile of sympathy, but she was relieved to see the languid affected Boynton sail up, waving her fan and seeming about to swoon.

“Oh, Lord, your Majesty! We’re all undone! I’ve just heard the French army is off the coast of Dover making ready to land!”

“What!” yelped a woman who stood nearby. “The French have landed? Good God!” And she started in a rush for the door. The cry was taken up and instantly the room was a milling swirling mass—men and women shoving and pushing at one another in their wild anxiety, surging toward the door.

But that rumour, like a hundred others, proved false.

Drums beat all through that night, calling up the train-bands. Gunfire could be heard from London Bridge. Waves of hysterical alarm and angry pessimism swept the city. Whoever owned anything of the slightest value was busy burying it in the back yard, rushing it out of town in the custody of wife or servant, hectoring the goldsmiths and drawing up his will. They said openly that they had been betrayed by the Court—and most of them expected to die at the point of a French or a Dutch sword. Then news came that the Dutch had broken the boom which had been stretched across the Medway to keep them out, that they had burned six men-of-war and taken the Royal Charles and were pillaging the countryside.

The King ordered the sinking of several ships at Barking Creek in order to block the river and keep them from coming any higher. Unfortunately, however, in the excitement someone misunderstood a command and several boats laden with the scant precious store of naval supplies were sunk by error. The tenth night after the attack on Sheerness it was possible to see the red glow made by burning vessels. Ripped dead carcasses of sheep had floated up-river to London. And the terrified city was swept again and again by spasms of alarm; business had stopped dead, for no one had any business now but to save himself and his family and possessions.

At last the Dutch retired to the mouth of the river and peace negotiations were resumed. This time the English were less particular on certain issues and the conference progressed better than it had.

With the other men who had volunteered Carlton and Almsbury returned to London, bearded and sunburnt and in high spirits after the adventure. But Amber was near nervous collapse from worry and prolonged sleeplessness, and at the sight of a dry and hardened blood-soaked bandage on Bruce’s right upper arm she burst into frantic hysterical tears.

He took her into his arms as though she were a little girl, stroking her hair and kissing her wet cheeks. “Here, darling, what the devil’s all this fuss? I’ve been hurt much worse than this a dozen times.”

She leaned against his chest and sobbed desperately, for she neither could nor wanted to stop crying. “Oh, Bruce! You might’ve been killed! I’ve been so s-scared—”

He picked her up and started up the stairs with her. “Don’t you know, you contrary little witch,” he murmured, “that I told you to get out of London? If the Dutch had wanted to they could have taken the whole country—we couldn’t have stopped them—”


Amber was sitting on the bed, filing her nails and waiting for Bruce to finish a letter to his overseer.

Casually he said, “When I go back I want to take Bruce with me.”

She looked across at him with an expression of horrified shock. Now he got up, threw off his robe, and just as he bent to blow out the single candle she caught a glimpse of his shadowed face. He had been looking at her as he spoke and his eyes were narrowed slightly, watching. She moved over and he got into bed beside her.

For several moments she could not answer. She did not even lie down but continued to sit there, staring into the darkness. Bruce was quiet and waited.

“Don’t you want him to go?” he asked at last.

“Of course I don’t want him to go! He’s my child, isn’t he? D’you think I want him to go over there and be brought up by another woman and forget all about me? I do not! And I won’t let him, either! He’s mine and he’s going to stay here with me! I won’t have him brought up by that—by that woman you married!”

“Have you any plans for his future?” It was so dark that she could not see his face but his voice sounded low and reasonable.

“No—” she admitted reluctantly. “No, of course not! Why should I? He’s only six years old!”

“But he won’t always be six years old. What will you do when he begins to grow up? Who will you tell him his father was? If I go away and he doesn’t see me for several years he’ll forget I ever existed. What will you give him for a last name? It’s different with Susanna—she’s supposed to be Dangerfield’s child, and she has his name. But Bruce has no name at all unless I give him mine, and I can’t do that if he stays with you. I know that you love him, Amber, and he loves you. You’re rich now and you’ve got the King’s favour—perhaps you could get him to confer a title on him sometime. But if he goes with me he’ll be my heir: he’ll have everything I can give him—and he’ll never have to endure the humiliations of an acknowledged bastard—”

“He’s a bastard anyway!” cried Amber, quick to find any excuse she could. “You can’t make him a lord just by saying he is one!”

“He won’t live in England. Over there it won’t matter. And, at least, he’ll be better off than he could be here where everyone will know.”

“What about your wife! Where’s she going to think you got him? Out of the parsley-bed?”

“I’ve already told her that I’d been married before. She’s expecting me to bring him back this time.”

“Oh, she is! You were mighty confident, weren’t you? And what’s supposed to have become of his mother?” Suddenly she stopped, sickened. “You told her that I was dead!” He did not answer and she cried accusingly, “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course. What else could I tell her? That I was a bigamist?” His voice had a sound of angry impatience. “Well, Amber, I won’t take him away from you. You can make up your mind for yourself. But try to consider him a little, too, when you’re deciding—”

Amber was so hurt and so angry at the thought of sending her son into the care of another woman, to grow up far away from her with nothing ever to remind him of her existence, that she refused for several days even to think about it. And he did not broach the subject again.

The Dutch fleet still lay at the mouth of the Thames and no English shipping could enter or leave. Consequently Bruce, though he had been almost ready to sail at the time of the attack, was now forced to wait on the peace negotiations. But he refused to go away with her, for when the treaty was concluded he intended to sail immediately. Much of his time he spent hunting with the King. And there were other hours when he and the little boy rode together or he helped him with his fencing-lessons. Sometimes they sailed a few miles up the Thames in Almsbury’s Sapphire, and Amber went along. She could not see them together without feeling a torture of longing and jealousy—for somewhere in her heart she knew that he would go with his father, and forget her. She could surrender him to Bruce, but she could not bear the thought of another woman’s having him.

They were walking, she and the little boy, in the garden one morning, waiting for Bruce who was going to take him sculling. It was mid-July, hot and bright, and the walks steamed where the gardener had been watering. The lime-trees were in bloom and bees hummed incessantly at their sweet yellow-green flowers. Monsieur le Chien ran along ahead of them, nosing everywhere, and his ears were draggled, for he had dipped them into the fountain and then trailed them through the dust.

A gardener had given each of them a ripe yellow pear to eat. It tasted like wine as she bit into it. “Bruce,” she said all at once, “will you miss your father a great deal when he goes?” She had not actually expected to say it but now she found herself waiting, tensely, for his answer.

She saw it in the wistful little smile he gave her. “Oh, yes, Mother. I will.” He hesitated, then: “Won’t you?”

Surprised, the tears started into her eyes; but she looked away, thinking hard about the musk-rose that lay half opened against the wall. She reached over to pluck it. “Yes, of course I will. Suppose, Bruce—suppose—” Suddenly she said it. “Would you like to go with him?”

He stared up at her with a look of perfect incredulity, and then he grabbed her hand. “Oh, could I, Mother? Could I go?”

Amber looked down at him, unable to keep the disappointment from her face, but his eyes had such a shine she knew then what would happen. “Yes—you can. If you want to. Do you want to?”

“Oh, yes, Mother! I do! Please let me go!”

“You want to go and leave me?” She knew that it was unfair when she said it, but she could not help herself.

As she had hoped, the look of happiness fled and a kind of bewildered conscience-stricken worry took its place. For a moment he was quiet. “But can’t you go too, Mother?” Suddenly he smiled again. “You come with us! Then we can all be together!”

Amber’s eyes brooded over him; lightly her fingers reached out to touch his hair. “I can’t go, darling. I’ve got to stay here.” The tears sparkled in her eyes again. “You can’t be with both of us—”