Bruce gave her a look of surprise and then, to her astonishment, threw back his head and laughed.

“Well!” she cried, offended. “What the devil is there to laugh at, pray?”

She was beginning already to pick up some of his expressions, words and phrases Matt Goodegroome would never have allowed even his sons to use. It seemed to Amber that all fine persons swore and that it was a mark of good breeding.

“I’m sorry, Amber. I wasn’t laughing at you. But to tell you the truth I think they glared at you for another reason—jealousy, no doubt. Certainly neither of them has any reason to have an ill opinion of another woman’s character. Between ’em I think they’ve laid with most of the men who went to France.”

“But you said they’re married!”

“So they are. If they weren’t they might have been more discreet.”

She was relieved, but at the same time a quick suspicion entered her mind. Could he have been one of those men? But she promptly decided that if he had been he would never have mentioned the matter at all—and she thrust that thought aside. She began to feel happy again, and eager for the next adventure.

“Where are we going now?”

“I thought you might like to have supper at a tavern.”

Back in the City they stopped in New Street before a building which bore the sign of a great golden eagle. When she stepped down Amber lifted her skirts high to show her black lace garters, just as she had seen several ladies do outside the theatre. Then, as they were about to go in the door, they heard a loud shout in a familiar masculine voice.

“Hey! Carlton!”

Curiously they looked around. It was Almsbury, riding by in a hackney jammed with several other men, and as the coach pulled up he jumped out, waved his companions goodbye and came toward them at a run. He blinked his eyes twice as he saw Amber and then swept off his hat in a deep bow.

“Holy Christ, sweetheart! Damn me if you aren’t as beautiful as a Venetian whore!”

The delighted smile froze on Amber’s face.

Well! So that was what he thought of her too! Her eyebrows drew together in a furious scowl, but at a glance from Bruce the Earl hastened to repair his breach. He shrugged his shoulders and made a comical face.

“Well—after all, you know, Venetian prostitutes are the prettiest women in Europe. But then, I suppose if you—”

He paused, watching her with an ingratiating grin and Amber slowly raised her eyes to his again. She could not resist his friendliness and all of a sudden she smiled. He took her arm. “Lord, sweetheart, you know I wouldn’t offend you for anything on earth.” The three of them went inside and, at Bruce’s request, were shown upstairs to a private room.

After the men had ordered, the waiter brought them a small barrelful of oysters and they began cracking them open, eating them raw with a sprinkle of salt and a few drops of lemon juice, scattering the shells on the table and floor. Almsbury predicted that oysters would become the staple food at Court and when Amber looked puzzled Bruce told her what he meant. She laughed heartily, thinking it a very good joke.

By the time they had finished the oysters the rest of the meal appeared: a roast duck stuffed with oysters and onions, fried artichoke bottoms, and a rich cheesecake baked in a crust. After that there was Burgundy for the two men, white Rhenish for Amber, fruit, and some nuts to crack. For a long while they sat at the table talking, all of them warm and well-fed and content, and Amber quite forgot her earlier chagrin.

The wine was stronger than the ale to which she was accustomed and after a couple of glasses she became quiet and drowsy, and sat with her eyes half closed listening to the men talk. A sense of lightness pervaded her, as though her head had become detached and floated somewhere far above her. She watched Bruce admiringly, every expression that crossed his face, every gesture of his hands. And when he would turn to smile at her or, as he did once or twice, lean over to brush his lips across her cheek, her happiness soared dizzily.

At last she whispered in his ear and, when he answered, got up and crossed the room to a small closet. While she was in there she heard a knock at the outer door, another voice speaking, and then the sound of the door closing again.

When she came out, Almsbury was sitting at the table alone, pouring himself another glassful of wine. He glanced around over his shoulder. “He’s been called out on business but he’ll be back in a moment. Come here where I can look at you.”

Ten minutes or more dragged slowly by with Amber watching the door, looking up with swift eager expectancy at each slight sound, nervous and unhappy. It seemed as though he had been gone an hour when the waiter came in. He bowed to Almsbury.

“Sir, his Lordship regrets that he has been called away on a matter of important business, and asks that you do him the kindness of carrying madame to her lodging.”

Almsbury, who had been watching Amber while the man delivered his message, nodded his head. And now Amber looked at him with her face white, her eyes as hurt as if she had been struck.

“Business,” she repeated softly. “Where can he go on business at this hour?”

Almsbury shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, sweetheart. Here, have another drink.”

But though Amber took the wine-glass he proffered she merely sat and held it. For a month and a half she had looked forward to this night—and now he must go off somewhere on business. Every time she asked him where he had been or where he was going it was always the same answer—“business.” But why tonight? Why this one night for which she had planned so long and from which she had hoped so much? She felt tired and discouraged and hung listlessly in her chair, scarcely speaking, so that after a few minutes Almsbury got up and suggested that they go.

During the ride back she did not trouble herself to make conversation with the Earl, but when they reached the Royal Saracen she asked him if he would care to come upstairs, half hoping that he would refuse. But he accepted readily and, while she went on ahead to take off her gown, stopped in the taproom for a couple of bottles of sack. Coming out of the bedroom in a pair of clopping mules and a gold satin dressing-gown—another recent acquirement—she found him stretched comfortably on a cushion-piled settle before the fire. He gave a wave of his arm, signalling her to come to him and, when she sat down beside him, took hold of one of her hands, looked at it reflectively for a moment and then touched it to his lips. Frowning, Amber stared off into space, scarcely conscious of him.

“Where d’you think he went?” she asked at last.

Almsbury shrugged, tilted the bottle again.

“What the devil is this ‘business’ he’s always about? Do you know what it is?”

“Every Royalist in England has business nowadays. One wants his property back. Another wants a sinecure that’ll pay a thousand a year for helping the King on and off with his drawers. The galleries are full of ’em—country squires and old soldiers and doting mamas who’ve heard the King has an eye for pretty women. They all want something—including me. I want Almsbury House back again and my lands in Herefordshire. His Majesty couldn’t please all of us if he were King Midas and high Jupiter rolled into one.”

“What does Bruce want? Carlton Hall?”

“No, I don’t think so. It was sold, not confiscated, and I don’t believe they’ll give back property that was sold.” He finished the bottle and leaned over to pick up another one.

The Earl could drink more with less effect to himself than any man she had ever seen, and Bruce had told her that it was because he had lived so long in taverns that his blood had turned to alcohol. She still was not sure whether he had meant it as a joke or the solemn truth.

“I don’t see what he can want,” she said. “As rich as he is.”

“Rich?” Almsbury seemed surprised.

“Well—isn’t he?”

Amber knew very little about money for she had never had in her possession more than a few shillings at a time and could scarcely tell the value of one coin from another. But it seemed to her that Lord Carlton must have fabulous wealth to own a coach-and-four, to wear the clothes he did, to buy such wonderful things for her.

“By no means. His family sold everything they had to help the King and what they didn’t sell was taken from them in the decimations. That jewellery he found at Carlton Hall was just about everything that was left. No—he’s not rich. In fact, he’s damned near as poor as I am.”

“But what about the coach—and my clothes—”

“Oh. Well—he has that much. A man who knows what he’s about can sit down for a few hours at cards or dice and come away several hundred pounds to the good.”

“Cheating?” She was rather shocked, almost inclined to think that Almsbury was lying.

But he smiled. “Well, perhaps he plays a little upon advantage. But then, we all do. Of course some of us are clever at it and some not so clever—Bruce can slur and knap with any man in Europe. He made his living for most of fifteen years with a pair of dice and a pack of cards—and he lived a damned sight better than most of us did. in fact, the other night I saw him win twenty-five hundred in four hours at the Groom Porter’s Lodge.”

“Is that what all this business is he goes upon—gambling?”

“Partly. He needs money.”

“Then why doesn’t he ask the King for it—since everyone else does?”

“My dear, you don’t know Bruce.”

At that moment she heard a coach come banging down the street and left him to rush to the window—but to her disappointment it continued on by and rounded the next corner. She stayed there, looking out into the darkness, for there were no street lights of any sort but only the pale gleam from the new moon and the stars. The streets were deserted, not a person was in sight. London citizens stayed home at night unless they had a very good reason to go abroad, and then they took with them an escort of linkboys or footmen.