What am I to him? she would ask herself sourly. Something between a whore and a wife—a kind of fish with feathers. I’ll be damned if he can continue to use me at this rate! I’ll let him know I’m no farmer’s niece now! I’m the Duchess of Ravenspur, a great lady, a person of quality—I won’t be treated like a wench, visited on the sly and never mentioned in polite company!

But the first time she hinted her indignation, his answer was definite. “This arrangement was your idea, Amber, not mine. If it no longer suits you—say so, and we’ll stop meeting.” The look in his eyes frightened her into silence—for a while.

Still she thought that there would always be a way to get what she wanted, and she grew more rebellious and defiant. By the middle of May her patience, which had been dragging thin these past five months, was worn through. As she went to meet him one day, bouncing and jogging along in a hackney, she had reached a peak of reckless and unreasonable irritability. Corinna was expecting her child In another month and so they could have no more than six or seven weeks at the longest left in England. She knew well enough that she had no business poking the hornet’s nest now.

But who ever heard of treating a mistress so scurvily! she asked herself. Why should I have to sneak about to meet him like a common pick-purse? Oh, a pox on him and his infernal secrecy!

She was dressed like a country-girl, perhaps come in from Knightsbridge or Islington or Chelsea to sell vegetables, and out of sentiment she had chosen a costume very much like the one she had been wearing the day of the Heathstone May Fair. It consisted of a green wool skirt pinned up over a short red-and-white-striped cotton petticoat, a black stomacher laced tight across her ribs, and a full-sleeved white blouse. Her legs were bare, she wore neat black shoes and a straw bongrace tilted far back on her head. With her hair falling loose and no paint on her face she looked surprisingly as she had ten years ago.

The day was warm for the sun had come out suddenly after a morning of early summer rain, and she had lowered the glass window. Rattling along King Street she came to Charing Cross where the Strand met Pall Mall, and as the coach drew to a stop she stuck out her head to look for him. The open space was filled with children and animals, beggars and vendors and citizens; it was busy, noisy, and—as London would always be to her—exciting.

She saw him immediately, standing several feet away with his back turned, buying a little basket of the first red cherries from an old fruit-woman, while a dirty little urchin pulled at his coat, begging a penny. Bruce had not taken to disguises with the same gusto she had but always wore his own well-cut unostentatious suits. This one had green breeches, gartered at the knee, and a handsome knee-length black coat with very broad gold-embroidered cuffs set on sleeves that came just below the elbow. His hat was three-cornered and both suit and hat were in the newest fashion.

Her face lost its petulant frown at the sight of him, and she leant forward, waving her arm and crying: “Hey, there!”

Half-a-dozen men looked around, grinning, to ask if she called them. She made them an impudent teasing grimace. Bruce turned, paid the old cherry-woman, tossed a coin to the little beggar, and after giving the driver his directions got into the coach. He handed her the basket of cherries and, as the hackney gave a lurch and started off, sat down suddenly. With quick admiration his eyes went over her, from her head down to her fragile ankles, demurely crossed.

“You make as pretty a country-wench as the first day I saw you.”

“Do I so?” Amber basked under his smile, beginning to eat the cherries and giving a fistful to him. “It’s been ten years, Bruce—since that day in Marygreen. I can’t believe it, can you?”

“I should think it would seem like many more than ten years to you.”

“Why?” Suddenly her eyes widened and she turned to him. “Do I look so much more than ten years older?”

“Of course you don’t, darling. What are you, twenty-six?”

“Yes. Do I look it?” There was something almost pathetic in her eagerness.

He laughed. “Six-and-twenty! My God, what an age! Do you know how old I am? Thirty-nine. How do you imagine I get around without a cane?”

Amber made a face, sorting over the cherries. “But it’s different with men.”

“Only because women think so.”

But she preferred to discuss something more agreeable. “I hope we’re going to have something to eat. I didn’t have dinner today—Madame Rouvière was fitting my gown for his Majesty’s birthday.” It was the custom for the Court to dress up on that occasion. “Oh, wait till you see it!” She rolled her eyes, intimating that he would be thunder-struck at the spectacle.

He smiled. “Don’t tell me—I know. It’s transparent from the waist down.”

“Oh, you villain! It is not! It’s very discreet—as discreet as anything of Corinna’s, I’ll warrant you!”

But, as always, she knew that it had been a mistake to mention his wife. His face closed, the smile faded, and both of them fell silent.

Riding there beside him, jogging about uncomfortably on the hard springless seat, Amber wondered what he was thinking, and all her grievances against him rushed back. But she stole a glance at him from the corners of her eyes, saw his handsome profile, the nervous flickering of jaw muscles beneath the smooth brown skin, and she longed to reach out and touch him, to tell him how deeply, how hopelessly, how eternally she loved him. At that moment the coach turned into the courtyard of the lodging-house and as it stopped he got swiftly out and reached a hand in to help her.

Chickens, clucking and cackling, had rushed for cover as the horses came in and a cat streaked out of the way of the wheels. The sun lay warm on the brick-paved yard though the smell of recent rain was there, and pots of flowers against the wall had put out green leaves and dainty buds, tipped with colour. Overhead, hanging from lines or flung across balcony railings, was the stiff-dried wash, bed-sheets and shirts and towels and the billowing smocks of the women. A little boy sat in the sun, stroking his dog and singing an idle endless song to himself; he looked up curiously but did not move as the coach stopped short of him by only a few feet.

Amber put her hand into Bruce’s and jumped down, flipping off her hat to feel the sun on her hair and skin, smiling at the youngster and asking him if he wanted some cherries. He was on his feet in an instant and after taking out a handful she gave him the basket. As Bruce had now paid the driver they strolled into the side entrance which led up to their apartments, Amber eating the fruit and spitting out pits as she went.

He had ordered a meal sent up and when they arrived the waiters were just leaving. A heavy white-damask cloth was laid on a small table before the fireplace, with flat silver and napkins, a seven-branched lighted candelabrum and handsome Italian dishes of wrought silver. There were strawberries in thick cream, a crisp broiled carp caught that morning in the river, a plateful of hot buns with a spattering of caraway seeds on them, and a jelly-torte—a delicious achievement with moist cooked apples in the center and apple-jelly poured over the whole. And there was a pot of steaming black coffee.

“Oh!” cried Amber in delight, forgetting that they had been on the narrow edge of hostility. “Everything I love!” She turned joyously and kissed him. “You always remember what I like best, darling!”

And it was true that he did. Time after time he had brought her unexpected gifts, some of the greatest value, others of none at all. If a thing was beautiful or if it was amusing, if it reminded him of her or if he thought that it would make her laugh, he bought it—a length of some marvellous green-and-gold glinting material, a fabulous jewel, or a mischievous monkey.

She flung her hat aside and loosened the laces of her corselet so that she would be more comfortable, and they sat down to eat. All her resentment had gone. They talked and laughed, enjoying the good food, absorbed in each other, both of them happy and content.

They had come at only a few minutes past two and it had seemed then that there was a long afternoon before them. But the sun had moved from where it had been falling across their dining-table, around to the bedroom, onto the recessed seat below the square-paned windows, and finally out of the room altogether. Inside it was already cool shadowy dusk, though not dark enough yet to light the candles. Amber got up from where she had been lying on the bed with a pile of nutshells between her and Bruce, and went to look out the window.

She was only partly dressed, bare-footed and wearing her smock. Bruce, in his plain-cut breeches and wide-sleeved white shirt lay stretched out and resting on one elbow, cracking a nutshell in his right hand, watching her.

She leaned out a little, looking toward the busy barge-laden river where the sun was going down, turning the water to red brass. Below in the shadows of the courtyard two men stood talking, turning their heads as a girl walked by with a slopping pail of water in each hand, her hair bright as flames where a last shaft from the sun struck it. There was a languor and quietness in the air as the long day drew to a close—and the movements of all creatures were slower and a little weary. Amber’s throat swelled and began to ache; her eyes were wet with tears as she turned to look across the room at him.

“Oh, Bruce, it’s going to be a glorious night. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to take a barge and sail up the Thames to some little inn and ride back in the morning—”